Wally's Wedding and the Cotton Candy Slumber

Off the mountain and back to the city...well sort of. September 11th in Old Orchard Beach, it doesn't get more patriotic than that! And in spite of a name that delivers mental pictures of toga parties on the Mediterranean, it doesn't get more American than Jimmy the Greeks!

Urban Dictionary defines an O.G. as "someone who has been around, old school gangster." Wally is without question the O.G. of my Maine group of friends. His social skills are artful and inspiring. So inspiring in fact, that the guest list at his wedding could have played out as a this is your life episode for anyone that had known him for more than 10 years. At the wedding I saw my first ever manager at my first ever job, people who I grew up with, folks I played softball with, and friends I have long since lost contact with. I spent a lot of time just talking to people I haven't seen since college and as memory serves correct many of the guests wet their whistles like they were still in college. Although I am happy to report that there was no "Frank the Tank" to lead a streaking party down to The Pier.

The after party raged for a couple hours at the hotel but quickly deteriorated into a hand full of us in Ben's hotel room watching Gladiator, eating pizza, and munching on a mysterious bag of cotton candy that materialized out of nowhere. I had planned to sleep on the floor in Ben's room, but in the rush to check-in and get to the wedding I forgot a key ingredient to my overnight stay, a pillow. With that in mind I asked if everyone had enough cotton candy, tied up the bag, and plopped down on the floor for a very uncomfortable night's rest.

Maine: Part 2

On Thursday we hit the road for Baxter State Park at about noon. The temperature was near 90 and the humidity was stifling. We decided Friendly's in Augusta would make an excellent lunch destination. Such a decision was an ill advised "hot mess" as they refer to it on the left coast. My chicken sandwich sat in my stomach for hours. It felt as if had eaten a giant rock burger for lunch. I wish I could say that the ice cream made it better, but alas it did not. I had such great memories of Friendly's dining in High School too. I remember when dozens of Scarborough Redskins scampered over to the South Portland location after sports practices, dances, and other activities. I guess I'm just not 16 anymore, but that doesn't explain all the ancient people filling up the diner booths. Maybe those folks were actually 30, but they looked much older because they had never stopped going to Friendly's.

We arrived at Baxter State Park just after 5 and after talking to a few rangers we decided to beat Hurricane Earl to the punch and head up Mt Katahdin Friday morning. Katahdin is a beast! A 5268 foot monster that dwarfs all other Maine mountains. It is also the northern most point along the Appalachian Trail. Chris and Ben decided that the Cathedral Trail from Chimney Pond to the summit would make for the most epic journey. Then the plan was to hook around the dangerous (According to Wikipedia, 19 people have died there since 1963) Knife Edge Trail to Paloma Peak.

The Cathedral Trail was the toughest climb I've ever done. The trail was more like free style rock climbing. 5-5.5 ft boulders dotted a near vertical landscape for close to a mile. I like to think of it this way. The average person walking down the street can probably put a mile on their pedometer in about 20 minutes. The mile from Chimney Pond to Baxter Peak took this handsome hand-full of new 30-year-olds a little more than 3 hours! The view from Baxter Peak was excellent even as clouds swirled the summit. We ate our lunches, snapped some photos, and as out feet carried us on to South Peak we proceeded to wonder if taking Knife Edge back was a good idea.

After a morning of climbing boulders the Knife Edge Trail looked like a piece of cake. Up and down 3 more jagged peaks and we're home free I thought. That isn't exactly how it went. The blue blazes on the rocks were supposed to indicate the proper trail to follow, but that and the first 4 options for the path of least resistance were almost always different routes. For much of Knife Edge we found ourselves clinging to granite spires looking for foot and hand holds with a 100 foot drop into nothingness behind our backs. Loose gravel would sometimes squirt out from under our hiking shoes and no less than 4 hours later we arrived on Paloma Peak with cramped muscles, sore knees, and a burning desire to teleport back to camp with more than 3 miles of hiking still ahead.

Not long after leaving Paloma we bumped into Alison (one of our partners in camping) who wisely decided to ditch the 13 hour adventure in favor of keeping her body fully functional for the rest of the weekend. She provided a much needed lift in spirit for the remainder of our journey down the mountain.

Maine: Part 1

My latest trip to Maine was a whirlwind experience. Action packed from start to finish and the activity kicked up a few days before I left San Francisco. It started with a deadline for a story. SmartMeters were the topic and I gotta say its hard to write a sassy story about utility meters. After staying up bleary eyed for a few nights and pounding my thumb with the hammer a few times I finally hit the railroad spike on the head. I'm now working on a story about an obstacle course designed to give physically fit adults a fit. I better get my ass to the gym to keep up with my interview subjects.

My flight landed in Boston just after 6:30 in the morning September 1st. I really can't sleep on airplanes, so the red eye flight really did have that effect on my whites. I grabbed my checked luggage and made my way to the curb where I waited for Chris to pick me up. I hate taking the bus back to Maine after a red eye for a couple of reasons. First, I'm paranoid about missing my Portland stop so sleep is out of the question. Second, the movie is always terrible. Third, I always miss the bus by a couple of minutes and have to wait 2-3 hours for the next one. On this day Chris was running a little late so I ended up waiting for a while. Luckily not long after taking my seat on a bench to inhale car fumes for an hour Evan sat down next to me and lit up a smoke.

Evan was your typical 20 year old from Bah-stin. His thick accent was unmistakable. His pasty white skin covered by a dark beard with a twinge of red gave away his obvious Irish ancestry. The brim of his newsboy cap covered his uni-brow which you could tell he occasionally passed a razor through. He wore a giant bead neckless, the type that could gain you a major cleavage show at Mardi Gras. Evan wasn't returning home from New Orleans though, he was fresh off the plane from Las Vegas.

Sin city was kind to the young man who borrowed his 22 year old brother's license for the week. No Vegas bar or club turned him away. In fact, he was only carded 4 times during his entire week long adventure. Evan's luck didn't end there, he was up gambling as well, but he blew all that money on his "girlfriends". One of which was a smokin' hot polish chick whom he stayed up all night dancing with and then...Chris arrived! Parting Evan's side was such sweet sorrow.

The ride back to Maine was invigorating. Chris and I talked about our fast approaching trip to Baxter State Park and attempt to climb Mt. Katahdin. Shortly after crossing the Piscataqua I got a call from my dad. Two things became obvious at this point. One was that I needed Dunkin Donuts coffee in order to have a coherent conversation with the old man upon my return home. Two I needed to grab some sleep to get ready for the long days ahead.