Actually, I don’t have close to that many words. But I do have five photos from Columbus Day Weekend that sum things up pretty well.

On Saturday, I met up with Chris and Jeff for a five-hour tour of the trails around Mount Agamenticus in York, Maine. Until 1974, Mount A. was a ski area and over 30 years later, remnants of the lifts still haunt the woods around the summit and the ski trails provide some hairy mountain bike descents and/or some nice, scenic hikes – depending upon how much you follow the rules. (I’m all for following them, even though that means staying off of trails we used to ride for years.)

We stayed away from the main summit and climbed Second Hill and Third Hill before heading to the lower trails around the reservoirs. Thanks to a newly posted map, we finally figured out that the lower loop we do laps three reservoirs (well, maybe two plus a decent sized pond). Unfortunately, after years of losing odometers and collecting multiple bikes, none of us had any real idea of the mileage we covered that day. But, it’s fair to estimate that we easily covered 16 to 20 miles under clear skies and bright leaves.

When Sunday morning rolled around, Mary and I took Oscar (the dog) up to Evans Notch (it’s just north of Fryeburg on the New Hampshire – Maine border) and hiked up to the summit of West Royce. Because this was the first big hike for Oscar since he hurt his leg back in the winter of 2005 (and my first big hike since I exploded my right quad hiking in July), we left the summit of East Royce untouched. That was a good choice as both Oscar and I were a bit slow and sloppy on the descent. But, just like on Saturday, the weather was warm, clear and bright. Warm enough, in fact, for Oscar to have a soak in a stream once we finished our descent. He spent about 5 minutes in the water, cooling off and drinking, while Mary and I laughed at ourselves for lumping up gloves, hats, fleeces and shells in our packs.

This past Saturday, Mary and I went apple picking, but not the “let’s pay to pick because we’re cute yuppies” type of picking. Instead, we were up in Mercer, Maine at the Sandy River Orchard with about 18 other folks to lend a hand. The orchard is owned by Francis Fenton and, as he’s in his 92nd year, a few of the folks in town came out to help him out.

We all met at his house around 9 am and, after some coffee and homemade donuts (Krispy Kreme has nothing on these), his daughter broke us into groups, gave us buckets, pickers (metal-tined baskets on long poles), divvied up the work list and sent us off. We spent the next 3 hours under blue skies, plucking Red and Yellow Delicious, Arkansas Black, Rome, Empire and massive 20 ounce apples off the trees and loading them into crates.

I spent most of the time with Mary’s dad shuttling full crates back to the stand in his truck. In between trips, I got to talking with Francis. “I’m the last Fenton,” he told me, after explaining that his family has been farming that land since the 1850s. “My granddaddy was in the Civil War. Not many people can say that these days – their grandparents are in Florida.” After a quick chuckle, he continued, “Well, he wasn’t actually in the war. He was supposed to go, but his brother went for him because he had a wife and four kids and his brother wasn’t married. He was killed at Gettysburg. All wars are stupid, just a terrible waste.”

Well put Francis. He then attempted to go back to hauling crates on his small tractor but seemed unable to walk more than 5 steps before he was sharing a story or talking about apples with someone else. He can work a crowd better at age 92 than I can now, or probably ever will.

By the time the last apple was picked, we had filled over 50 crates and that wasn’t even all of the trees (according to Francis, the Romes are best left until a good frost can “sweeten” them up a bit).

We all met back at the house for a home-made lunch – baked beans, deviled eggs, sandwiches, apple pie, blueberry pie and at least 2 kinds of coffee cake. That morning, I was a stranger to the group (with the exception of Mary’s family). By lunch, I felt like an old neighbor (well, almost, as I don’t have any trace of a Maine accent and “from away” will always be “from away”, even Portland barely counts as Maine to these folk).

Later that afternoon, as I was drifting off into a nap, I thought about the morning – blue skies, picking apples, helping a neighbor out for good stories and a home made meal in return – and then wondered just how soon we’ll be moving north.