One of the benefits of being married to a super awesome photographer, apart from the privilege of being her test subject on all new equipment and techniques, is that I get to travel with her when she goes out of town for work. Sometimes this isn't all that great -- like the time we drove to middle-of-nowhere Indiana and I stayed holed up in what was barely a step up from a pay-by-the-hour motel -- but sometimes it's really pretty great.  This week was the latter.

This weekend, January is meeting up with friend and fellow photographer Gwyneth Colleen in New Hampshire to shoot a wedding together.  As luck would have it, one of the laywers I work with at the Institute for Justice owns an amazing house in Maine and is always reminding us at work that if we're ever in the area and in search of a place to stay, he would love to have guests.  I believe it's actually something of a summer house for them, and generally goes unused in the Fall / Winter months anyway, so while we were going to be on the east coast we decided to take him up on his kind offer.

Boy, am I glad we did. This place is amazing.  It actually appears to be less of a vacation house and more like a summer camp or retreat center.  The property contains, in addition to the main house, three cabins (and what looks like a fourth one being built), a boat house, and a lighthouse. The main house also has an enormous fireplace, complete with mounted moose head, that we were sure to take advantage of nightly.

The weather here has been almost perfect, especially considering the season. I spent a good part of every morning sitting out by the lighthouse reading. January referred to me as a "lizard on my rock."

Our suspicions that this place was (or still is?) used for a camp from time to time were confirmed upon entering the boathouse. It was filled with tiny life jackets, paddles, lists of rules tacked up on the wall, and croquet, horseshoes, and volleyball sets.  And two kayaks.  This was too much to pass up.

It was quite an adventure figuring out how to get into the kayaks, but after about 20 minutes of effort we were able to get it.  We padded our way about a mile up the lake, stopping intermitantly to enjoy the scenery and the quiet, before heading back to the dock. And while getting into the kayaks was a challenge, it was nothing compared to getting out of them.  It took probably about as long, but it was definitely an exercize in problem solving. We could have just tipped them over and swum out, I suppose, but that would have been a little to easy.

Apart from the kayaking, the reading, and the sitting by the fire, there wasn't much else that we did. It was an incredible week of just sitting around, relaxing, and enjoying the quiet.

Yesterday morning, I drove January down to Dover, NH to meet up with Gwyn and promptly headed back to the house to get an extra day of relaxation in and get the house cleaned up.  This afternoon I'm heading back to New Hampshire to hang out with my good friend Chalupa and his wife Liz. I haven't seen these two in coming up on two years, so it will be good to see them again.  It should be especially interesting, as we are heading down to Boston this evening for Lebowskifest. I love The Big Lebowski, but these guys take it to a whole new extreme. Should be entertaining.