A Pond in Maine
Having grown up next door to each other, in many ways my best friend’s family feels like a second family to me. For years, she invited my family and I to join them in Maine where her extended family gathers in the summer. Every year we would be tempted but the timing wasn’t right or we couldn’t get the time off from work. Finally, we decided to make it a priority. That was almost 10 years ago and we haven’t missed a year since.
It’s a 5-hour drive to get there and by the time we arrive the temperature is always a little cooler which we welcome in the summertime. We drive through town past our favorite places: the ice cream place, the coffee shop, and the restaurant we like to go to sometime during the week. We turn the corner out of town and then turn again down a long rural road until we reach the sign for the camp. From there, we travel down a dirt road until we arrive at our destination. There are cabins all around leading down to the pond where there is a dock and the main lodge. The main lodge is a special place with a big, old kitchen that makes me feel like I’m in a storybook, a huge dining room lined with windows overlooking the pond, a living room filled with comfortable couches and chairs and blankets, and behind that a game room complete with a card table, a ping pong table, and foos ball. It is a place where you feel as if you’ve gone back to a simpler time in your childhood.
Days are filled with swimming, hiking, games, reading, preparing the evening meal, and sometimes a nap if we’re lucky! Evenings are filled with family dinners, conversation, sunsets on the dock, moose hikes, and back for more games and reading…the children in the game room, the adults in the living room. The best part for everyone though is the people. The grandmothers, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins, our own families. I am deeply grateful for the way they all welcome my family as honorary members to be included in this tradition. It is not a lavish vacation but the richness of these experiences and relationships is truly invaluable.
