Adventures with Matt and Lindsay: 0430

This is the first in a series of posts about Maine Public Lands that is featured on the Adventures with Matt and Lindsay blog. Head over there for more posts about our adventures. 

It was Friday night. The last Friday night of the school year. We had made it through; there would be no more standing in front of a classroom trying to get 20 teenagers to figure out a math problem. Actually, there hadn't been any of that for a while, because of the global pandemic that we are living through. So, no more sitting in front of our laptops hoping that our students were figuring out the problems that we had assigned for them on their own. 

We decided to celebrate by loading up our canoe, driving north, and generally being very far away from other people for a weekend. It seemed like a good plan at the time. We arrived at the Bigelow Preserve near Eustis, Maine, just before 7:00 Friday night, and realized that we were far from the only people that had this idea. The place was packed. Nine tent sites in the middle of the woods down a dirt road and it was like a zoo. We literally ran around the place hoping that there was a little corner somewhere that we could pop up our tent. There was a site that fit just that description another camper pointed us towards, although, it "didn't have a fire ring." Someone "must have taken the fire ring to make theirs bigger." Hmm. Seems odd. But who cares, we got a spot. It had a great wheelchair accessible picnic table, and a nice flat spot for our 1-2 person Big Agnes tent, which weighs about as much as a half-filled Nalgene bottle. We ate our pre-made warm supper out of a thermos as we got wind-blasted on the shore of Flagstaff Lake. The waves lulled us to sleep, and in fact provided such a cacophony with their splashing that we could barely here the 8 people, 2 screaming children, and 2 dogs that were in the campsite right next to us. 

Waves at our first not quite a campsite.

We both woke up at 4 am. This is amusing, because neither of us actually spoke a word to the other. We were woken by a sound; silence. The waves had ceased, the other people were miraculously sleeping, and it was quiet. So quiet, that both of us, without saying a word, or for that matter, realizing the other was even awake, went back asleep. Two hours later, the surf was back up, and we awoke to a dog tripping over the rainfly of our tent. 

Over freezer bag oatmeal, we watched a plan. We'd break camp, and gamble. This was a nice little spot, but we could do better. There were free campsites all around the massive lake, we'd surely find one a little more peaceful. (As it happens, we hadn't actually found one at all. The small town set up next to us, with the kids and the dogs, and those tents that have rooms inside them, was actually set up in the day-use picnic area. We had seen this, but not the big "DAY USE AREA" sign, and inadvertently set up in another part of the day use area, which, I feel a little bad about, but does explain the mystery of the fire ring.) 

We loaded up our gear (which took one trip to the car), and set off. 

To give you some background for the next portion of our foray, allow me to paint a word picture. I used to have a truck. It was silver, had a manual transmission, a hood scoop that wasn't actually attached to anything, four doors, and a short bed with a cap on it. It was a good truck, except for the fact that it was rusting out from underneath, and the fact that I lived in Florida. A Floridian will tell you there is a lot of outdoor stuff to do in Florida. And, technically, they are correct. However, if you've come from literally anywhere else and are looking for an outdoor experience in Florida, you'll probably be, on some level, and at some point, disappointed. So, the sorts of things that you might do with a truck in Maine, like say, drive around on logging roads with a canoe strapped to the roof in search for a put in or campsite, you would not do in Florida, where the same activity would likely get you eaten by an alligator or python. So, I traded in the truck for a car. It was grey, a hatchback, also a manual transmission, had four doors, no hood ornaments, front wheel drive, good fuel economy. It was a perfect vehicle for blasting around the straight as an arrow roads of Florida hauling a triathlon bike in the back. This was all nice. But then I moved to Maine, where the roads are not straight as an arrow, have many potholes, and in some cases, boulders in the middle of them. I traded riding the triathlon bike around for cross country skis and a canoe, and wished very much that I had a little truck to haul those things around in while not worrying so much about beaching my vehicle on a boulder in the middle of nowhere. 

So, when we ended up on a logging road that we weren't actually sure connected through to where we wanted to end up, in a car that has very little clearance, it made for an interesting adventure. It was also when I started mentally going through all the possibilities of things that might happen while on an off-road trip and realized that we were not actually equipped to handle, well, any of them. Thankfully, we didn't have to find out what we would have done if anything happened. It took us a very long time, some of which was spent stopped in the middle of the road chatting with a moose, but eventually we found pavement again, fueled up at a gas station, and set out to find our night's site. 

Moose on the loose! 

Here's where we learned a lesson about people. There are several free campsites that ring the lake, most of which you can drive your car right up to, or at least within a quarter of a mile or so, set up your stuff, and have a grand time (for up to 14 days in any 45 day period.) As it turns out, if you can drive up to it, and it's free, people flock to it like horseflies to horses. We tried three different camping areas, with something like four to six sites each, and they were all full. Some were more than full. One had a full frontal wood pile, like you might find outside of a house in late October. 

We had about had it. Between the roads, the seemingly endless searching for campsites, we were ready to throw in the towel. But, as it always seems to happen, there was one spot left to check. Unlike everything else we'd looked at, this one we could not drive to. We had to paddle out in the boat. We found a put in, which was basically a small cliff, managed to work our boat into the water, and paddle off into a moderate headwind. In the boat we'd brought our tent along; in the event the site was empty, we'd set up our tent to claim it. After a short paddle, we found the site, and it was empty. 

It's amazing how quickly a day can change from gloomy to peaceful. We set up the tent and paddled back to the car to grab the rest of our wangan. Once we set up camp properly, we set off for a peaceful evening paddle. 

Evening Paddle. Sugarloaf ski mountain the left most peak visible in the background. 

Then, Lindsay Bear had an idea. Let's get up at 4 in the morning, she said, and go paddle out in the peaceful flat calm morning water. I have many moments when I look around me and wonder if I'm dreaming up this woman who has chosen to be with me. The next morning, my watched beep beep beeped a few minutes before 4:30 am, and I nudged Lindz to see if she was awake. 20 minutes later we were dressed in all the clothes we'd brought, because it was 45° F, and paddling our boat across a flat calm Flagstaff lake towards a bank of fog across from our campsite. 

Flagstaff Lake at Dawn

We turned around and looked upon the Bigelow range in all it's glory in the early morning light. Even though there was no one around that could have possibly heard us, we spoke in barely a whisper. Although, we didn't have much to say. It was such a beautiful time on the water, just to spend it with someone I love felt too good to be true. Even though we saw a moose andtwo of the biggest eagles we'd ever seen the day before, we both put the paddle at the top of our list of the weekend's highlights. 

Once we got back to camp, we were a bit on the chilly side. Lindsay started a morning campfire, and we huddled around its warmth as it did us the service of boiling water for our coffee and oats. Having nowhere else to be, and not really wanting to get up from the fire, we didn't. Both of us opened up the books we had brought, and we had a lazy Sunday morning after waking up the earliest we'd ever woken u together.

The trip taught me something about people; if there's free stuff that's easy to drive to, you can count on people to drive to it. If you have to work even a little, your chances of success improve greatly. It also says something about the state in which we live. The people in the state value this so much that there are several areas set aside for the purpose of going to them and enjoying their splendor, all with free campsites for the public to use. Maine's Public Lands are an immense resource, one that we plan to tap into as much as we can in this COVID summer. As long as you can find camping far enough away from others, you're all set. 

This trip was also a milestone for us; our first two-night trip on our own. We drove home with a great feeling of accomplishment. We'd been a little nervous about our first trip more than one night, and it turned out to be a good one. We got rained on and didn't get soaked, we'd ate well, and enjoyed some early morning paddling as good as any I've ever done. It was exactly the sort of trip that makes you start planning the next one the night you get back. Stay tuned for more adventures to come.