Tags
acadia national park, camping, dark sky, maine, milky way, night sky festival, stargazing, stars, travel
Later this month my boyfriend and I are driving hours and hours and hours north along the coast to camp in Maine’s Acadia National Park for a few days. As soon as I flipped the calendar to June he started obsessing over the weather, dreading the days of rain the forecast currently calls for. Should we reschedule? Stay in a hotel instead? He’s driving me crazy.
Weather forecasts get it wrong all the time. This time last week, they were saying a tropical storm was gonna hit on Memorial Day. Monday was just as hot and sticky as every other day, but it only rained in the early morning. The forecast is a plan screwing jerk, so let’s not let the forecast into our lives.
This sweet man is the most optimistic person I’ve ever met, but he’s never come camping with me before. It’s time to share a big peg in my mental toolbox, to rain on his parade a little because when I go camping it almost always rains a lot and we still have fun. The trick is to assume from the beginning that it’s going to rain. Maybe that sounds cynical, but I prefer to think of this approach as a disappointment shield.
Acadia has the darkest skies on the eastern seaboard. They even have a Night Sky Festival in September. Supposedly you can see some of the thousands of stars that comprise the Milky Way. I’ve never seen the Milky Way. It’d be nice to, but there will be no starry nights when we’re there and that’s that. If there are I’ll be happy. There won’t be though (disappointed shield is activated). But hey, now we’ll remember to pack lots of plastic bags and plan our food accordingly and simply be excited to sleep outside and see what we can.
I might be wrong about the rain and this disappointment shield will instead serve as a comfy sit-upon for stargazing. Perhaps. Under The Milky Way by The Church came on as I’m writing about the Milky Way. What are the odds of that? On my Spoon Pandora station: sort of high. However, I’ll compromise and take it as a sign of the possibility that my optimist’s good fortune may clear the skies for at least one night while we’re there. But I’m pretty sure it’s gonna rain.