No summer is truly complete until you’ve packed an SUV full of young children and luggage and hit the open highway for a pleasant 12-hour drive to another country.
That was our thought two months ago, anyhow.
Now, with the trip looming closer, the reality of the situation has set in.
For the past week, Karen and I have been playing the what-if game that travelers (especially those who will be carting a pack of young kids around) love to play.
There are many what-ifs to be considered, of course. Many aren’t under our control (“What if the weather is horrible?” for instance). We’ve chosen to ignore those eventualities and roll the dice.
Other concerns are much more controllable … more or less.
Among those: What if the two 6-year-olds and the 9-year-old wake up in Coburn Gore and decide to start acting like a pack of rabid weasels for the rest of the trip to Toronto? What if their rabidity is contagious, and I start acting equally ill-tempered? Or what if I get rabid first, on account of lack of sleep, or a bad cup of coffee, or road rage, and begin inciting my fellow weasels?
Unfortunately, I still recall family trips to Canada when I was a youngster, and it occurs to me that my siblings and I weren’t able to keep our hands to ourselves (or our insults, for that matter). Rabid weasels? Probably. Controllable? Probably not.
Yikes.
Not that we don’t have contingency plans in place.
We have plans to count critters and wildlife, and to find letters of the alphabet on road signs. We have plans to sing songs that have been specially loaded onto Karen’s iPod based on one criteria: Will they keep the kids amused or entertained or (please) asleep.
We have retrofitted the SUV and turned it into a gas-guzzling three-screen cineplex, with two DVD players offering (we hope) 12 hours of movie-watching enjoyment (popcorn not included).
We have planned the activities in Toronto carefully, and are looking forward to seeing polar bears and sharks and various monkeys during our trip to the city’s world-famous zoo.
We have planned, and planned, and planned.
And by the time you read this, we will have begun finding out how well those plans are working.
According to those plans, right about now (if you’re an early riser), we’re pulling up to the border crossing in Coburn Gore.
The trip has begun.
The weasels, I fear, are restless (especially the big weasel behind the wheel … me).
Vacation is officially upon us.
Hold onto your hats.
DU planning annual event
For more than 70 years Ducks Unlimited has served as a model for other conservation organizations as it has raised more than $2.7 billion that has protected or enhanced more than 12.3 million acres of wildlife habitat in the U.S, Canada and Mexico.
Now it’s your turn to help out the organization.
The DownEast chapter of DU will hold its 38th annual fundraising banquet and auction on Sept. 17, and you’re invited.
The event will be held at the Bangor Banquet & Conference Center on Hogan Road, and the festivities begin at 5:30 p.m.
DU auctions are always spectacular, and this one promises to be no different. The live and silent auctions will include wildlife art, decoys, jewelry, hunting equipment and apparel.
The catches: Seats are limited, and you’ve got to buy a ticket ahead of time … none will be sold at the door.
Tickets cost $50 for a single and $70 for a couple. The cost of admission includes dinner and DU membership.
If you’re interested in attending, call David Poll at 745-1936, Tom Duff at 989-6082 or Ernie Boynton at 942-6246.
Salmon clubs planning banquet
While we’re talking about fundraisers, there’s another banquet on the horizon that you might consider attending.
The area’s three salmon clubs — the Penobscot Salmon Club, the Eddington Salmon Club and the Veazie Salmon Club — will again join forces this fall for a unified banquet.
The event — the fourth annual — will be held on Oct. 17 at Bangor Banquet & Conference Center on Hogan Road.
A social session begins at 5:30 p.m. with the program and dinner beginning at 7.
If you’re looking for more information, contact any local salmon club member and they can steer you in the right direction.
It’s been a tough year for club members — Atlantic salmon were declared endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act — and the clubs can use as much support as they can get in theses uncertain times.
Any help you can give in an effort would surely be appreciated.
Going Outdoors on the Internet
For the past several years I’ve periodically written about some of the “Going Outdoors” segments that I produce with ABC-7 chief videographer Dave Simpson.
And for the past few months some of those segments have been available for viewing at www.bangordailynews.com.
If you’ve already checked out some of those video clips, thanks. If you haven’t, I hope you will.
We have more than 40 that we’ll be adding to our site in the coming months, and if you’ve already checked out the available videos, we may well have added a few new ones since your last visit.
The pieces are short — they average a little longer than two minutes — and represent a sample of some of the more humorous, off-beat segments that we’ve produced.
If you’re interested, go to the BDN site and click on the Outdoors link. There, you’ll find a link to the “Going Outdoors” pieces.
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