A Shared “OOPS”
We’re back from Portland! Things started off on the right foot. Our friends picked us up promptly at 9:30 a.m. and we headed north to Portland. The sun was shining and our friend’s brought a great home made mix CD of 80’s staples like “Let’s Go All the Way” by Sly Fox, “Talk Dirty to Me” by Poison, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler. It was the makings of a perfect weekend getaway!
However, when we arrived in Portland, we weren’t able to check into the hotel right away so we decided to explore the Old Port. After walking around for a few hours, we noticed an old train cabin and decided to explore it. Bill, Dan and I climbed aboard the back of the train and Matt agreed to take pictures for us. Matt took Dan’s camera, backed up and took the picture. He then walked up to give Dan back his camera and grab mine. The rest was a blur. All I recall is Matt reaching over to Dan, Dan reaching out to Matt and a digital camera dropping down onto the rocky surface in slow motion. Then Bill said “Dan, that’s the second time you’ve done that!”.
Needless to say, Matt felt terrible and we all stopped taking pictures. I decided against having Matt take a picture with my camera. In fact, I may never let him touch it again.
That kind of killed our exploration of the Old Port so we checked into the hotel. Since it was fully booked they could only give us rooms on different floors, or rooms on the opposite ends of the same floor (which we selected). Little did we know that a) we’d be in a smoking room and b) it was the wheelchair accessible room. I’m not lying when I say that the bathroom was the size of most ballrooms yet the toilet itself was about three-quarters of an inch above the floor. When I sat on it, my knees practically poked my eyes out.
And the smell of the smoke – YIKES! Every single surface was saturated by the dealthy exhales of the previous guests. We never even took out clothes out of their bags since we were afraid we’d start smelling. Oh, did I mention the windows were sealed shut?
Well, the story gets worse. We met up with our friends again and started heading to the 3:00 p.m. reading of the play that our friend, Dave, wrote. On our way there I heard some splat sounds and felt a drop of moistness on my arm. We stopped and looked at Bill who, without permission, had become target practice for a seagull. It landed on his hat (fortunately, he had bought the hat just an hour before), on the front of his leg, on his shirt, on his shoe, and down the back of his leg (this bird must have had a big lunch).
We progressed to the theatre to find that, on this 80+ degree and humid day, there was no air-conditioning. All that was provided was one of those square floor fans (which, ironically, was hung from the ceiling). Although I enjoyed the play reading, we found it difficult to stay awake as a result of the oppressive heat.
We hastily left the theatre after the show so we could return to the hotel room and let Bill change his clothes, and to let me take my contact lenses out…THEY WERE KILLING ME!
We found this nice little pub to have dinner (which was quite yummy and uneventful), but as we left the pub we realized that the sky had opened up and it was raining with bright lightning in every direction. We dodged the rain by walking under awnings until we got back to the hotel for the night…at 8:15 p.m.
How pathetic is it that we were in for the night at 8:15 on a vacation? ugh. Matt and I returned to our smoke filled room and watched Scary Movie 3 before dozing off.
This morning it was still raining heavily so we blew off our plans to explore Portsmouth, New Hampshire and just drove home. Kind of sad. It wasn’t the weekend away I was hoping for.
But here’s a photo from before our luck changed. You can check out the few remaining photos in the Portland folder of my Yahoo Photo Gallerly (the link is on the right). I’ve also added a few photos to Dusty the Dog’s folder.
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Whatever happened to the 2 dudes who made up Slyfox? I had crushes on both of them — hated their music, but they were both so cute!
Karl, you forgot to mention how awesome I looked during our jaunt in Portland, Maine! …I looked stunning!
I had no idea things had been so eventful before we saw you at the play. The camera, Yikes!
Eeeuw, a stinky room like that can ruin anybody’s trip. Sorry to hear about the camera.
Somehow I can’t find the Portland folder from the link?!?