4th of July

The local lobster dive, Bridgton, MEIt's always nice when a national holiday happens to fall adjacent to a weekend, and this year's Friday 4th of July made for a lovely long weekend. Thursday after work, I picked up Steve at DeLorme and we drove out to Long Lake to spend the weekend with Steve's family at the home of Bill Bradstreet. We stayed in his wonderful guest house and were treated to perfect Maine weather...sunny, breezy days followed by crystal clear cool nights. To top it off, the lake was unsually warm which made for great swimming.

Joyce cooked up a hearty meal of penne pasta and her homemade marinara sauce Thursday night, to get us runners ready for our 4 mile race the next morning. Bright and early on the 4th, we rose and drove the short distance into the town of Bridgton, where hundreds of runners were stretching and preparing to run this annual race. Steve and I both grew up running this race, and it was fun to see all of the Newfound/Owatonna campers and staff who were continuing this tradition. My goal was to run the race in 35 minutes or less, and although I have been running pretty consistently I felt sluggish and tired for most of the race. I probably forgot to take into account that the 2nd mile is mostly uphill, which knocked our time off by a minute or so. Either way, by the 4th mile I was feeling much better, and we finished at 35:50 which was still a PR for me. The complimentary watermelon at the finish line was a treat as always, as was seeing our friends who are working at camp this summer. Here's a photo taken by Bill Bradstreet of Steve and I rounding one of the last turns before the finish line:


The rest of the weekend was full of great food, friends and relaxation by the lake. We heard tons of fireworks, but passed on fighting the crowds into town to actually see the show. On the night of the fourth we lit lots of sparklers at the Carr's house and enjoyed a fire down by the lake.

I was also able to practice swimming along the shoreline for the triathlon. Here's another of Bill's shots of Joyce, David and Steve relaxing by the lake:


On Saturday Joyce led Joy Carr, Bonnie Ulm and I on an expedition up Jockey Cap where we enjoyed the panoramic mountain views and the wild blueberries on top. Afterward we hit all of Joyce's favorite farm and dairy stands in this rural part of Maine.


Sunday, Steve and I went on a beautiful 25 mile bike ride from Bill's house up into the hills above Bridgton and over to the entrance of Hawk Mountain. We passed an apple orchard that we had been to in the fall and climbed up the longest, steepest hill that I've ever attempted. I put the bike in my "granny gear" and spun to the top, definitely going beyond the edge of my comfort zone. It was gratifying to finish and even nicer to jump in the lake afterwards. Steve was also able to do some training for his Mt. Washington hill climb by biking 4 times up Hurricane Mountain Road, a notoriously steep, long paved road.

We hated to leave, but were so happy to be able to spend time on the lake and see Steve's family and friends.