Adam

All our houses make certain noises uniquely theirs. Over time, we learn some of them; learn they do not herald axe-murderers entering through basement windows or dangerous new species (or ravenous prehistoric creatures) born spontaneously out of forgotten relics in the attic. The occasional branch bouncing off the roof or especially enthusiastic duct cooling may still bring me cold-sober-awake at 3 a.m. wondering WHAT the heck I’d just heard, but even some new noises can be glibly attributed – our new refrigerator has such a repertoire that any aspiring axe-murderer need only bring along a defunct concertina and ride in on a unicycle with a playing card in the spokes and we’ll just think, “Oh, that must be the frig … “.

But a noise I’m not sure I’d ever heard before I.D.’d itself with sudden and alarming clarity on the dusty gravel roads leading away from Enchanted Pond this year.

Enchanted Pond. En-chan-ted … If ever “too good to be true” were embodied in a Maine lake, this was it. We knew from topo maps and Google Earth that no roads led all the way to its shores. Which was part of the allure – like the trice-attempted Rainbow of yore, which finally took a float plane to reach, Enchanted’s remove (despite otherwise relative proximity), drew us to what we imagined to be well-earned isolation, quiet waters and dark skies. And it had a good name for our website. But all 3 of our crossed-fingers routes had ended in the dreaded impasses we’d imagined – the first petering out in a tangled clearcut; the second washed away in the miniscule trickles of a stream no canoe – nor even paper boat – could navigate; and this, the last, a road which skirted its southwestern boundaries, from which we hoped we might find a trail in.

Much about our abilities, common sense and judgment has been shown to be suspect, but we can read maps well. We’d read the fine print here enough to know there was scant hope of this dead-end road getting us near enough to our goal, but we’d traveled it to its end, parked, and gotten out with optimistic spirits. Split up into search parties and beat the bushes for that secret, unmarked, old-Indian-legend pathway of untrampled leaves that would take us to the glittering waters. But hopes waned after an hour or so of reconnoitering yielded nothing that got us down to the shore we sensed was tantalizingly nearby. Never mind easily enough to portage our kitchen sink … Nope. Zip.

Mark’s new GPS told us to within 21` of accuracy that we HAD read the map and followed the unmarked roads correctly and were right where we thought we were – somewhere close – but that’s about it. No secret old-Indian-legend paths hidden in its databases. So we did another thing at which we are adept – had lunch. Years of experience have taught us to pack the coolers (and the folding chairs) last so that they’d be easily accessible from the tailgate, and I set about preparing the repast we’d certainly earned in tilting enthusiastically after this landlocked windmill. Truth be told, it had been most of the day since leaving the passing strange porch of “The Ritz of the Carabasset” early that morning, and lunch was overdue.

With a bite or two tucked into his cheeks like a chipmunk, Mike did what he does best – wandered off again – and in between bites of our own, Mark and I agreed to one last sweep of the area for clues. But there were precious few, and it was growing late — we had to be somewhere by dusk, and this wouldn’t do. When Mike returned, we huddled around the hood of his truck to review on the map the Plans B & C I’d concocted back at home — and opted for an impromptu Plan D: Misery Pond, whose name seemed a more fitting fallback plan than the “safeties” I’d posited. We ruefully acknowledged defeat, made our peace with Plan D, and headed back up the road. A sad enough feeling at the end of a trip, but particularly wistful on Day One.

But about 5 miles into the 16 miles of return roads, I heard The Noise. We’d just turned off the loop road around Shutdown Mountain and were rejoining Upper Enchanted Road, an “intersection” marked by a little erosion gully we were crossing, when a clanking kind of ka-thunk sent my heart splashing down into my rising stomach. I KNEW what that sound was, however improbable the instant recognition. Though I wouldn’t let my mind paint the picture I knew my eyes would soon be relaying, I coasted to a stop, slid the truck into park, and named my terror. No way, said my passengers. We got out to see if I was right.

Yup. Left the tailgate open …

The next few minutes are pretty predictable. Kicking oneself in disbelief, guessing at what’s fallen out. Trying to remember how we forgot to close up. Trying not to assign blame. Trying not to imagine what it means that both coolers are gone … Dawdling in denial. Then the panic sets in; for me, anyway. I desperately needed to burn up the gravel and get back to clean up the traces of our lunatic idiocy lest anyone possessed of a functional cerebrum eyeball the incontrovertible evidence of our lack of a right to oxygen. And with the horseless barn belatedly closed up, spray gravel I did, all but four-wheel drifting around corners, racing an imaginary clock to beat some imagined-avoidable shame. As if this stain could be washed out …

A mile or so back we come to the first cooler. Amazingly, upright, but be not of good cheer – many of its contents lay scattered about nonetheless. Still, not the disaster it could have been. What would probably have been mighty tasty focaccia sandwiches have been liberally seasoned with chalky white gravel (Mike tries one anyway, deferential nod to the wasted efforts of an absent Ginger). And much ice is gone, but the rest, while dirty, is intact. We wipe it off and repack. Never mind finesse – more evidence awaits. With this errant burden back in the fold, we’re off again.

Round one curve I slow down and lean out the open driver door to scoop from the road polo-style a blaze orange hat. Then another mile, another cooler. This one on its side, a wet stain in the dust the only evidence there once was ice, most of a dozen eggs in oozing ruin, more scattered containers of condiments. Takes a little more time to corral, spoils kicked to the side of the road out of sight, and we’re off again, perhaps a little less hurried — the worst sights have been seen, and no one has seen us. We’re not even sure what else there might be; the chairs, at the least.

We stop maybe three more times, once for broken gallons of water, the last time yards from where we’d scouted for trails never found, where the chairs and a campfire grill lie almost within sight of each other. The first things went early. But then, amazingly, the other items hung on for a mile or more on the bouncy gravel roads before succumbing to the inevitable forces of inertia and gravity, finally yielding to ignominy. As we drove away the first time, nothing niggled at what passes for our minds; nothing troubled us but our failure to reach Enchanted. Until we heard that sound.

Ice and water is purchased in stores back at the main road, and we always have leftovers no matter how many courses we serve; the fallen won’t be missed. All was replaceable or irrelevant – save for our pride. At first we decided that What Happens at Misery Stays at Misery would be good policy, that none need know of our absent-minded gaffe. As if anyone would see it as mortifyingly as we did — alas, just some such moronic lapse is almost expected … No, in the end we go out there to look ourselves in the face in some small part, and stuffing this stupidity into a mental attic trunk would only leave us stupid. Better we ‘fess up, I think.

So there you have it. Large Life Lessons Learned is not the title of this tale, you’ll note, just a somewhat bashful confessional. Misery Pond, from roadside campsite to Guiness and pool while taking refuge from a gale, was the most anomalous of all our trips so far, and while it could be said to be along a discernible arc of a downward trajectory, and this debacle but punctuation in a run-on sentence describing dunces, I will always relish our ability to speak of such things, to walk up to an honest mirror and make of our reflection what we can. We can take it. Heck, at least we heard The Sound, and knew it for what it was. There are other sounds I recognize instantly, too, and one is good friends laughing. Usually at ourselves.