Boston

excellent Boston photograph by Dirk.

Went to Boston for a few days with Dirk (who took this amazing picture!) and it was really nice! I hadn’t really hung out in Boston since… the early nineties?! I wish we made it down there more often. I stopped into as many cute paper shops as I could find, special mention goes to Paper Source – I could’ve stayed in there for a week looking at all their beautiful papers and stationery. And to Dirk’s friends who kindly hosted us in their beautiful Jamaica Plains apartment – thanks!

Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago

Morris & Essex booth. Renegade Craft Fair, Chicago

Just a few weeks after our Maine craft show extravaganza, we packed up the suitcases and headed off to Chicago for another round! I printed up TONS of new t-shirts and packed them ALL into suitcases (heavy!) and was forced to get my whole craft-fair routine significantly more organized in order to fit myself and all my stuff into an airplane and not frazzle my brains too much in the process. I think I am getting better at the craft fair routine every time we do it. Renegade Chicago is a huge event! It started out a little rough on Saturday, it was raining and I wasn’t feeling well and setting up was kinda not that fun. There were LOTS of shoppers but most of them turned out to be browsers and it felt like we weren’t selling that much. But by the afternoon the sun was peeking out, things were getting funner, people started buying stuff, Mike brought me a nice cup of sangria, then Dan and Kristi and Julia stopped by to visit… by the end of the day it was all just great. Sunday was a fantastic day from beginning to end, sunny and lovely and kind of overwhelmingly busy. I did manage to slip out of the booth and wander around the fair for a while and saw all kinds of awesome stuff. I’m sure I am forgetting lots of exciting things but here are the favorites I can remember:

Shapes & Colors

Shapes & Colors. These guys were super cute, their printed pillowcases and bags are simple and bright and perfect (great color palette!) and of course I was attracted to them because that is the name that Julia and I picked out last year for the awesome website that we never really made. But that’s another story.

up in the air somewhere

beautiful ceramics from up in the air somewhere

Beau Ideal stationery

Beau Ideal whose work is a lot like mine, only awesomer!

Maryink tees

I’ve admired Maryink t-shirts for years, but never bought one – I got to meet Chris and I bought this one, only on a dark blue t-shirt.

Winter Session booth

really cute canvas bags and aprons by Winter Session

La Familia Green

La Familia Green, whose awesome cut-paper mexican folk-art posters caught my eye on some website years ago – it was exciting to meet Mollie and of course she is really nice and sweet.

Greyhound rescue

And Mike of course made friends with the great folks at the Greyhound rescue.

renegade handmade storefront in Chicago

At the end of the fair I went over to chat with the folks at the Renegade Handmade shop, and they took a bunch of my cards to sell in their shop year-round. Awesome!!

Isle Au Haut camping trip

Western Head trail. Isle Au Haut camping trip. Penobscot Bay, Maine

Way back in April we reserved a campsite for a weekend at Isle Au Haut, a little island off the Maine coast, an hour out from Stonington by ferry. It’s actually an outpost of the famous Acadia National Park, which is mostly located up the coast a bit on Mount Desert Island – but there is a less-known snippet of the Acadia National Park land located on Isle Au Haut. We heard the campsites are hot property and it’s hard to get a reservation in the summertime, so the thing to do is send in your campsite request as soon as applications open in April. We just closed our eyes, pointed at a random date on the calendar, and mailed in a request for it. A few weeks later we got our camping permit back in the mail! August 6th and 7th. It turned out that Mike’s friend Paul (from San Francisco) came to visit us that week, so we all went camping together. And by some crazy coincidence, in the week before our trip, two different shopkeepers at different stores in mid-coast Maine randomly happened to contact me and ask if they could buy some of my goods for their stores. So I packed up my stationery and t-shirts and made plans to stop and sell my goods along the way!

along the drive: one of many grand old houses in Wiscasset; lobster traps at the flea market, route 1 in Searsport

It was a nice opportunity to take a leisurely drive up the Maine coast and show Mike around some of the most famous coastal destination spots in the state. We headed out on Friday after lunch, north on Route 1 through Freeport, did get stuck in traffic for an hour or so (Route 1 is a two-lane coastal road famous for being a) beautiful and b) jammed with tourists in August). It turned into a beautiful drive along the jaggedy coastline, over bridges and across peninsulas and through pines and salt marshes. We stopped in Camden to check out the town and meet Amy at Sugar Tools, a new shop on Bay View Street with a very sweet and sophisticated selection of items from around the world – home goods, stationery, gardening stuff, etc. She took some rooster cards and greetings! cards to add to her stationery selection. And then on up the coast to bustling Belfast, Maine, where we arrived downtown in the middle of the Friday evening Art Walk. All the galleries and shops had their doors open, there were performers out on the sidewalks, there was a parade of antique cars, free wine and snacks, it was a surprisingly festive moment to arrive in town. We made our way to Roots and Tendrils, a really sweet space in a gorgeous old building down on the waterfront, where we met Meg and Bub and sold lots more greeting cards and enjoyed a bit more wine and snacks in the festive pre-show atmosphere – they were setting up for a live music night on the corner stage. It’s a fun multi-function space with art on the walls, a great selection of exciting and artsy goods (all made in Maine, but not your predictable selection of blueberry jams and watercolors – awesome t-shirts, journals, cards, zines, bright jewelry, etc etc), and live music playing on the stage every weekend.

Roots and Tendrils

Then we moved on to the famous Belfast Food Co-op, which is the state’s oldest food coop or something like that. It’s an AWESOME place. We were really hungry but I can objectively say that it was not just the hunger, this place is incredible. We stocked up on fresh veggies, trail mix, all kinds of camping and hiking treats, and some wholesome snacks to nibble on the road.

view from bridge leaving Belfast, headed north

And then we had to head northwards again, on up through Searsport in the golden evening light, and across Bucksport’s two bridges in a blazing sunset. We stopped at about eight places trying to find a little fuel cannister for our camp stove, finally found one and headed south down the peninsula towards Deer Isle in the twilight. It was kind of a tough road to drive as it got darker, we were on these crazy twisty windy hilly coastal backroads so we were relieved when we finally made it across the bridge from the mainland to Little Deer Isle, across another bridge to proper Deer Isle, and across the last bridge to Stonington. Of course it was dark and we were groggy from hours in the car, so we got all confused and lost and had to ask for directions to find our campground in the dark. I set up both tents while the boys started a campfire and we had a tasty late supper around the fire.
Early in the morning, up and off to the ferry landing in town, for the 10 am ferry out to Isle Au Haut.

Stonington

It’s around an hour’s ride, I think. I dozed through it because I hadn’t slept well in the tent. Arrived at Isle Au Haut and disembarked at the Duck Harbor campground landing. Dropped our packs at our lean-to, had a snack, and headed right out for a nice big hike! We headed up across the Duck Harbor Mountain Trail, which goes right up to the summit of the island. It was a fantastic hiking day, crisp and clear and sharp. Beautiful piney trail that opens out onto ledges. We had to do a few challenging scrambles over sheer rock faces around the summit; I had to tie my water bottle to my belt and use both hands and feet and sometimes knees. Fun! But we passed a few other hikers who were like “THIS IS CRAZY!” We were rewarded with lovely views out across the harbor and out to sea, scattered with lobster boats, islands and bright sunshine.

Mike hiking up; Paul at the summit

mushroom, flower, pine cone

Squeaker Cove

We descended to Squeaker Cove and then followed the Goat Trail to the Cliff Trail and then the Western Head trail looped back to Western Head Road which took us back to our campsite. Here’s a trail map.

mosses, ferns

The trails run through fantastical magical-looking mossy woods, and then out onto beaches made up entirely of rounded, fist-sized sea-washed rocks that make an amazing echoing hollow sound when you walk across them.

tiny cairns

The whole hike was something like 5 hours. Got back to camp tired and hungry and happy to see we’d brought along a bottle of wine.

dinner, lean-to

sitting on the rocks and watching the sun go down

Next morning: sat on the rocks watching seagulls, knitting and reading. Took a picture of the rusty woodstove sitting by the trail in the woods. Packed up camp, sat on the dock til the ferry came. I stayed awake for the ride back, which was lovely… we passed this awesome lighthouse down by the town landing in Isle Au Haut. It happens to be for sale, in case anybody has $2M sitting around and wants to own a lighthouse!

waiting on the dock; our ferry was named Miss Lizzie.

Isle Au Haut lighthouse

Seboeis Lake camping trip

July 15-19th was our first big camping trip of the year! My parents are veteran backwoods canoers and campers, and they invited my dear Aunt Barbara and myself (both novice canoers) to join them for an easy four-day trip on Seboeis Lake, way up in Piscatiquis County, in remote Northern Maine. We stopped at the big LL Bean store in Freeport on the way up, to lay in a few extra camping supplies, and then from Freeport we had a four-hour drive to the lake, on I-95 to Newport, Maine and then on country roads through beautiful Penobscot and Piscatiquis counties. We had to stop the car when a gangly young lady moose wandered out of the woods and walked about in the road for a bit, indecisive, into one lane and then into the other and then back into the woods again.
We turned onto dirt roads for the last few miles and then put in the canoes at the landing on the north end of Seboeis Lake. It’s a bit of a process packing four people, four days worth of camping and eating supplies, and two dogs into two canoes and setting off.

canoe atop subaru / paddling out to our campsite

We had a beautiful 25-minute paddle across peaceful waters, through lily pads and rushes, out to our campsite at the end of a long narrow, piney peninsula sticking out into the lake. It was the site of an old loggers’ camp, now converted to two public campsites, accessible only by boat. The soft pine needles were perfect for pitching a tent on, the breeze kept the mosquitoes and deerflies at bay, and we had views out to Mt. Katahdin, and across two pretty little bays, one on each side of our peninsula.

our sweet campsite

We had our first of several spectacularly delicious dinners. My mother does gourmet campfire cooking with gusto, carrying the standard supply of tinfoil and propane camp stove, plus a cast-iron dutch oven for roasting food in the hot coals, and a homemade convection oven for baking cakes and pies on the campfire, as well as a bottle of wine for every night, stores of flour and sugar, butter, eggs, baskets of fresh fruits and veggies, and a snack for every occasion.

blueberry muffins, campfire, reflector oven

first evening on the lake

Our original plan was to camp one night on the peninsula, then paddle out across the widest part of the lake to Hammer Island, a small island with a few campsites and nice views of the mountains, and stay there for the next two nights. But by the morning a real wind had come up, and there were whitecaps on the lake, which we are told makes for unsafe canoeing conditions. So we relaxed under the pines with our novels and our knitting projects, watching the whitecaps churn out on the lake and waves crash on the rocky shore. By and by afternoon we were feeling restless and adventurous so we packed all four humans AND two dogs into the larger canoe and set off across the bay to a tantalizing strip of white sandy beach on the far shore. As soon as we left shore, the winds came up stronger and we realized our weight was poorly balanced in the boat, the dogs were nervous and wouldn’t lie down, they kept jumping and lurching around, everything was tippy and unsteady, the whitecaps were lapping over the gunnels and with too much weight in the front of the canoe, Richard had a challenge trying to steer and keep us on course. It was only a ten-minute paddle but I pretty much spent the whole ten minutes telling myself “we’re going to tip over but it’s OK, I know how to swim, the water’s warm, it’ll be fine.” And it was. We made it across the cove without tipping over, put in at the sandy beach and had a marvelous swim in the lake. The water was unbelievably warm and the sand was improbably white and it made me feel like we’d somehow paddled over to Brazil for a few minutes.

on the beach at sandy cove

For the trip back we were a bit more careful with seating ourselves into the boat and we zipped right back across the cove very neatly and quickly. It was a nice lesson in how important it is to pack the canoe carefully and distribute weight evenly, especially in a stiff wind. After this exciting expedition we were content to just sit back at our campsite and enjoy the view, waiting until the wind died down enough to paddle out onto the lake. As it turned out, it never really did. There were stiff winds and whitecaps all day every day, from dawn til dusk, so we stayed put in our lovely campsite with our vacation books and our knitting and our tasty cooking.

choppy waters / canoe and roots

blueberry picking, sunset swimming

sunset over Seboeis Lake and Mt. Katahdin

Paprika / fern

chilaquiles for breakfast / canoe lessons

We did lots of blueberry picking, and tons of swimming, as the lake was very warm, and took a few short outings into the quieter, shallower, smaller cove on the lee side of our peninsula. Judy gave me some canoeing lessons in the shallow water, trying to teach me how to man the stern and steer. It’s hard! On the last morning the lake was finally calm enough for us to go out and paddle about. We had a lovely turn around the lake and enjoyed the quiet early morning, still water, dragonflies and nice views of katahdin before heading back to break camp.

early morning paddle

Michigan trip

We took a long weekend trip to Michigan to visit Mike’s family and go to his cousin Aubrey’s wedding. As always it was great to be around Mike’s family, they are always warm and welcoming and fun to be with! We fit in a Tigers game (it was a gorgeous night and all the seats were sold out so we got standing-room only tickets, but a couple left early and gave us their seventh-row seats behind home plate!), a sunday drive to Ann Arbor in Mike’s dad’s Miata, and a visit to the famous cheese counter at Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor.

Aubrey and Megan’s wedding

Mike enjoying a Tigers game, pretty Fox Theater in downtown Detroit

Mike’s mom Bonnie and little niece Riley

the many cheeses at Zingerman’s deli

renegade craft fair

June 5th and 6th we headed to Brooklyn to set up the Morris & Essex booth at the Renegade Craft Fair – it was a great time and a big success!! Thanks a million to everyone who stopped by and visited, bought stuff or said hello, and ESPECIALLY to EP and Caroline who hosted us and all our stuff at their beautiful apartment AND put in tons of work helping us set up the booth and sell things and bringing us snacks and generally making us happy! (and a special thanks also to Leslie who stopped by to feed us freshly-baked strawberry rhubarb pies, just at the very moment when I was about to die of hunger!)

Morris & Essex booth -photo by Lisa! thank you!

this post is a work in progress, more details to come, about our trip and the fair…

afternoon road trip

the dock on Long Lake in Naples

Thursday afternoon was so warm and beautiful and felt like spring. After running some errands we ended up buying ice cream cones and playing hooky from our work, took a little road trip to explore some quiet back roads. We started out in Gray and headed to Windham, through Raymond, Naples, Sebago, Baldwin, Standish and then finally Limington. Great drive.

afternoon woods

old bridge

here, now

We’ve arrived in Maine at last! Got in to Boston mid-morning (beautiful snow falling all around) and made it to Gorham in the afternoon, after about 23 hours in transit. Feels like a miracle that we made it here. Dogs didn’t enjoy the flight, but are still alive and are now in high spirits. Today we went to SEE the house for the very first time! It was mostly just as I expected it, after seeing photos and videos. But I was really struck by how BIG and cold and messed-up it is. It’s like a maze that just goes on and on. The walls are basically totally uninsulated and it was bitter cold today. And it is a mess! A beautiful, rambling shambles. There is so much stuff left behind by the previous tenants; in the ruins of the upstairs ell apartment, the bathtub is filled with baby clothes, a large old beige computer monitor and a smallish plastic christmas tree. The fridge and freezer are still filled with stinking, eight-month old food. In other rooms their traces are fainter, just cigarette burns and half-painted walls. It’s weird and a bit creepy but oh, it’s ours, and filled with possibilities. The room that might be my studio is huge and has six windows and a beautiful peaked ceiling. The dogs went nuts running in the yard, Inga was careening around, crazed by more open grassy space than she’s ever seen in her life.

Back to Buenos Aires and then onwards again…

Finally back to our house in Buenos Aires for just two short weeks. So good to see the dogs after such a long absence! Inga didn’t recognize us, and thought we were tired, stinky burglars with large backpacks. Chris and Courtney had been dog/house sitting while we were gone, they were excited for our return because it meant that they could leave town and start their own big South American adventure. We were very excited to be on home ground and have good long hot showers in our own bathroom, wash our clothes, clean our blisters, eat good food, sleep long hours and generally regroup for a day before beginning the next leg of our crazy transformation.
Immediately after touching down in Buenos Aires, we had to start planning our attack for packing and cleaning and moving overseas! I had to catch up on a bit of work, so Mike handled most of the paperwork and bureaucracy related to bringing our dogs to the United States. We bought some boxes and bubble wrap, packing tape, and started furiously sorting and packing EVERYTHING in our house. We wanted to ship some boxes via container freight, but were uncertain whether it would be prohibitively expensive or impossible due to impenetrable mazes of paperwork and typical Argentine bureaucracy. As the designated Expert Spanish Speaker of the house, it fell to me to handle most of the phone conversations and paperwork surrounding this scary and stressful task. We basically had NO IDEA how to go about doing this. Everyone we talked to said “I can’t tell you what to do, you should talk to someone else.” Our bargain-priced shipping agent said “I’m not sure what you need to do, maybe you should talk to the people in the port.” We ventured down into the strange world of the shipping port in person, and the people in the port said “Your shipping agent needs to handle this for you.” When we said that our shipping agent had sent us to the port in the first place, the port agency told us to go see a public notary. We begged them to give us a recommendation for a notary who could help us; when we went to see that notary, they were perplexed by our needs and said “Tell your shipping agent to call us.” When we called the shipping agent, she said “I’ve never heard of this notary, I don’t work with them.” Ultimately, NOBODY would advise us about what we needed to do and how to do it, nor how much it would cost. And all of these conversations were in Spanish which made them 10% more confusing and frustrating! We could’ve gone with a full-service shipping agent but we didn’t want to pay for it so we’d chosen someone who gave us a rock-bottom price and offered absolutely no service other than giving us a cargo spot on a boat. So, despite great adversity, we did cobble together a terribly vague idea of what we kinda imagined that maybe we could try to do in order to get our stuff shipped. Nothing to do but try it, hope for the best, and see how it goes. After much labored sorting and organizing and packing and taping and bubble-wrapping, we had 38 small cardboard boxes plus one bike in a cardboard box, ready to go. We hired a van and driver to pick it up and drive us and our cargo down to the shipping port. It’s a strange no-man’s-land out there, beyond the edge of the known city, a kinda fascinating maze of mud roads and container stacks and shipping warehouses, populated by truck drivers and stevedores, shipping employees, forklift drivers and team captains, almost exclusively big burly industry men. Normally, shipping agents handle this side of the business and they all know the warehouse managers by name. We were the only disoriented and confused gringos in the whole port. We got totally lost driving around this maze and our poor driver was very patient as we made phone call after phone call to locate our specified warehouse complex. When we got there… bad luck, it was 11:45 and the whole place closes down for 2 hours for lunch break. They wouldn’t even let us through the door to drop our cargo. So we had to pay our driver by the hour to sit outside the door in the van with us for two long hours, waiting for all these guys to finish their lunch and let us in. When they finally got around to dealing with us, of course we were missing important papers that nobody had told us about… there were more phone calls and more hours of delays… finally we were admitted and our cargo weighed… in a giant warehouse filled with pallets of wine and flat-screen tv’s, we met a customs agent who ripped open a few boxes to make sure we were really exporting personal effects, not contraband. Bla, bla, bla, more hours of paperwork and confusion, finally after about 8 hours we got home with a stack of papers in spanish, to show that we’d left all our goods for shipment!
Then on to packing the suitcases and cleaning the apartment, farewell dinners and despedida parties, last dates with friends and a few quiet moments to enjoy our beautiful neighborhood and quiet terrace for the last time ever! Wednesday, March 3rd we left home at 5:00 pm with two dogs in travel crates and six suitcases, never to return again…

Lima, Peru

Last stop! Lima, Peru. We just had two-and-a-half days to see the capital city of Peru. Caught a morning bus from Paracas to Lima, arrived mid-day. Our hostel turned out to be incredibly beautiful, a huge old colonial house in the fancy Miraflores neighborhood. We were so lucky to find such a cheap, beautiful old place!!

our beautiful hostel in Lima

hostel in Miraflores

The neighborhood of Miraflores is pretty fancy and international, a world away from Camana or Cabanaconde. We were near a beautiful park, lots of fancy looking private schools and homes in old colonial buildings, some big stores like Falabela and Plaza Vea, some interesting art galleries and cultural centers.

paper sculptures. centro cultural, Miraflores

nice garden. American high school, Miraflores

I think at this point in our journey we were simultaneously trying to enjoy our last days of traveling and freedom, and also looking forward to our imminent move with tons of excitement and anxiety and muchas ganas de hacerlo, YA! (that is, a great desire to get this thing done already!) We had some beautiful walks around the neighborhood and passed some nice afternoons writing postcards over coffee, reading and working quietly in cafes, shopping in artesan markets and eating DELICIOUS foods. Miraflores has lots of good food to offer! We had sushi, yakitori, snails, green tea ice cream and other delights at a Japanese place near our hostel one night. Saturday we ventured into downtown Lima, which was a kind of long cab ride, we had to take the highway. It’s a whole different onda in the center, more old and colonial, much more gritty and crowded and busy. We visited the famous Chinatown, got some delicious street food (sticky buns with pork & cabbage inside, fried rolls and crunchy things) and tasty cans of lychee juice. Visited the huge Mercado Municipal nearby. Had to wait for the restaurants to open for lunch so we wasted twenty minutes and a few quarters on the slot machines at the casino on the main peatonal in Chinatown. It was the day before Chinese New Year, so the barrio was really busy and festive and we got to see a parade with lots of loud drums and dragons passing by.

The butcher section of the mercado municipal. Lima, Peru

lunch counter. Mercado Municipal, Lima

parade in Chinatown

A few weeks have passed now that I’m writing this… my favorite memories of Lima are that beautiful hostel, walks around Miraflores on sidewalks shaded by huge trees, admiring the colonial mansions… eating a donut and drinking lots of iced teas (both are rare delicacies for an Estadounidense in South America!)… generally trying to take it easy for a few short days after a long series of adventures! … and lots of conversations with Mike about the end of our South American exploits and how soon we’d be moving back to Maine, what we expected and hoped for in our new lives, nervousness about the big move, hopes and dreams! Big stuff.