Headin’ North

Maine – Friday, Oct. 5

As soon as I got up, I already knew what my donation today was going to be – I had been half-listening to the news last night as I was doing something on the computer, and I heard the tail end of a story requesting help with pet food for senior citizens and other people with disabilities who are sometimes forced to make a decision to buy food for themselves or their pets, and sometimes have to give up their pets. I didn’t hear the whole story, so I went to the website of the TV station and found a link, and did a little more research. So this morning I called the people at the Eastern Area Agency on Aging, and they told me they pass out a great deal of pet food to seniors and could always use some more. So I went shopping and got a bunch of canned and dry cat and dog food. I got the smaller bags of dry food so that the seniors wouldn’t have to cope with the heavy big bags. While I was out shopping, I noticed the signs for flu shots, and my daughters who are nurses had told me I should get a flu shot this year (I never have before) since I’m coming into contact with so many people, so I took care of that little detail too, although it took longer than I thought it would since I had to sit and wait to make sure there were no reactions. After shopping, I found the agency and carried everything in, and met some nice people. The receptionist wondered how I had heard about the program and found them, so I started to tell her my story, and then she called someone else in to listen, who in turn went and got their news intern who happened to be there. So we had a short interview and the news intern took some notes and pictures. Everyone was really nice, and the organization offers many other services like Meals on Wheels in addition to supplementing pet food for people in need. I liked being able to help because I’m such a strong believer in the benefits of having a pet, that it was really sad to hear that some of the people who benefit the most are sometimes forced to give them up, or have to choose between buying themselves food or buying food for their pet. So it was a nice morning.

Tula had been in the car this whole time, so I went to a big nearby park to do a little walking, and decided to contact AT&T about some problems with the cell phone bill. I was on the phone so long with them (things were eventually resolved) that I walked 2 1/2 miles while I was talking to them. Kind of nice to kill 2 birds with one stone though!

I was eager to start heading north, so we finally left the Bangor area in early afternoon. There are not many roads heading north in Maine and we took the freeway for a distance and it was a beautiful drive. The sun was peeking out from time to time (haven’t seen much sun in the last week) and the colors were pretty. It surprises me how many trees still have some green leaves. The colors look especially vibrant next to the deep green of the spruce and fir trees. There were signs warning about moose, but I still haven’t seen any. Most of the very small towns at the exits were indeed very small, although we stopped in one to do another mile and a quarter of walking. There was a scenic turnout place for a nice view of Mt Katahdin, which is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail, but the clouds had moved back in and covered up some of the mountains. We continued to the town of Houlton, and that was a great town for walking – an interesting historic downtown area and neighborhoods with long streets and sidewalks – we walked 4 and a quarter miles to finish off the day’s walking. I had stopped at the visitors center on the way into town, and since it was nearly dark when I finished walking, I went back there to take a look at the list of motels and campgrounds in the area. Since it was fairly mild out, I decided to camp (at a regular campground, not a state park) and it ended up being really nice – a big grassy site that smelled really fragrant from the pine trees bordering it. I got set up quickly and was going to do some writing in my Vermont journal, only to discover I seem to have misplaced or lost it, which is kind of sad. There’s hours of writing in it, and although I can probably re-create most of it, all the reciepts and ticket stubs were in there. I tried calling several of the places I had stayed at to see if they had it in any of their lost and founds, but as of now, no luck yet. I keep hoping that it will magically reappear or maybe I put it in a strange place, but those hopes are diminishing. Better to lose that though, than some of the other stuff I have!