ADVENTURE TO NOWHERE

(Panoramic view)

My sister and I are on an adventure.

She has to sing in a concert three hours north of her house in Maine, and she wants a wing-person with whom she can make the round-trip trek in one day.  I volunteer because we manage to take reasonably decent (outstanding, actually) road trips.  I will need to keep myself entertained during the two-plus hours the group will be rehearsing prior to the concert, so I pack all kinds of stuff: coloring pages, colored pencils, a ton of pens, puzzle of all kinds, an MP3 player with ear buds, and a book on conversational French.

And, of course, I have my phone, so I can always play games with my cyber pals or go through my email.

(Google Earth of the logging road)

We exit the highway in Lewiston/Auburn, which surprises me because we are barely one hour into the trip.  Meandering through urban suburbia, it actually seems like civilization here.  There is roadwork, so orange cones are everywhere, lots of stores dot the street, and abandoned buildings are tagged with rugged and super-dangerous mid-woods of Maine anarchistic gang symbols.

It is at this point that I lose all cell phone service.

My phone has turned itself into an expensive camera and alarm clock.  Pissah.  With two more hours to go, I don't hold out much hope that I will be getting service.  I already know that I get zero service in Canada, and, since we will be just shy of the Canadian border, I suspect (rightfully so, it turns out) that if we need help and are relying on me, I will have to hitchhike back here to Lewiston just to call AAA.

(The actual logging road)

It becomes clear rather rapidly that we are in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  We pass the only place where there are other humans, a tourist attraction called Coos Canyon.  Coos Canyon has waterfalls and swimming holes and all kinds of awesome activities as it crosses the river. Well, it is supposed to. New England is in a severe drought.  A little bit of water remains pooled in puddled swatches along the rocks, but Coos Canyon presently is a pile of rocks.  These tourists might as well be at the Polar Caves.

As soon as we drive away from the canyon, we hit another patch of No Man's Land.  Plenty of people live out here because there are houses about every mile or so, but there isn't a single person anywhere about.  No children play outside, no people lounge on front porches, and no pets run around.  It's as if the world stopped and everyone here stepped off into oblivion.

Our ears start popping as we climb into the mountains.  We try to figure out where we are, but my phone won't help; I haven't had cell service since the McCarthy Era.  I usually travel with maps; my sister does not.  Since we are in her car, it means we have no maps, but it's okay because we can see a sign up ahead that looks like a town marker, the kind that separates one named town from another named town.

We get ridiculously excited over this bit of minutiae. We will finally know where we are!  We are ... we are ... we are ...  We are in Letter D!  Apparently, we have driven off the grid and ended up in Sesame Street.

My sister, who has been sipping coffee, decides she needs a potty break.  One could argue that there are no potties because we are in the middle of nowhere, but this just means that there are potties everywhere.  Any place we want to stop and drop trou becomes a pee-stop.  We search for a good place, but the shoulders of the road are sandy and deep.  If we pull over, we will not be getting out of the dusty mire, and I sure as hell can't ring for assistance.

(Google Earth of the scenic overlook)

Several logging roads have jutted out onto the road, most of them with logging trucks coming out.  We see a decent dirt road with packed down dirt and take a chance.  My sister doesn't want to go too far off the tar, and I don't want her going too far into the woods.  She saunters about fifty yards in and hides near a fir tree.  No problem.  We have not seen one single vehicle in either direction for over twenty minutes.

As soon as she starts peeing, two cars and a motorcycle come by.

I don't want anyone to think we need help, and I certainly don't want them to see my sister's butt cheeks, so I grab my phone (now a camera), stand in the open door of the car, and pretend to be taking lovely scenic pictures, smiling the whole time.  Good thing I don't really need help because all three of the vehicles zoom past me at a much higher rate than the speed limit.

Turns out we stopped at just the right place because a few short miles ahead is a scenic overlook with more people than we have seen since we left Lewiston, so maybe eight people.  There is no privacy here, even though we have the entire section of parking lot to ourselves.

(The picture I took trying to look nonchalant)

My sister checks her GPS (Dr. Nightmare, who tells us things like, "Pay no attention to that noise in the trunk," which is remarkably reassuring since we are currently experiencing a Deliverance moment).  A few scenic photos and we are back on the road to somewhere through the middle of nowhere.

Okay, seriously, I poke fun of it, but truth be told, it's absolutely breathtakingly beautiful out here.  Good thing, too, because we are still another hour from our destination.