A quick rambly post for you:
As I write this, I am sitting enjoying some deliciously cool and dry air at a camp site in Fundy National Park in New Brunswick (that's in Canada, for the geographically challenged of you out there). Technically we are in the town of Alma, which is very proud of the fact that its location on the Bay of Fundy makes it the town with the biggest difference between high and low tide in the world. Being an eloquent folk, their motto is "Alma....see that water over there eh? Sometimes it is much higher and other times it is much lower. What's that? No, it doesn't happen very quickly. No dramatic wall of water or rapids or anything. But if you watch it for six hours you will notice a slow change in water height that is significant over that time frame. Alma!"
The last few days we have been basically off the grid, but shortly before that we enjoyed an absolutely epic weekend in Acadia National Park. Now, we had both been there before - you might have remembered that we ran a marathon there a couple years ago (no big deal), but the crippling pain of that weekend left little time for exploring and contrary to popular opinion, the course of the Mount Desert Island Marathon does a pretty lousy job at taking advantage of the spectacular landscape. And so it was a priority to go there, and the fact that fate made it happen over the 4th of July weekend was just something we had to deal with.
Our dilemma was that being a national park, boondocking (camping without being at a camp site) is tough to do and reservations were all but impossible to come by. Plus, we are cheap. Enter: couchsurfing.org. This is a site new to my awareness but I see a bright future for us. Basically, it is a social network for people to host fellow travellers for free - offer your couch to random strangers? Sure! Sleep in the house of a potential serial killer? Why not! We decided to give it a try.
And this is how we found ourselves pulling into a house just outside of Bar Harbor last Friday evening. This house was lived in by three fascinating people about our own age - the names have been changed to protect the innocent:
Caption Jack Sparrow - bartends in the summer, runs his own charter sailing business out of Grenada during the winter on his sail boat doing month long trips to uninhabited islands. Well, usually - he took last winter off from this 'work' to spend surfing in Baja California, Mexico.
Anthony Bordain - personal chef for a billionaire family with summer residences in Bar Harbor. Also travels during the winter to their various ski resorts to be on call in case they need a snack. Tore his ACL last winter teaching the heiress how to backcountry ski.
Jesus Lebowski - never actually learned what this guy did, but he looks like what you would get if Jesus and Jeffrey Lebowski had a love child (ok I'm no theologian, but I'm pretty sure Jesus was no stranger to non-traditional conception). Shows up SUP'ers by walking on water wearing a bathrobe.
I won't lie - the place was kind of a frat house. Ping pong table and kegerator in the living room about says it all. But - the guys left the place unlocked for us, wrote 'Couchsurfers - mi casa su casa', and let us plug the camper in for AC without ever meeting us. In fact, we barely got to see them at all since we were up early each morning to spend all day hiking and their jobs had them sleeping in to work late (frankly, best case scenario for us introverts.)
All in all - we were able to get two full days in Acadia for free just by putting ourselves out there. Now yes - there are massive asterisks here. Having our camper and not needing to sleep on the couch (which we would never have wanted to inspect under a black light), cooking our own food bought at the grocery store before entering the park, and having already bought the national park pass (although ironically we were never challenged to produce - Acadia runs on the honor system apparently). And yes, technically we could have been 'murdered and made into lamp shades' - all trivial details. But all we bought were a couple of cold drinks at Jordan House on day 1 and a Snickers ice cream bar and a cold drink on top of Mt. Cadillac on day 2. That was it. Overall a pretty successful weekend!
As glorious as the weekend was, it was very interesting to meet Jack, Anthony and Jesus and get a glimpse of another lifestyle. These guys are all early 30's, very bright and successful in their own ways. They might share a sketchy apartment and almost certainly do not have 401k's and are not as 'successful' as us by most metrics. And yet the shit they have done puts us to shame - adventures literally all over the world and a lifestyle that gives them months at a time to have them.
We should all try to keep in mind that the path laid out before us is not the only one. We get stuck in the mind set that our life is a revolving door of five work days and two days full of chores to take care of our houses, pay for our cars, and watch our tv. It is certainly one way to go about life and there is great value in the certainty and the routine - seriously, I get it. Just ask Lindsay how much I have been bitching about missing my comfort zone of work, eat, exercise, sleep (ok there was more eating than that). We both see ourselves establishing these kinds of routines again and I am yearning for it, however I find the alternatives out there to be very interesting.
We have also used couchsurfer to hook up with a young pastor lady up near Sydney NS, our last stop before heading to Newfoundland. Seems like a drastically different person from the trio we met in Bar Harbor, but it will be great to meet her (and great to shower).
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