Gabby Goes to Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site & Swims (of course)

Gabby and I headed out to New Harbor yesterday to visit my daughters at work. It's a lovely site and has a boat launch perfect for taking a dip. As has become protocol, I first lined the car seats with towels, lots of towels. I made the general announcement, "Who wants to go for a ride and a swim??!!" Despite her 9 years, she came up the basement stairs at a pretty good clip. She jumped into the back of the car, I got in the front (this arrangement is works best for us and the safety of other folks on the road plus she cant' mess with the radio knobs from back there) and we were off.

The streets of Damariscotta, the halfway point in our journey, were bustling with tourists in cars and on foot. The law in Maine requires you to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. It does not however say anything about not mowing them down outside of the crosswalks. Jay walking seems to be one of the greatest pet peeves of folks living in coastal Maine. We are more than happy to stop and let you walk, regardless of the traffic, time of day, weather, cheesy attire or hair style if you are in a crosswalk, so don't be a wanker and take advantage of us elsewhere especially you sir, pompous old man carrying a purse - I wouldn't have mentioned that had he been in the crosswalk. Excuse the venting.

We arrived at the Park and headed down to the boat launch, parked and I took Gabby over to check out the water.

Right about now was when she heard Ashlee calling her.... she wasn't sure why Ashlee was there or how she got there, but she was happy to see her. Lauren then showed up - Gabby again, "Where the heck did SHE come from?!" Prior to swimming which means being a giant wet and sandy mess the girls took her to meet the other kids at the restaurant. She was happy to see them as well regardless of not knowing who the hell they were. She flung some drool much to the delight and horror of everyone. Then we were off to the boat launch again for a dip....

And she was in.....

All the begging, pleading and long faced looks did not convince me that we should trade in my chevy cobalt in cobalt for a bitchin' microbus. I didn't care if it came with the sea kayaks or not, the answer was still NO.  

The 'Please Pick Up Your Pet's Waste' sign made sense, we got that, but no peeing? Seriously?! We were both confused and decided to write letters to our congressmen when we got home. No peeing, that's just bullcrap.

 

I asked Gabby to pose by the boats. "These dinghys?" She chuckled.



We decided to check out some of the other sites but first Gabby wanted to do her Yogi Bear impersonation. All that is missing here is people running away screaming and BooBoo but one bear in this family is plenty.

We walked further up the road and that's when the argument started....

I still cannot convince her that at no time was this historic park the site of The Three Little Pigs, although she made a good argument at first. .... The House Made of Straw. Yes, yes, I see that...

The house made of Cedar Shakes. What? No, see, that's not right, there was no house of Cedar Shakes, but she just kept going.....

The house that was hit by a mortar.  - Well that was just ludicrous!! There certainly was no BOMBING in the story. Huffing and puffing yes, but bombing? No sir.








She claimed this is where the pigs were buried and that she could still smell smoked bacon from bloody Battle of Pork.



I ordered her to stop the nonsense and get in the car. We drove out of the park and the Fort came into view.... she yelled, "Look! The House Made of Brick!!!" She fell asleep soon after that surely dreaming of bacon, wolves and microbuses.