Our First Anniversary, Not Quite as Planned

So Monday, September 10, was our first anniversary. Our plans were relatively simple, Tom was going to go to work, as usual, and I was going to spend my usual Monday off cleaning the apartment and doing laundry. We were going to get dressed up and go out to dinner, and then we were going to spend the weekend camping at Acadia National Park. Like I said, simple and low key. Our wedding day was perfect, so why expect anything less of our anniversary. As you can see from the picture to your left, things did not exactly go as planned.

To back things up a bit, back when Tom was about fifteen, he was involved with wrestling. While at practice one night, he attempted a pivot. Well, his body pivoted, but his foot did not, resulting in a broken bone right above the growth plate. He was taken to the hospital, and a screw was put in to hold the bone back together. Over the course of a couple of months, everything healed up, and he was good to go. Except for one little detail, they never took the screw out.

Fast forward to this past Sunday. Tom had been having ankle pain for the last week, which we did not think much of. Broken bones tend to lead to arthritis, and he tends to experience some discomfort whenever the seasons change. This past Sunday, his ankle hurt a lot more than usual. Just laying in bed, he said it was at about a 7 or an 8. When he stood up, on a scale of 10, he gave it a 12. I parked him on the couch with ibuprofen, wrapped his ankle, propped it up with some pillows and added some ice. After about six hours, we saw no improvement, so off to first care we went. The first thing they did was an x-ray, which you can see above. Then they gave Tom some pain killers, an air cast, a prescription for crutches, and advised him to contact an orthopedist. I'm not a doctor by any sense of the word, but this sounded pretty serious. We went home, went to bed, and woke up to a completely different anniversary than planned.

Tom stayed home from work, we got his crutches, and he met with his regular doctor for "pain management" aka Vicodin. Then we attempted to find an orthopedist. The cool thing about doctors up here is that everything is electronic, so the first orthopedist we called was able to pull up Tom's x-rays and check them out. They then promptly called us and said that they could not do anything, and referred us to a bone specialist. The bone specialist was unable to get Tom in for an appointment until Friday 9/13. At this point I realized if my husband is hobbling around on crutches, on pain killers, with an appointment to see a bone surgeon, he is likely not going to be so comfortable camping that weekend, let alone hike around Acadia National Park. So, with a tear in my eye, I cancelled our anniversary trip. The campground we were planning on visiting has been very gracious and granted us a rain check to use at any point next year. By the time we got home from doctor's appointments and picking up prescriptions, it was late into the afternoon and I had not even started cleaning. Not a problem, it does not usually take long to straighten up the place, that is, unless the vacuum explodes all over the living room floor. Two hours later, we have the vacuum unclogged. By this point, I was in tears. It was 8pm, I was covered in vacuum dust, restaurants were closing, and I was ready to throw in the towel. What happened next? I'll post about that in a little bit. ;) Don't you just hate cliff hangers?

Camping at Sebago Lake State Park

Growing up, I spent a significant amount of my summer camping with my family. My family would go to a camper show every spring and we would collect pamphlets from various campgrounds across the state. Once summer arrived, my dad would draw a circle around our home town on a map and said that my sister and I could pick a campground, as long as it fell within that circle. It seemed as though we would go camping a couple times a month, but of course, that was a long time ago when summer seemed endless. If that wasn't enough, I also pitched a tent in the backyard and would spend the majority of nights in my tent, rain or shine. To put it lightly, to state that I am a fan of camping and the outdoors is a bit of an understatement. Which is why it may come as a surprise to say that in Tom and I's nearly four year relationship, this past weekend was our first camping trip together. The reason for my four year camping hiatus? Life as a grown-up is hectic.

The entire plan of going camping this past weekend occurred during a moment of brilliance while I was walking my dog one evening. Tom and I are going camping for three nights in Acadia National Park during the second weekend of September, and I was kind of bummed about having to wait so long for our first camping adventure. Then it dawned on me that Maine's Lake Region was only about 45 minutes from Portland. In other words, close enough that we could easily work a full day on Friday, hop in the car, get to the campground, and be fully set up before sunset. After a search on the internet, and scoffing at the prices of some of the private campgrounds, I discovered Sebago Lake State Park. The campsites are a flat $15 a night for a campsite with a picnic table and a fire ring. I have a tent, so electric and water were of little concern to me. A couple of clicks later, Tom and I had reservations.

Overall, I am very impressed with the campground. I had never camping at a state park in Maine, and I was expecting very primitive conditions. Much to my surprise, the campground had very modern facilities (e.g. flush toilets in the bathhouses and free hot showers). The campsites were absolutely huge, albeit a bit close to the neighbors, but at $15 a night, I really can't complain. Upon check-in, the park ranger was able to upgrade our campsite to something a little closer to the water. Tom estimates that we had about a 50 foot walk from our camp site to the beach. We spent the weekend relaxing by the campfire, solving crosswords, and, of course, swimming in Sebago Lake. We filled our tummies with food cooked over the campfire, and lamented that we had to go back to the real world on Monday. Overall, our first camping adventure together was a huge success, and we will definitely be making reservations at Sebago Lake State Park again next year. I don't think I truly realized how much I missed camping until I got back into again, now I am definitely counting down the days until we get to set up the tent again at Acadia.