Day 07 was our day to leave Bangor, visit Acadia National Park, and then start making our way towards Boston (photos 1-2). Jacob had planned our trip to the Park, and it did not disappoint.
We drove over a big bridge from Bangor to Brewer, near where we had visited the waterfront park the day before, and headed for Bar Harbour. We eventually crossed over another bridge to Maine Desert Island and the tide was low (photos 3-12). We drove around Bar Harbor, which had a resort-town feel. It was very crowded for a Friday, with no parking anywhere in the downtown area. We ate lunch at a nice seafood restaurant on the water, just outside Bar Harbor, with great lobster rolls and lobster mac and cheese (photos 13-16).
We drove into Acadia National Park and made a tactical error — we didn’t stop at the Info Centre to get a map, since we had GPS. The park has a road that does a loop around it, and not a lot of good signage. Essentially, although we didn’t know it, you can do a clockwise loop only — we assumed we could do either way as the opening section is bi-directional. As we drove along, there were lookouts with a bit of parking, all of which were filled. We stopped at an area where you could walk down to Jordan Pond, but I ended up doing about a 30-minute circle in the three adjacent parking lots while Andrea and Jacob walked down (photos 17-44). The photos show a beautiful lake surrounded by hills. There is no swimming allowed as it is a local source of drinking water.
We drove on and saw the road divide into the uni-directional route (the opposite way), and ended up going out the South West Gate. We saw a bit of the island coast and then re-entered the park, retracing our route to Cadillac Mountain (photos 45-50). We had debated going up the Mountain or not, there was a separate charge for it over the park pass, you had to schedule it, etc. But what the heck, we pulled up to the checkpoint and said, “Soooo, what’s the deal, how do we do this?” We had to buy our spot online, which was only about 15 minutes from then, so we pulled over on the main road to do that, then back into the short line and up the mountain. It was the absolute best part of the visit, and I can’t believe we almost didn’t do it.
There were amazing views on the way up and at the top. The summit had nice walkways and viewing areas, natural-looking, a big open area that wasn’t too crowded (although the parking lots were full). We visited the gift shop although that was primarily to get some cold water — it was a warm day, particularly on top of the mountain with no shade anywhere. The mountain top itself is pretty rocky, and we could see lots of boats, islands and ships (photos 51-159).
We had picked up a map at the gatehouse to the Mountain route, and could now see the uni-directional loop and where it started. As much as we would have enjoyed doing the loop too, we didn’t even do the Mountain part until 3:00 p.m. and it was now almost 4:30 p.m. with a long drive ahead of us still. We weren’t sure if we were missing much though as we could see all of the island from up top. Still, it would have been nice. But time waits for no tourist! Off we went, driving the same route to get off the island and to see it at high tide now (photos 160-166).
After that, we headed down the coast of Maine. We had hoped that a nice leisurely drive down the coast would present almost one continuous view looking out over the ocean. Of course not. That land is too valuable for mere roads; almost all of it is has houses and buildings on it, with the view from the road often limited to trees or gaps between trees. We saw some larger interesting bridges and a few beach / marine areas, and a nice sunset, but most of it was uneventful (photos 167-181). We had dinner in Rockland at a McDonald’s, and Andrea had booked us a Fairview hotel in Brunswick. The hotels in that area (Portland) were very expensive (and fancy), but the main thing I noticed was that it was almost pitch black on the roads getting to the hotel itself — I could barely FIND the turns.
But we made it. We drove 354 km for the day, and took a ton of photos — 574 in total, curated down to 181, including 1 video. A small Easter egg in the video is that as Andrea pans around, she captures the bird that I’m taking pictures of in burst mode. Another great day, planned by Jacob. I think we’ll keep him around.
Ah, COVID. I managed to avoid it for 1255 days. Seemed like the streak that wouldn’t end. Until it did. Sigh.
We did our trip to New England and everything felt “normal”. Quieter in tourist zones, but normal. I had most of a week afterwards to recover and hang out in Ottawa, and then I started back to work on the Monday two weeks ago. I was a bit tired, but well, that’s not unusual.
On Tuesday, I was super tired AND my digestive system was doing wonky things. It felt like I had a bit of stomach flu, and I ended up being off work for three days (Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday). I worked on the Friday, but I still wasn’t 100%. Even on the Monday before, I had found it difficult to concentrate…people were briefing me about files, and for some of them, it was like they were talking about things I had never heard of before, they just weren’t tracking. On Monday, I wrote it off as “first day back”. On Friday, I thought, “Still that way, okay, maybe just because I’m still tired.”
On Saturday, I got up and had a hot shower. I was a bit stuffy-headed, so I let it run for a while. Felt okay, maybe a bit achy, but mostly okay. By late afternoon, I was NOT okay. I was feeling crappy, with aches and the start of a fever, and shivering like crazy at certain points. I was practically passed out on the living room couch, skipped dinner, and sent myself to bed early. I had figured that I would do a COVID test, something we hadn’t needed to do in over a year, if I wasn’t feeling great when I woke up.
Yeah, Sunday was NOT a good morning. The COVID test was not even a hint of doubt. As soon as the liquid hit the T line, it was rock solid, CLEARLY a positive result. Huh. I have to admit, I’ve always wondered if I was doing the test well enough, was I getting deep enough into my nostrils (I have a horrible gag reflex, so anything in nose or throat sets me off), etc. I guess my inadequacies were irrelevant, the test worked just fine.
So off I went to isolate in the basement. Jacob has had it before, but not Andrea, and we wanted to keep it that way. Andrea made me some lunch and I attempted to nap. It felt like I was gargling glass, with a super sore throat and ears. Ricola was helping, as was the Tylenol, but mostly just helping me “cope”, not making me functional. My concentration and focus were shot. I ordered groceries online for delivery and crashed. Andrea made some dinner, of which I think I had about 4 bites of some pork, I was not hungry for real food yet.
The plan was that I would be in the basement for the daytime and meals. Jacob has his own room at night, obviously, and Andrea would be in the guest room, so no issues. We could have her use Jacob’s bathroom, and I’d use the ensuite, leaving me able to sleep in my bed. Which is important because if I don’t use my sleep machine, my throat is toast as is my sleep. Except you’re not supposed to use a sleep machine while sick with cold, flu or COVID — you’re basically pumping your aspirant out even farther than normal, so putting others at risk. Andrea was okay with that, I would close the bedroom door, run the fan/ventilator outside in the bathroom, do the best we could.
I apparently slept TOO much on Sunday — that night, I slept hardly at all. I was wired. In the morning, all of the worries about Andrea resolved to be irrelevant as she was already sick, testing positive first thing…she made it 1256 days, beating me by one. For the rest of the week, many of her symptoms followed mine by a day or two. I booked off work for Monday and Tuesday, that was a no-brainer, and not surprisingly, wasn’t there Wednesday either.
I also realized that one of my meds for my diabetes was low, and so had to have that filled, charged and delivered. What many figured out many months ago seemed like, “Wait, are there still options for delivery if you have COVID?”. We gave Jacob an option, as I thought we should probably get him out of the house. He didn’t want to go. So far, a week later, he still feels fine. Fingers crossed.
On Wednesday, Andrea was looking into anti-virals. Not everyone needs them or is approved to take them. If you have really serious other illnesses like cancer (Andrea qualifies) or chronic illnesses like diabetes (hello! I’m here!), and you’re older (me again!), you can qualify to take these antivirals. They are designed as five days of two different drugs, morning and night, to make sure the disease doesn’t multiply. Based on the way they hit my body, they seem like super Sudafed antihistamines. They dry out every aspect of my throat, nasal passages, maybe my belly button from the inside, etc. And leave me feeling like I have a headcold after eating chalk dust for a month. The taste that is left from the AVs is terrible, and exactly like antihistamines. Or my Robaxacet stuff. The pharmacy delivered and they’re in blister packs. Six pills a day for five days, with one of my diabetes drugs eliminated while I’m on it.
I decided that I probably could have returned to work on Thursday, if infection symptoms were the only element, but I am super weak still, with poor concentration and focus. My boss said “rest up, come back when ready”, so I’ve been entertaining myself a bit by going through photos from our New England trip, and writing up a blog from journal entries already written. It’s not the most taxing of jobs, it requires some concentration and ability to sort through things, but it is taking me three times as long as it would normally AND when I’m done a batch, it’s siesta time. I’m wiped.
While my tastebuds aren’t torched, I am a bit bored by the food we have in the house. I now meet all the criteria to let me out of the house again…symptoms have been improving for over 24 hours (actually almost 48-72), no fever, etc. Same for Andrea. Soooo, I dropped my car off for service today. Woohoo, what an outing. Still wore my mask of course. But, I think almost all of my symptoms are gone. I have to finish the AVs, and the AVs themselves have their own symptoms. Mostly the headcold and ears plugged, plus super dry throat. But a lot less hurts than previously.
But it was the dreams, man, the dreams
My brain has been like a squirrel on speed. Do you remember Hammy from Over the Hedge when he takes an energy drink? Yeah, well that’s my brain.
I think it was Monday night, I was trying to go to sleep, and my brain would not stop buzzing. I had been watching Star Trek earlier in the day, and of course, there was a scene with a hologram version of a head tied to medical issues. I had fallen asleep, but not completely, and I knew I was both asleep and dreaming, and my brain kept creating this holohead to show me where I was sick. Full colour, very vibrant. The silvery hologram was bright enough to make me feel like it was even hurting my eyes.
And since I knew I was asleep and dreaming aka lucid dreaming, I told myself to knock off the hologram and go the f*** to sleep. Nope. I couldn’t get rid of the hologram. I had to focus on it to do anything, and the best I could do was push it away mentally. Like a Jedi force push. It bumped away and then came right back. I tried multiple times but I could NOT get it to go away. So I got pissed off.
I marched it all the way to my bedroom door, in my mind, pushing it repeatedly like a bouncer at a bar, and shoved it out the bedroom door. Then I mentally closed the door so it couldn’t get back in, even though it was trying to push against it. It had no hands, it couldn’t open the door, so I went back to my bed (all in my dream), laid back down and said, “Ah, peace at last” and fell asleep. In my dream.
Totally whacked.
The next time I had to calm my mind enough to sleep, I was stuck in some sort of Minecraft / Lego world. My brain was controlling the landscape…if I breathed out, it would create a small valley while my thoughts were trying to decide what to build — trees, mountains, etc. Again, I couldn’t turn it off, but I knew I could control it. So I decided I was going to make the most boring landscape ever. Boring dirt brown, as far as the eye could see. No ripples, no valleys, no mountains, no trees, just an endless see of nothing but brown after brown after brown “brick”. All in the blink of an eye. I set my mind to creating the endless sea of brown, and thought (within my dream), “Ah, that should be peaceful”. And promptly fell asleep. In my dream. Again, because I was already asleep in real life.
I was telling my boss about the dreams, and she asked me if John Malkovich showed up. And ALL of this dreaming was BEFORE the anti-virals. This was just COVID, Ricola and Tylenol, plus my normal pills.
It would be great to have some of that sh** for the future just for vibrant dreams. It seems back to normal now.
So, where does that leave me?
I am comfortable saying it was the worst “flu” that I’ve ever had. I’ve certainly had bad stuff last longer with more sniffling and phlegm, but the quality was more intense than the quantity. Of course, the big downside for me for the AVs or simple antihistamines is that they really dry out my throat. When I wake up in the morning, it feels like I have a small “catch” there. And at some point, I’ll start coughing. If I can’t lubricate it somehow or get a bit of something to clear, I’ll eventually cough until I throw up. It’s happened a couple of times this week, but nothing unusual. Heck, I can have that any day I wake up with a dry throat. Sigh. And I could drink a ton of water, Gatorade, Coke, whatever, makes no difference. That one little spot decides if it is going to itch or not. Or post-nasal drip will kick in for the same spot and annoy the f*** out of me.
The symptoms are almost gone, and my fear has dissipated. I confess, yes, that I was a bit scared. When COVID first arrived, and before there were vaccines, I would have been petrified. I have a lot of trouble with “clearing” respiratory stuff, often lingering coughs long after colds or flus. And you’ll recall that for those who were hospitalized, one of the main “treatments” was a ventilator. I don’t know that I could ever do a ventilator. I have an enormous phobia of anything in my throat, and feel like I would have had to be in an induced coma to even be able to tolerate it. As a comparison, mentally thinking back then about the options, death or ventilator, there wasn’t an automatic answer to that question for me. Now, of course, I’m 4x vax, etc., people mostly getting it now are not needing to be hospitalized, but there’s still that niggling phobia. I was nowhere near that world. In fact, after Tuesday, I’d say my breathing was mostly fine. I felt at times like my chest was tight, but I don’t know how you reconcile a tight chest with open airways. Doesn’t seem like they should go together.
I’ll finish my AVs, and I have another week’s vacation scheduled, so my recovery should be complete before I have to concentrate for work. I feel bad for my teammates who have had to cover while I was off on vacation, then sick leave, and now vacation leave again. But, well, that’s life I suppose.
It looks like I’ll survive COVID, and I’m avoiding any extra sleeping during the day right now, if I can. But it seems like I’m over the worst, just a couple more days of the antihistamines and then my head should clear. Andrea is following along behind by a day or two, so she’s on the mend as well. Her symptoms weren’t identical…whereas my legs were weak, hers were sore, for example. But I’ll let her tell her story on her own time.
I may not be able to quote MacArthur in the Philippines yet, but I “am returning”. I’m hoping to go for a walk around the block later today. Baby steps.
Nevertheless, if you’re thinking of taking a trip to COVID-town, here’s my review — 0 stars, would not recommend.
Day 06 turned out to be a very dreary and dull overcast/wet day. Jacob wasn’t feeling very well, so we opted for a quiet day around the hotel and Bangor (photos 1-2). We had a good breakfast at the hotel again and played games.
I went out on an errand to look for some pharmacy stuff for Jacob at a nearby mall. Like most malls in North America, it has been decimated. I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods on a separate errand. I normally have a small shoulder bag that I carry with me, almost a man purse, and the last one I got was from Mountain Equipment Co-op. They still sell the model, which lasted me quite some time, but I thought if I could find something similar while on our trip, I’d grab it and have a souvenir too. Dick’s had bags in about 8 different places in the store, none of them like what I was looking for…I would have considered a more traditional messenger bag too, as I seem to have lost mine (I might have given it away without realizing it at one point), but nada. I wandered through the mall anyway looking for any bag store or sports store, but nope, not a one. Nor was there anything resembling a pharmacy although the map of the mall showed lots of POSSIBLE stores, none of which were where they were supposed to be. Or at least, not anymore. I gave up on the bag and stopped at a grocery for Jacob’s stuff.
We went to a local Applebee’s for lunch, which was surprisingly good, and surprisingly busy as we went after the lunchtime “rush”, early afternoon, and they were still busy.
We were looking for an indoor activity, and had a recommendation from a website to try the Galen Cole Family Land Transportation Museum. It had cars, trains, bikes, snowmobiles, snow ploughs, fire trucks, farm equipment, etc. It wasn’t very busy, and as one big garage/warehouse, volunteers were able to provide info as needed. They had a small scavenger hunt you could do while touring the museum where you “spot” various wheels and mark which display they were from on a checklist.
Much of the museum’s material had been donated. When it started, they announced in the paper they were creating the museum and asked if people had items to give. Lots of people did — including farm equipment, for example, that had been used by grandparents or great-grandparents and then left to sit in barns or fields for 50 years before being restored by a descendant and then donated. Similarly, the museum also included a full rural “train station” from the area. The railway company had called the creator, Galen Cole, and said, “Hey, we’re getting rid of this train station, do you want it?”. Cole did, and he got it for $1 on the condition that they come and take it from the land. Which he did, putting it in the museum. Until a few years later when the company sold off the land, which Cole bought, including four more stations with it. The train station in the museum was pretty cool, including the post office portion. A true slice of history to walk into, from an adventurous time when rail travel was more fundamental to cities and small towns.
One of the volunteers, an older gentleman in his 70s at least, although I suspect more like his 80s, took to chatting near the end. I mentioned our plan to go on down to Boston. He told me how he went to one of the fast food chain’s training schools in Southern Maine when he was a younger man, and some of them went into Boston two or three times. His conclusion? “It wasn’t for me.” He had no interest in a big city, and he hinted that he basically had spent his entire life in the Bangor area with no interest to go anywhere else, and certainly NOT to anything resembling a big city. It would be nice to just sit and chat with him for a decade or so. But, alas, the museum was closing. We visited the Vietnam Memorial outside with a helicopter (Huey, UH-1), and the WWII memorial (with jeep and tank), plus a covered bridge. We added to our photo collection (photos 3-39).
We still had a bit of daylight, even if it was rainy, so we decided to drive around downtown Bangor. Saw a mural or two, lots of churches, a Masonic lodge, etc. Then across the bridges to a waterfront park, for views of Bangor’s “skyline” (photos 40-63).
We stopped near the hotel to check out a store called BAM — Books-A-Million. It is a large Chapters/Indigo-like store, very modern but welcoming, with a decent magazine section, lots of mainstream adult and kids books on the main floor with genre stuff on the second, along with games, puzzles, and anime out the wazoo. We picked up a game or two, and a puzzle. I could spend a week there. Or just move in. A wonderful store.
As we had already ticked off Jacob’s desire for Pizza Hut and Applebees, it was time to fulfill Andrea’s dream — Olive Garden for dinner! We played trivia while we noshed, and Jacob was more in heaven than Andrea — the menu had a WHOLE section devoted to Alfredo sauce.
It was a light day for driving, with only 23 km logged. On photos, we only took 84 and I curated that down only slightly to 64.
