Heavenly Maine Retreat

Quite often, I think about how blessed I am. All I have to do is read the paper or watch the news and it is all conformed to me again–I am truly blessed.  Eventually I will get to the point of this post, but right now I am headed off onto a tangent. Just a warning.

I own my own home. I am healthy and have money in the bank. Enough to retire if we wished, but it’s too soon. We own our cars, have four healthy children (not one of them is in jail!) and five and a half grandchildren.  We go to the Church of our choice on Sunday and pray anytime we want to, no matter who is watching.  How blessed we are, yet how often we complain. Okay, I’m now going to the main topic…

We have a friend that owns a camp on a remote shore of Moosehead Lake in Northern Maine.  He gladly lends it out to any friend who wants to enjoy it.  I have had the pleasure of taking some of my granddaughters there to swim, play, roll around in the dirt and eat s’mores by campfire’s edge. It gives him great pleasure to know that this simple camp gives others pleasure.

My husband and I were there for four blessed days last week, and had unusually wonderful weather accompanying us.  Although the weather had been cool and rainy for weeks, the lake was warm and welcoming. Blueberries were plentiful and we brought home 10 quarts in ziplock bags.  We, well, I slept in every morning and arose to the smell of coffee, bacon and blueberry muffins.  My incredible husband brought be coffee in bed every single morning. He often does this at home too, which is one of the reasons he is to be called incredible. 

We fed black ducks bread scraps off the end of the dock, watched glorious sunsets, witnessed torrential thunderstorms on the west side of the lake, saw two bear cubs and canoed into Lobster Lake one day.  We went to bed early and listened to the loons cry into the night as we snuggled under the old quilts that someone, thoughtfully, had left at camp. 

There is no electrical power at camp-only gas lights, stove and refrigerator, although a solar panel allows for power for the hot water heater. We could have taken hot showers if we wanted, but with the water so warm in the lake, it just didn’t seem right.  There is just nothing like a morning dip in the lake with Ivory soap, sans bathing suit.  I told you it was remote!

Whenever I let my mind drift to a carefree mindset, it automatically goes “to camp”.  We don’t own it or have a pay a cent for its use, although we usually send a check to cover our use of the gas.  We make sure the lawn gets mowed while we’re there, and that the camp is left spotless when we leave.

How blessed are we that we can go here virtually anytime we wish?