maine-ly maine

Jak and i have been living in the Boston area for nearly three years now. we've ventured up to new hampshire a couple of times, but had yet to make it all the way to maine. since we're hoping to move to seattle soon, we wanted to take some time to make sure we saw the coast of maine before leaving new england.

did you know that nearly every store in maine has the word "maine-ly" or "mainely" in their name? i don't think a single child in maine can grow up knowing how to actually spell the word correctly.

we camped at lamoine state park, right around the corner from acadia national park.

the weather couldn't have been better. the temps were in the seventies during the days, and just cool enough at night to be comfortable in our tiny tent.

we arrived in the late afternoon on saturday, having taken the scenic route up to (and then past) our destination. we set up camp and relaxed for the evening, enjoying our shishkabobs and the gorgeous moon that rose with a brilliant orange color.

we spent sunday relaxing on the rocky coast, with the end result of our looking like maine's renowned lobsters.

monday we kayaked along the bay, between the mainland and the islands, stopping for a snack on an island owned by the rockefellers. the wind was at our back the whole way, making it a nice, easy paddle.

we headed back after i ate a quite disappointing lobster roll, and drove up to our house around one a.m.

yeah, like anyone wanted that little rundown.

it was just nice to get back outside. we haven't camped in a while, and we certainly are the sort of people who need to do it much more often. it was so refreshing, physically (even with the resulting aches and pains), spiritually, and emotionally.

i couldn't have imagined the views we had, or what the maine coast looked like, had we not gone. the full moon rose glowing bright orange the three nights that we got to see it. everything was perfect and beautiful.

when i see things in such ridiculous colors, like the orange moon in maine, or the sunsets in florida, i have to laugh at God's sense of humor. i mean, if we draw anything like it, if we try to paint an orange moon, or a pink and purple sunset, it looks like some semi-abstract work, or some cheesy commercial painting. yet, God uses this absurd colors in nature, that we are never able to reproduce in any sort of meaningful way. we can create this colors through artificial means, but they remain artificial, they never look like the beauty in nature. we simply fall short in all of our attempts. so much so, that when viewing these colors in nature, that they can seem unreal if we take a moment to think about it, as if they shouldn't really exist naturally, but only artificially, while the artificial versions look so fake.