Day 28 - PEN-AW-THA

July 1, 2009

After packing up my stuff and checking out of my room at the Farmington Baptist Church, I headed back to the main road to head south to Wilton. Not before grabbing an early lunch at Subway, though.
Five dollar foot longs are a GREAT deal when you're living on the road.
Once I got to Wilton, I kept pushing west to East Dixfield.
It's Wednesday, so my thinking was to find me a church service in town and get some fellowship.
Unfortunately, NONE that I came across offered a mid-week service.
Oh well.
At the edge of town, I stopped at the convenient store/lunch counter to converse with some of the locals and try to find out where might be a good place for me to bed down for the night.
They directed me over to some property down the road where they assured me that I'd be welcome. So, this is where I meet up with a man by the name of Larry 'Buck' Bisbee.
He's located right on Route 2 and he likes to call the place 'Pen-Aw-Tha', which apparently is the Maine way of saying 'pen author'.
It's a sort of hide-away spot for writers to do some workshopping and focus on their craft.
But, writing isn't the only craft located here.
It seems that Buck is quite the music fan. His whole place is set-up as Maine's Country Folk Music Theatre. Subsequently EVERY weekend is a musical extravaganza where talented people come from all over to sing, play and fellowship as much as possible before having to go back to the 'real world' on Monday.
Too bad I won't be here for that. It sounds like a real hoot.
So, instead, I get the privilege of hanging out with Buck and talking about music and ministry and even film production.
His property was recently the setting for a DVD movie called, 'Bare Foot Country Girl', of which he directed and produced using local talent plus whatever other resources he could muster together. He was also kind enough to give me a copy.
Now, I just need to get him a copy of the Dinosaur DVD that we put together. It might take me a while to accomplish that one, though.
Once it was time to turn in for the night, he directed me out to the official 'Pen-Aw-Tha' cabin.
I have now officially made myself at home and am settling down for a good night's sleep.
This place is quite the visual odyssey. And, it's pretty cozy.

Day 27 - Seth Wescott is my Hero!

June 30, 2009

I've been told that this is the third rainiest June in the history of Maine. How fortunate for me. :)
The good news is, today it's NOT raining.
Cool beans!
After having breakfast with my new friends, I hiked south on 27 all of the way to Farmington.
It's amazing how something so long and tedious can be written out in such a short sentence.
(the hiking part, not the breakfast with new friends part)
As I approached the downtown area, I was greeted by the sounds of music emanating from the town square gazebo. So, I gladly walked in, took a seat and enjoyed some live music for a bit.
Eventually, I had to tear myself away and find something to eat. Once I established that the Granary had a wireless connection, I dropped in for a bite.
As part of the 'meal deal', I was awarded a free ticket to a local movie of my choice. It's been a while since I've seen one of those things, so I gladly accepted.
I was fortunate enough to have been connected with a local church through the family I stayed with last night. So, I found out where the Farmington Baptist Church was and headed on over.
The people there were great. They blessed me with some dinner and set me up in room #3.
This place apparently serves as quite the hub for a LOT of activity. They have groups come in all the time for lots of missionary work and such throughout the year. So, it was great to take a peek into their world for a day.
As it got later, I made my way back over to the movie theater to check out 'Year 1', a modern comical spoof of the Old Testament and beyond. As you can guess, it wasn't accurate.
For what is was, (a Hollywood movie with an ensemble cast of comedy actors who don't know God) it was entertaining. But, nevertheless, it was quite crude and blasphemous and vulgar, etc...
I certainly didn't think the results would be any different. I'm pretty sure I was just excited to get a free ticket. Oh well, this world doesn't have very much longer. I just wish more people would discover the truth before it's too late.
It's a good thing that's the objective of the team I'm playing for...Christianity.
I guess I'll have to do my part and we'll see what happens.
God only knows and only time will tell.
Except for eternity, of course, which is 'outside' of time, but then I digress...

Day 26 - New Vineyard

June 29, 2009

It sure does like to rain around here.
I left the campsite this morning and crossed over the bridge to head south on route 201A.
Somehow, I manage to view a DHL van, a UPS truck and a FedEx truck all in the same day. Don't look now, but I think this might mean that I'm on the verge of civilization. Maybe?
At least is 'seems' hopeful.
I made such good time, I decided to go ahead and follow route 234 west all of the way to New Vineyard.
This proved to be slightly strenuous. The end of my twenty mile day found me sitting on the front steps of a town building, tending to a HUGE blister on my right heel, while trying to stay out of the rain.
This was the tricky part. It was after hours and the building was closed. New Vineyard would be extremely flattered if I referred to it as a 'small' town. And, I had nowhere else to go.
So, there I was, at not yet 5 pm without a soul to be seen anywhere.
That's when I finally had to give up and reserve myself to the idea of finding the nearest church down the street and camping out somewhere on their property.
After all, if I'm going to get in trouble using someone's property, it might as well be a church, right?
But on my way to the church I noticed that the town office/library had a car in the parking lot. So, as a last ditch effort, I walked in hoping to gain some useful advice on where to spend the night.
I entered to find not one, but two ladies, at the front counter. They were both intrigued by my appearance and asked about my journey. As I told them what I was doing and why I was doing it, the customer lady (Dinah) became very interested.
It turns out that her and her family are very active in the local churches and her daughter was even recently involved in a Creation Ministry class.
Here's the fun part.
She thought it would be fun to take me up the street and introduce me to her daughter and son-in-law in hopes that they might let me stay there for the night. So, with nothing else to do, I gladly tagged along for the ride.
Their names are Chip and Kathy. Chip had just left for the evening to go to the movies with some friends and Kathy was just about to leave on some errands of her own.
But, before she left, the three of us sat out on the wrap-around porch and talked ministry as they continued to pump tasty food and warm fluids into my system.
Kathy thought it would be better if I stayed on the porch until Chip got home and I was a-okay with that. It gave me the opportunity to get in out of the rain and get my tent and equipment dried out as well.
So, with a few hours to kill, I put together a quick little update video and crawled inside of my rapidly drying tent for a quick nap.
Once Chip arrived, he invited me in and set up the downstairs room for me. I was finally able to get a warm shower and, afterward, when Kathy returned, the three of us hung out and talked for a while.
All in all, it was a productive and interesting day.
But, as I'm learning on this journey, that's par for the course.