Maine 2018 Trip Report Part 2

Thursday we woke and got ready to head to Waterville.  The plan was to meet up with my cousin Dot and her sister Helen for brunch at Governors restaurant.  This has been a bit of tradition for a while now.  Dot basically raised me and my brother when my parents were going through a divorce from my age of 10 to 13.  They shuttled us over to Dot’s to spend the night so they could fight without us there.  Like we didn’t know what was going on.  Heh.
At any rate, some of my happiest memories of that time are of getting to go over to Dot’s house.  As long as it wasn’t a school night, we got to stay up late and we ate actually ate our dinner around a table and talked.  Plus she had a fireplace and that was just super cool to me.  She basically let us be kids without getting too out of control.  She was much more than just a cousin to me.  She was a staple in all of the Wheelock grandchildren.  Spending time with Dottie was an amazing luxury and I miss it.  She shaped a lot of my happiness in my childhood.
She is now 93 years old and is as sharp as a tack.  She and Helen together are like watching a stand up act.  They are just so funny and on it.  I can’t even explain unless you knew them, but they are so smart and funny and I just adore them.

We met them at the restaurant and had a wonderful brunch.  Dot and Helen had just gotten new hearing aids like my mom, so they all compared notes.  We ate until we were silly full and then headed over to Kmart to do a little shopping.
Once we were done, we bid them ado and headed to Clinton to meet up with my bestie from high school Kimmy and her daughter Emily.

Kimmy is my true best friend.  I have known her since I was 14 years old and we got up to a lot of mischief when we were young.  We have remained friends for all these years and while I moved away and we don’t keep in contact like we should, when we meet up it’s like no time has passed.  She couldn’t get rid of me if she tried. 🙂
As I stated in the last entry, she has had a lot of health problems in the last two years. It infuriates me because they were all brought on my the medical establishment for what should have been a routine surgery…but I digress. That is not my tale to tell. It just kills me that she has had to go through all the shit that she has lately. She was the hardest working person next to my mother that I’ve ever known. When mom and I were poor with no food, she would use her meager “leftover” earnings to bring us the smallest amount of food, and it meant THE WORLD to us.
At any rate, last year she was still in the hospital when I saw her, so it was nice to see her in her home with her daughter.

We spent about three hours and we all got to play with her two white kitties. Mom was in HEAVEN, having just had to put her own cat down a couple months ago. She’s always been a cat person and she had to live 26 years without one once I was born as I am allergic.
Kim’s daughter Emily is one of the most well adjusted teenagers I have ever met. She takes great care of her mother and has a genuine love for life and doesn’t seem to fall into the pitfalls of teenage drama, like I have seen happen. This speaks volumes about how Kimmy raised her.

After our visit, we stopped at Cappza’s pizza on the way home for a proper hamburg pizza.  The best place to have it when I grew up there was Sonny’s in Fairfield.  It was a staple in our house and we had it often.  From everything I have heard in the last few years, Sonny’s changed hands and changed their recipe.  Cappza’s was recommended as a suitable replacement and it sure was.  Tastes just like Sonny’s to me.
Friday morning we had to check out of the hotel.  I was going to miss it, but not the price tag.  Check out was painless and we were off to pick up my mom.  There was a Thai food restaurant at the Augusta airport that Rob and I have always wanted to try but never seemed to be able to fit into our schedule.  Well, Friday was Rob’s birthday and he demanded Thai food dammit!  🙂  Mom is skeptical of anything that isn’t meat, potatoes or pasta, but since it was Rob’s birthday, she agreed to go with us.

She ended up enjoying everything and we brought home lots of leftovers for her.

My memory at this point is fuzzy of that night, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t do much else.  We spent the night at mom’s and the next day we drove the car back to the airport to turn it in and catch our flight.

Our puddle jumper to Boston was bumpy.  It was very cloudy and it was raining in Boston.  I was not pleased, but we did make it there safely.  Once there we endured a four or five hour layover.  Lots of sitting around reading and playing on our phones.

The flight home was pretty okay once we got above the rain clouds.  I watched Ladybird which was pretty cool and listened to some podcasts.  About an hour before we were to reach San Jose, a woman came up to the front where we were seated to wait for the restroom.  I wasn’t paying that much attention until all of a sudden the people opposite us were pressing the call button repeatedly and waiving for the flight attendants.
I couldn’t see what was going on because there was a panel there where the woman was, but the next thing I know the flight attendants are on the intercom asking if there are any doctors or nurses on the plane.  Talk about a panic attack.
Long story short, the woman felt faint and they sat her down.  A couple of doctors or nurses came up to the front and from what I could see, they basically just sat around and shot the shit with each other while keeping the woman seated in the galley.
When we were cleared for landing, they sat the lady in an empty seat in the front and we landed safely.  She waited there until we all left the plane.  I hope she was okay.

The plane ride itself took about an hour longer than scheduled because apparently there were winds in the midwest.  To avoid them, they took us up through Canada and back down, tacking on an extra hour to the flight.  While I was grateful for the fact that we had less turbulence, it meant we were going to miss our shuttle home.  We would land just in time to catch it, but the fact that we had to wait for luggage meant we would miss it.
That also meant we would have to wait two hours for the next shuttle.  Like the day hadn’t been long enough already!
So we made our way to baggage claim and waited on our luggage resigned to the fact that we would not be getting home until about three in the morning.
We pulled out bags alongside us as we made our way to the shuttle bus pick up area.  We saw a gentleman sprinting there in front of us and we figured he was probably on our flight and was in the same predicament, but he was on his phone and looking around fervently.  As we settled in at the pickup spot, the guy kept darting out into the road, obviously looking for something.  A few seconds later a Monterey Airbus pulled up.  The bus we thought we missed.  The bus that THANKFULLY was running 45 minutes late!
We were thrilled!!  And it turned out that guy had been on the phone with the dispatch and they were telling him it was coming as he was speaking to them.
The rest of the trip home was uneventful. My father in law picked us up and brought us to his house where our car and our dogs were.  We loaded up both and were on our way home.

Overall it was a very good trip.  Got some good Mom time in and some alone/vacation time as well.
The more I go back to Maine, the more I realize that the friends that I see aren’t as plentiful as I used to, but these are the friends that put the effort into contacting me and making sure that we see each other when I come out.  The friends that I have had forever and the ones that I can always pick right back up with no matter how much time has passed since we have spoken.  So while I didn’t get to see “everyone” I got to see the ones that counted.

Next trip: VEGAS BABY!  I can’t wait for December!