Heading to Camp for the Weekend

We received a wonderful invitation for the weekend from Brant and Tanya, to travel with them to their camp in northern Maine, located near the small town of Oxbow.  It you look at a map, it's about 20 miles northeast of Baxter State Park.  Bryant and Tanya bought the cabin on 100-ish acres a while back, and use it for hunting.  They mainly hunt moose (when they get a permit - there's a lottery for that), bear, deer, and partridge.

Before we left, I headed back to Belfast with Saleen, to walk the waterfront.  The yacht that had been being worked on, was now in the water, and some new boats had taken its place, and were waiting to be worked on.   

We left with Tanya about 4:00 when she got off work.  Bryant had already been there a couple of days, as he needed to do some outside work before we all arrived. 

At 4:00, we left Belfast with Tanya, and as we traveled north, the towns grew fewer and fewer, and before long, we were just traveling through miles and miles of forest, with nothing else around.  At one point, we pulled over to a Viewpoint on I-95, and had a really nice view of Mt. Katahdin.

Then we traveled about 12 miles on gravel and dirt road in order to reach their cabin, which was far, far in the middle of the forest.  Talk about remote!  We were keeping a careful look out for Moose the entire way, but did not see any.  We arrived rather late, and due to the healthy mosquito population, hurried in, and called it a day, waiting til the next day to look around.

We slept with the windows up, and the temperature was in the high-50's, just perfect sleeping weather.  We didn't have any curtains on our windows, so you could lie in bed and look at the sky just filled with stars.  What a perfect way to fall asleep.  It brought back many memories of my family's hunting cabin in East Texas, and the fun weekends we spent there.  After a very quiet, and peaceful night, Keith got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed his fishing pole, and headed with Bryant down to the Aroostook River, which flows about a hundred yards from the cabin.  It is wide, and shallow and very clear.  He got a fish on his very first cast, and then caught about 4 more during the morning.  He said they were a trash fish called chubs, nothing worth hanging on to, but still fun to catch.

Bryant and Tanya then made a great breakfast of bacon and eggs, and after we all showered, we headed out to explore the area where Bryant was raised, Presque Isle, Maine, about 40 miles away.  His parents had been potato farmers, and as we traveled to Presque Isle, we passed field after field of potato farms.  I had never seen them before.  We also passed a lot of flax fields.  The countryside itself was beautiful, with green, rolling hills, and mountains in the distance.  Besides seeing Bryant's home where he was raised, we also visited a monument to the first successful Transatlantic flight of a hot air balloon.  The monument was actually located in the field where the balloon had been launched from.

After lunch and a stop for ice cream, we headed back to the camp, and some of us sat and visited, while others took a nap.  This was followed by a humorous card game called Golf.  The game itself is not humorous, but Tanya and Bryant are fun company, and we pretty much laughed our way through it.  We had another very peaceful night's sleep, and had to pack up Sunday morning and head back to civilization.  Before we left though, Keith went to try his luck down at the river, and he was so glad he did, because as he stepped down by the water, a huge golden eagle flew out of the tree right next to him, and then made its way up the river.  We then loaded up and headed out, and we had another bit of luck, because on the way out of the 12-miles of gravel road, Mr. Moose finally showed up.  A young moose trotted out of the woods, and then jogged about a hundred yards up the road in front of us, before darting back into the woods.  Unfortunately, I was not quick enough with my camera, so you'll have to take my word for it.  Seeing the moose, was a perfect ending to our time at their camp.  We headed into the nearby town of Ashland and had a really wonderful breakfast at the Ashland Diner, and then headed back to Belmont, where Keith's folks live.