A Living Magazine - Grounded in Maine - Day 26 - Last Day at Serpent Cove

It appeared the rain would be over for a while. The sky is always a pure white just before sunrise. It doesn't matter whether it is overcast or clear. That is a phenomenon I never fully realized until I started Journeying. On this day, that white resolved to bright blue.

I wasn't quite sure if I would walk to Boothbay Harbor on this day or the next. This was Monday and the weather forecast said that rain would hold off until Tuesday afternoon. I knew it would be a four hour, twelve mile walk with no store in between here and there. I disassembled everything up and got it back in the pack just in case... 

Green Bean, fully stuffed.

I decided to fold up and stow the chair in some bushes, took one last look around--honoring the area that had sustained me while I was there, and then headed into town. I followed the same pattern as the last two days, getting water and a sandwich, then plugging the tablet in at Wiscasset Common and working at the Sunken Garden. I could have gone to the library, but I didn't want to face Mr. Food Confiscator.

Shortly after noon it was time to make a decision about the walk to Boothbay Harbor. Noticing how hot it had become at midday (my least favorite time to walk), it seemed a no brainer to spend one more night at Serpent Cove and then walk to Boothbay Harbor early the next morning before the sun rose too high in the sky. 

I was happy with the choice and looking forward to just relaxing for the rest of the day at the camp site. I had a chair now, so in between my tinkering, exploring and plant gathering I could just sit and rest. So, I was off again, back over the bridge and down the embankment. Immediately I took my chair back out of storage and set it up in the shade of the woodsy room. I caught site of a moth caterpillar I'd never seen before...

The hickory tussock moth caterpillar.

I was quite hungry and tempted to eat part of my sandwich. But I knew I had to resist. I'd be hungry in the evening. So instead, it was time to fill up my bag with sea vegetables and wild lettuce...

Left to right: wild lettuce, sea blite, and bladderwrack.

I prepared them as I had done the days before. I was getting a system down for this and noticed that though the bladders of the bladderwrack were the more substantial parts, there were dulse-like parts of undeveloped bladders, which had a completely different texture and flavor. They were added into the mixture. Again, I find this to be a very satisfying snack. Some people may be turned of by it, but go for a while without enough food and you'll be surprised just how good some "weird" things taste. In a way I like it better than garden lettuce, because of the saltiness... 

I explored more. But, there was very little that I hadn't seen. The one thing missing from this ideal spot was fresh water. My mind set off in all kinds of directions, investigating ideas for rain catchment systems, portable smaller systems to fill bottles, dew catching membranes, and even concepts for basic sun-distillation of seawater. Yes, there were things on the market, but what could be done on the fly in such a saltwater environment? It was just another fun thing to work on during this Maine Journey.

As the afternoon wore on I set up the tablet on my shelf to process pictures and then got tired of standing and realized I had a nice comfy chair to do this. When that was done, I just settled down and sat for a long time, ruminating, meditating, speaking to the Spark and examining the details of the things around me... 

Close-up examination of the underside of a dogwood leaf.

When evening came, although I'd taken so many shots of the water and sunsets in this place, I couldn't resist a few more. I also decided to move the tent one more level down to the grassy shore spot where I'd slept on that very first night...

This night's sunset did not disappoint.

While I ate my sandwich, thankful I had saved it, I got the same funny feeling that I always get on the last night in a place I've enjoyed. It is a deep seeded inclination to stay as long as possible. When something actually works out for me it is very difficult to leave it and head back into the uncertainty of the wallk. I knew there would be uncomfortable places, buggy places, dangerous places, hard to reach places in the next couple of months. 

Yet, I was getting pretty good at this Nomadic thing, and something reassured me that I would also find some more places that worked as well, maybe better, than this place. That was the challenge: locate even better spots in the near future. I began to surmise that, besides laying out a map for future Nomads--should they decide to explore as I have, I was also securing possible places where I could return and live for longer periods if I ever had to. 

Although my love for this wonderful state definitely biases me, I do believe it is the most Nomad-friendly of all the states I have been to. The land is ample with nooks and crannies, hills, forests, fields and shorelines. And, the frequency of accessible towns (usually within 5-15 miles of each other) mixed the urban, suburban and wilderness quite evenly. The population is relatively small. Certainly the outdoor winter environment would be a major challenge I had not yet faced and seeked to avoid when I originally left the state for the national crossing in 2014. But spring, summer, and fall were definites for outdoor living now that I had experience with such conditions. 

I really liked the fact that there are no poisonous insects or spiders in Maine and the larger wild animals were quite unlikely to do any harm as long as I left them alone and showed them respect. In the United States deer are considered - by far - the most dangerous wild animal. With nearly 20,000 human injuries a year, mostly from collisions with cars. As far as the "fangs and claws" factor, the state of Maine has had six reported injuries from black bears in the last 24 years--all but one were due to hunters, trappers, or guides who force the bears into a defensive position. None of them resulted in death. In fact, as far as I can determine from Wikipedia, there has never been a reported death from a wild black bear attack in the history of the state. There were two fatalities in the same place (Ellsworth, Maine) on the same day by a trained and captive bear way back in 1936... "Langley owned a gas station where he kept the bear. After entering the bear's cage to feed it, Langley and his helper were attacked. The bear was shot and killed."

Maybe it is my semi-Buddhist attitude, but humans are assholes to wildlife. Most of the time they get what they deserve. Wild animals are never malicious. They never kill for sport. They eat, they defend themselves and their babies, and they get fed up with being caged and mistreated. So, it should be. In my travels I have let the statistics comfort me. And, Maine's statistics about dangerous creatures are pretty damn benign. I'm not in the slightest way fearful of man or beast. This kind of fear is artificially produced by people who have no experience with these things.

These were my thoughts as I climbed into the tent when the mosquitoes got too bad (okay, that is one negative aspect, ha!), and I fell asleep anticipating my next visit. I would be meeting Melinda, the friend I'd visited in Greenfield, Massachusetts back on the Homecoming Journey. I really looked forward to my visit to her Maine cottage in Boothbay Harbor and seeing her again. I had also not had a shower in 26 days!