The Texas Times, Volume 30

As the title notes, this year marks the 30th annual installment of the Texas Times. Crazy. I started putting these things together the year that Reagan was born, which means that he turned 30 this year (see how good I am at math?) ... which of course further means that Paige and I are closing in on 45. Time flies.

Kids

Reagan and Hunter are still doing their bachelor-brothers-sharing-a-house-but-living-totally-separate-lives thing in Austin. Reagan's company has been pounded by higher interest rates and he is looking for new and better software engineering opportunities. Meanwhile, Hunter continues to enjoy his work as a back-end developer at Televet. They hosted the family's Thanksgiving celebration this year, and it was great to be able to hang out with everybody for a few days.

Hadley is still working for Jeff Hamilton - State Farm in College Station and injuring herself in every way imaginable playing rec sports (including dislocating her shoulder while swinging a bat). We helped her move into a new apartment ... on the third floor ... in July ... so that was as much fun as it sounds. Hollis is finishing up his undergrad at A&M a year early and will continue into the final year of the PPA program (Master's degree in Accounting) next fall. No clue what he'll end up doing work-wise but he's hoping it will be something tax / consulting-oriented.

Us

Paige is halfway through her seventh year as Dean at KU. The big news is that she secured a $50 million gift for the Business School this summer - the 10th largest gift to a public School of Business ever. Dang, girl. She continues to refine her skills at administrative Whack-a-Mole and has firmly convinced me that no story involving Higher Ed should ever begin with the phrase, "You're not going to believe this, but ..." As for me, I enjoyed my time with the MAcc and PhD students and made the world a little safer through the magic and mystery of accounting research, and the Senior Editor gig at the Auditing journal hasn't been as bad as I'd feared (knock on wood). I would love it if Paige and I both could change gears entirely, but I'm not sure what that might look like. I've tried to convince her that we should become crofters in the Orkney islands, but she's skeptical about my grasp of sheep husbandry and her ability to find stores that sell 44-ounce beverages. I would quite literally clear out my desk and get on a plane tomorrow, but until I can get more buy-in I guess I'll keep the fire lit in my ivory tower (while hoping, as always, that no one climbs the spiral staircase and demands that I defend my existence).

Travel

I gave a couple of talks in the Netherlands and Greece and was supposed to do the same in Saudi Arabia last week, but that one got canceled as a result of the Palestinian terrorist activity in Gaza. Paige and I made a 10-day vacation out of the Netherlands gig, made countless runs to Texas, did a few quick trips to other places in the States (including seeing Fritz and Fiona), and we're capping off our 34th anniversary celebration with five days in Curacao right after New Year's. Should be a nice break from early winter in the Midwest. I have invitations for Belgium and Sicily for 2024, but my interest in work-related travel has nose-dived (nose-dove??) recently so we'll see how things play out.

Books

As usual, I'll bypass the considerable stack of old stuff I read this year and make my recommendations from more modern titles. My #1 recommendation is A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles (who wrote Rules of Civility, which I recommended a couple years ago). You should also consider The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zaffon), Cloud Cuckoo Land (Anthony Doerr, who wrote All the Light We Cannot See), The Secret History (Donna Tartt, who wrote The Goldfinch), We Must Not Think of Ourselves (Lauren Grodstein), The Dean's Watch (Elizabeth Goudge), and On the Marble Cliffs (Ernst Junger). The last two books were published in 1960 and 1939, respectively, but that's recent enough for me to think of them as not being "old." I'll also do you the favor of suggesting that you stay Very Far Away from The Narrow Road Between Desires (Patrick Rothfuss). It took Mr. Rothfuss 10 years to put together the most recent entry in the Kingkiller Chronicles (which is an outstanding series), and his muse appears to have left for greener pastures.

Music

There's an album for many different tastes in this year's music list. No R&B, no Taylor Swift (!!!), no whiny boys trying to be the next Bon Iver, and no indie girls sitting cross-legged on their beds playing the ukulele and breathily lamenting their relationship problems ... but if you're looking for high-quality obscurity, you've come to the right place.

• Matteo Mancuso - The Journey ... Mind-bending and genre-defying rock / jazz / fusion guitar (all instrumental), somewhat reminiscent of Eric Johnson but better and plays with bare fingers like a classical guitarist. Here's a representative track.
  
  
• Mighty Poplar - Mighty Poplar ... Americana / Bluegrass goodness featuring at least two of the original players from Punch Brothers plus Andrew Marlin from Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange). Here's a live performance of my favorite track from the album.
  
  
• Colter Wall - Little Songs ... Not quite as good as his previous albums but still good. Try this one.
  
  
• Christopher Tin - The Lost Birds (full set) and To Shiver the Sky (full set) ... Similar to Colter Wall being what Johnny Cash would be like if Johnny Cash were actually talented, Christopher Tin is like Eric Whitacre sans pretense.
  
  
• Dylan Leblanc - Coyote ... Singer-songwriter stuff with frequently moody and well-considered orchestration. Paige heard me listening to him a few nights ago and was like "who is that??" So that's a thumbs-up from The Boss. Try this one.
  
  
• Dirty Honey - Can't Find the Brakes ... Think early Black Crowes, sort of. Best comment is from a friend who simply said "Yeah, that does not sound like it was made in 2023." Correct. Try this one.

Video

All recommendations are from Across the Pond, as is my custom. We tried watching a much heralded U.S. show last week -- A Murder at the End of the World -- and 10 minutes in I'd found it unbearable. Wait, we actually liked Outer Range quite a bit, and that is a U.S. show (Amazon Prime original) from this year. So I stand semi-corrected. Other than that, my top recommendations are Payback; the new season of Dalgliesh; the new season of Shetland (Tosh is doing just fine as temporary DCI, thank you very much); The Thief, His Wife, and the Canoe; Neboa; The Dublin Murders; Holding; Karen Pirie; Spies of Warsaw (made in 2013 but we didn't watch it until this year); and all of the seasons of C.B. Strike. 

Food

After much deliberation, I decided this week that I would share my chili recipe. You can find it here. It has been a work-in-process for many years, but I've stopped fiddling and it's now ready to blow your mind.

Words

I have two entries in the Prohibited Words list this year. The first and most important entry is "perfect." My momentum for banning this word has been building for the last couple of years, but the following actual conversation with Coffee Shop Girl (CSG) in mid-2023 pushed me over the edge:

Me: I'd like a medium Americano, please
CSG: PurrrrFECt! (jumping about 3 whole steps between the Purrrr and the FECt)
CSG: Hot or cold?
Me:  Hot, please (rolls eyes because no man almost 45 years old drinks cold coffee)
CSG: PurrrrrrrrrrFECt! 
CSG: Cream?
Me: Nope
CSG: PurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrFECt!
CSG: That'll be $4.00
Me: [taps card ... hears beep]
CSG: PurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrFECt!

No joke. 

Next, we have "space." Universities love to refer to themselves as "spaces" ... like spaces that allow people to be their "authentic selves" (no, I don't know what that means either) or ensure that people feel like they "belong" or whatever other pandering wordplay seems proper as we continue to encourage fragility and navel-gazing among young people instead of preparing them to be productive, independent adults. Henceforth, my rules say that "space" may only be used when referring to the zone above our planet, the bar at the bottom of your computer keyboard, or politicians (as in a "waste of ...").

On the plus side of the ledger, I saw something today that referred to "phubbing," so of course I had to look that up. The Cambridge Dictionary indicates that phubbing is "the act of ignoring someone you are with and giving attention to your cell phone instead." While I've often stated that if I could eradicate one invention in the History of Mankind it would be the cell phone (shakes fist at cloud), I'll also note that those of you who are phubbing someone as you read my blog are totally good.

Whatever the case, I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas / New Year / & Etc. Our kids have begun arriving and will be here for varying lengths of time. I am ready to embrace the chaos. 

God Bless,

Mike (& Paige)

Thessaloniki

Last week, I had the pleasure of traveling to Thessaloniki, Greece to present a paper, discuss another one, and help with the PhD Student Consortium at the bi-annual European Audit Research Network conference. I don't usually travel much during fall because that is when I teach, but I've attended this conference before (and had a good time) and I'd never been to Greece ... so ... I handed off my Tuesday PhD seminar to a couple of junior faculty and gave the MAcc students Wednesday off. Paige wasn't able to come along because there is no way she could spare 5-6 days in September, but I managed to have a good time anyway.

Travel through Chicago and Frankfurt was relatively uneventful, and I landed late Tuesday afternoon about 16 hours after leaving KC. Walked around a bit with my friend Anna from Vrije University (Amsterdam) down by the seaside and had dinner at a terrific rooftop restaurant overlooking Aristotelous Square.

On Wednesday, a buddy of Anna's who works at a university in Sweden but is a Thessaloniki native (because that is how Europe works) drove us 2 1/2 hours to Meteora, a collection of Eastern Orthodox monasteries built hundreds of years ago on top of a series of rocky outcroppings up in the mountains. It is an extremely cool place, but the dozens upon dozens of gigantic buses toting tourists around did manage to take the edge off a little bit. I definitely recommend going if you are nearby because it is a one-of-a-kind experience regardless. But if you can manage to hit it during the off-season, that would be even better.

The next morning, I spent a few hours walking a big loop from the hotel (the Mediterranean Palace, highly recommended) around some of the more interesting / historic parts of town. The first half of the loop ran up through the old Ano Poli neighborhoods past several orthodox churches, the 1st century Roman Forum, a monastery, and various sections of late Roman era walls and towers. 

As usual, though, some of the more appealing bits were just random glimpses of life in the area's many labyrinthine streets and alleys. Some of this part of town reminds me of the Albaicin neighborhoods in Granada, although Thessaloniki in general isn't as appealing to me as Granada (which was the high point of our trip to Spain in 2019).

After spending some time poking around in the neighborhoods near the old walls, I meandered back downhill toward the bay and checked out the Rotunda (sort of a poor man's Pantheon), the Arch of Galerius (Caesar), and some of the ruins of his 4th century palace. All of these things are right in the middle of town, and many of the office and apartment buildings that were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s apparently were built on ground that covers similar (perhaps less expansive???) ruins. They've been trying to build a subway system in Thessaloniki since the 1980s, but there are so many Roman era ruins underground that they've encountered almost continual delays. Some of the system is supposed to be finished in 2024 and I guess we'll see how things go from there.

The rest of my time in town was spent doing stuff with the conference, but we had a productive time there, did a lot of useful mixing and mingling, ate really good food (apparently it is impossible NOT to do that in Greece), and even had an interesting folk music and dance exhibition at the conference dinner event Saturday night. As for specific restaurants, the Elektra Palace Hotel is home to the rooftop restaurant (which was excellent), and we also really enjoyed Charoupi (Greek / Cretan fusion stuff) and Rodi Kai Meli (aka Ρόδι & Μέλι,). Our 20-ish waitress at the latter place moved (errrr ... fled) to Greece from Ukraine shortly after the war began and was one of the happiest, most endearing people I've ever met.

Overall, I wouldn't push Thessaloniki as a must-go destination, but it is an interesting city with a vibe that is very different from most of the places I've been ... probably more similar to Istanbul (minus the minarets and calls to prayer) than anywhere else. I'd very much like to go to Athens and some of the islands, and I certainly can see that happening one of these days. But only when I can get The Boss to come along.

Cheers,

Mike

Netherlands

This year's early summer trip was 10 days in the Netherlands. We had never been there and honestly it had never been super high on my list of potential destinations, but I got asked to present a paper at a university in Rotterdam and spend a day or two talking to their faculty and PhD students, so we decided to make a go of it. Now that we've been, I can definitely say that it's a worthwhile trip. Rather than giving a potentially (likely) tedious rundown of things, though, I've decided to just make a summary judgment and give a few brief recommendations to go along with a decent number of pics. 

Summary Judgment

Rotterdam is fine, Haarlem is great, Delft and Leiden are amazing, and Amsterdam is as though the entire population of Houston has been forced to live in a town the size of Lawrence, Kansas and there is a mandate that at any point in time 90% of people have to be riding bicycles with no regard for what typically would pass for traffic laws while the other 10% are randomly spreading trash on the streets.

Brief Recommendations

Haarlem is like a mini-Amsterdam with a lot more character. If you start your Dutch festivities there (it's maybe 15 miles west of the airport), you'll also have an opportunity to practice not being killed by a cyclist before tackling Amsterdam proper. Haarlem was the home of Corrie Ten Boom of The Hiding Place fame (if you grew up Protestant, you probably know who she is), and the family home is now a museum. Haarlem also has a couple of cool churches and our favorite restaurant from the entire trip -- De Lachende Lavaan, an Indonesian place with a traditional rice table format that was fabulous.

Delft definitely is one of the most charming European towns I've visited. The population supposedly is around 100,000, but it feels a lot smaller. There are at least three cathedrals within probably 1/4 mile of each other, lots of cool small streets and back alleys to go along with the obligatory canals, and the feel is just terrific. My two recommendations for Delft are that you spend as much time as possible just randomly walking around (to be fair, that is always my main recommendation) and that you steadfastly avoid Angkor Restaurant (no matter what the reviews say). Where accommodations are concerned, I don't think you can do better than Leo and Yvonne's place. It's in a perfect location, is roomy, and has a washer and dryer that actually do what they're supposed to do -- a true oddity in Europe.

Leiden is about the same size as Delft and is similarly engaging, but in a totally different way. I mean, yes it has water and lots of labyrinthine streets and alleys, but it also manages to feel very bright and modern. I can't quite put my finger on why, but we really loved it. We had lunch with a friend of mine from a university in Amsterdam who has lived in Leiden for years, and I fully understand why she made that decision. My main recommendation for Leiden is simply that you make time to GO there (about 30 minutes from Amsterdam by train). And while you're there, you definitely should visit the botanical gardens on the campus of Leiden University.

My summary judgment notwithstanding, Amsterdam does have a few redeeming qualities. The Royal Palace was a hit, but it isn't always (or even often) open to visitors. Food can be good, with Maenaam Thai and Baibua Thai knocking it out of the park, and the tiny and bustling Soup en Zo providing a terrific carryout lunch option close to the Rijksmuseum. Shopping close to the Rijksmuseum is also solid, with a number of places with antique jewelry, vintage watches and clocks, and other old stuff. I'll also recommend the Ambassade Hotel for its location, history, service, and the fact that its bar area has 5,000+ first edition books signed by authors who have stayed there. Very cool concept.

So ... overall, I give the Netherlands a solid B+. Where it feels substantially different from most of the rest of western Europe is in the area of interesting / noteworthy history. While I'm sure the Dutch check a lot of boxes in that area, they don't really sell it. That being said, the people are nice, there is some lovely scenery, and it's an easy trip to make from the US. 

As for future travel, we'll go to Texas at least once this summer (feels like we've been about 17 times in the last three months), and I have two domestic work-related trips in August. Plus I'm presenting a paper at a conference in Greece in September and am supposed to give a couple talks at another one in Saudi Arabia in December. Although work trips don't usually afford much time for blogworthy adventures and commentary, we'll see how that goes.

Cheers,

Mike 

The Texas Times, Volume 29

Greetings All!

2022 has come and (almost) gone, and as I sit down to try to assemble a semi-entertaining missive, I'm struck primarily by how much I'm hurting for decent material. Paige and I spent some time in Vegas and Death Valley in January and 10 days in Maine in June, but the rest of the year seems simply to have vanished. Like they say, time flies when you're having fun old.

Kids

Reagan and Hunter still have the same software engineer gigs they had last year (knock on wood). They moved out of their respective apartments in March and are renting a house together in north Austin. Cheaper, a lot more room, and they get along well enough to make it work. Hadley continues to be a Good Neighbor for State Farm in College Station. She played rec softball and soccer this year and came up for a football and basketball game in November, which was terrific. Hollis is halfway through his second year at Texas A&M and has decided to major in Accounting. He'll be interning with Alvarez & Marsal (a global consulting firm) in Dallas this summer. We got the band back together for Thanksgiving in College Station, which was swell, and everybody will be up here for Christmas. WooHoo!

Us

Paige and I are still plugging along. My MAcc students were fun this fall, and my on-the-job-market PhD student placed well and close to home (Go 'Pokes). On the research front, I'll be starting a three-year term as the Senior Editor of the journal of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association in June. Those of you who don't know what that means can be (unjustifiably) impressed and those of you who do know what that means can chuckle and feel sorry for me. As for Paige, she got renewed for a second five-year term as Dean of the KU School of Business this year. I continue to lobby for a career change involving miniature horses or buffalo, and she continues to ignore me, but she's deadly cute all the while. Last week, we celebrated (and are continuing to celebrate) 33 years of uninterrupted marital bliss.

Lower Education, Part 1

Last week, Paige pointed me to an article indicating that the basic algebra requirement might be eliminated for all state universities in Kansas. The fact that 1/3 of undergraduates fail the class (which most people take as high school freshmen) has led some parties to conclude that it might be an unnecessary roadblock ... and that maybe individual departments / majors should be able to decide what (if any??) math should be required. Quantitative fields generally require some form of calculus. What might be the new requirement elsewhere? Number lines? Or maybe remedial counting (not beyond two digits, of course, so as to ensure success)? 

As an interesting counterpoint, I recently got a card from a MAcc student who had never made a B in her entire life until she made one in my class this semester. Among other things, she said that she thought it was "... only right to write this note to you after the semester I had. You taught me resilience, whether you meant to or not. I was constantly challenged in your course (in a good way) and after a few kicks to the ego I learned to adapt and continue." Hmmm, perhaps pushing people and helping them grow is a reasonable alternative to eliminating standards and distributing participation trophies (errr ... degrees)?

Lower Education, Part 2

For the past few years, I've suggested a list of words that I think should be prohibited either because they no longer have meaning or because they've just become annoying. I was going to do the same again this year, highlighting gems like "headwinds," "spaces," and "process" ... but instead I've decided to point you to the new list of prohibited words put together by the good folks at Stanford University. The main difference, of course, is that my list is good whereas their list is nonsensical.

The Stanford List is 12 pages (single-spaced) long and includes reasons for why the offending words should no longer be used. For example, one can no longer "master" something (presumably, master's degrees will become a thing of the past) because "historically, masters enslaved people." It also is not OK to use the phrase "beat a dead horse" because that "normalizes violence against animals." One should not use the word "blackballed" because it assigns negative connotations to the color black (despite the fact that the word originated in the 1700s when people cast "against" votes by placing a black ball in a ballot box), nor should one use the word "ballsy" because doing so attributes personality traits to anatomy. Using "trigger warning" is now also out of bounds (never mind that it was similar-thinking geniuses who developed the phrase in the first place) because the mere utterance of these words evidently can "cause stress about what is to follow." I am not making that up. 

Hey, instead of arbitrarily restructuring the English language every five seconds, how 'bout we all just put on our big boy panties ... sorry ... "big person panties" ... oh, wait ... not "big" either ... hmmm ... "mature??" ... no, that's probably age-ist ... sigh ... and apparently "panties," at least according to The Atlantic, is either sexualized or infantilized (choose your fighter, please) ... so ... maybe ... put on our person-having-reached-the-age-of-majority undergarm-- ... wait, what were we talking about?

Book Recommendations

As usual, I'll bypass all of the old stuff I read this year and make my recommendations from a list of authors who are a bit more recent. First, after reading a couple things for the first time and revisiting a few other things, I'm firmer than ever in my conviction that Neil Gaiman is the best author from the past 50 years ... yes, including Cormac McCarthy (although it's a photo-finish). If you're unfamiliar with Mr. Gaiman's work, you might begin with shorter pieces like Coraline (no, it's not really a children's book) and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but I could also see jumping straight to Neverwhere (which I have recommended before) or American Gods. You can't go wrong, regardless. Second, you should consider The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd. It's a terrific example of how a compelling story can compensate for writing that is sometimes clumsy. Finally, I'll recommend a newish translation of the Poetic Edda (Old Norse narrative poems) by Jackson Crawford - a PhD cowboy formerly at the University of Colorado (now freelancing) who has a YouTube channel devoted to All Things Old Norse. If you're into that kind of thing at all, you should give him a look-see.

Music Recommendations

In the music department, I have three noteworthy discoveries from 2022. First, Beach Bunny manages to channel (periodically) a late 80s college band vibe that I really like. Here is a representative example. The other two artists I'll recommend are, oddly enough, both from Iceland. Eydis Evensen in a pianist / crafter of haunting melodies, while Laufey is a jazz vocalist / multi-instrumentalist (piano / cello / guitar / who knows what else?) in her early 20s who sounds like she has been doing things for a whole lot longer. You can see them in action here and here, respectively. Laufey's clip is short and sort of random, but gives you a bare bones idea of what she's capable of. She recently released an album with full orchestra and such that you definitely should check out (Everything I Know About Love), and if you would like a little of her very own special Christmas cheer you can click here. Go ahead. If you have any taste at all, you will not be disappointed.

Video Recommendations

Longtime readers know that pretty much the only things we watch are foreign mysteries. With that as the backdrop, I heartily recommend Astrid, Dalgliesh, Raven, The Ipcress File, A Murder of Crows, and Sherwood. Not all of these shows were produced this year, but that's when we found them. Outside the mystery set is the new (as opposed to 1970s) production of All Creatures Great and Small, which is about as wholesome as you can get.

Random Discoveries

Finally, here are some random, yet noteworthy, discoveries from 2022.

Magazine: New Criterion 
Produce: Cosmic Crisp (apples)
Men's shoes: Crockett & Jones
Dresses: Nora Gardner
Cookie recipe: Chocolate Chip Oatmeal
Coffee beans: Medici Roasting
Bible translation: English Standard (coming from a longtime KJV fan)
Watch straps: Wolbrook (rubber) and Bas & Lokes (leather)
Meat: Wild Idea Buffalo (ground and links are great; steaks are spotty)
KC hotel: The Inn at Meadowbrook

Closing Christmas Cheer

A couple weeks ago, students were asking why I didn't have a photo ornament on their tree in the MAcc lounge. I told them it was because I'm not cool enough to have an office in the suite with the people who actually run the MAcc program (and who do have ornaments on the tree). They said I should make a star and hang it myself, so ...

It doesn't dance in the night or have a tail as big as a kite, but it was good for a few laughs.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and God Bless!

Mike and Paige
mw0705@gmail.com
lpaigefields@gmail.com
1118 Brynwood Court
Lawrence, KS 66049

Maine

Despite not knowing much about Maine, I've always wanted to go there. I read Thoreau's The Maine Woods when I was in college, and I know the state is famous for moose, lobster, and lighthouses, but that's about where it ends. So ... when I was bouncing potential summer vacation spots off of Paige back in April, I was happy when Maine found its way to the top of the pile.

Rather than give a blow-by-blow description of what we did during our 10-day visit, I'm just going to highlight a few things. To begin, I'll say that Maine is a study in contrasts: geographic (or topographic, perhaps) contrasts and people contrasts. An awful lot of the western and northern third of the state - some of which we visited and most of which we did not - is nothing but dense woods, various bodies of water, and gravel or dirt logging roads (with zero cell service). These areas are heavily forested, at times suffocatingly so. As Thoreau notes, "What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you imagined. Except for the few burnt-lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams, the forest is uninterrupted." In that regard, what was true of the region northwest of Bangor in 1846 remains largely true in 2022. 

Meanwhile, the coastal areas are pretty much what you might expect. Except they aren't. There's virtually no sand, the beaches are rocky and rugged, and a good bit of the afore-mentioned dense vegetation makes its way all the way to the cliffs that top the shoreline. There are also, conservatively, 12 million islands of various shapes and sizes off the coast, which would explain why Maine has 65 lighthouses. 

With respect to people contrasts, the state appears to be roughly evenly split between free-range, organic, recycled artisanal light bulb buyers and "Don't Tread On Me." I'm sure there is middle ground somewhere, but I didn't see it.

The western and northern part of the state, in addition to being as green as green can possibly be, are loaded with moose. The catch, though, is that because there is So. Much. Country, one has to pick one's spots, be diligent, and be lucky in order to catch glimpses of them. In moose-heavy country, we probably spent 15 hours driving around in likely spots (dawn and dusk, obviously) and 10 hours hiking in likely spots, and saw a total of six moose. What I can tell you is that the roads around Rangeley, Stratton, and Kokodjo are good spots, as are boggy areas beside Department of Transportation facilities (presumably due to winter salt runoff).

As much as I loved the remoteness of central and western Maine, I've gotta say that the northeast coast is my favorite area. We spent two nights in Lubec, which is the easternmost point in the United States, and I definitely can see returning to that area in the future. There are loads of recreational and sightseeing opportunities and very few people. Particularly noteworthy areas are Quoddy State Park, Hamilton Cove, Boot Head Preserve, Western Head Preserve, and the Cutler Coast Public Reserve Land in general ... but if you just check a map of the northeast coast, you'll see that all sorts of things pop up.

If, on the other hand, you want your recreation to be a bit more civilized and you'd appreciate more opportunities for good restaurants, you could target Bar Harbor. Bar Harbor is an upscale tourist town (I'm sure residents would resent that characterization, but whatever) adjacent to Acadia National Park. My main observation about Acadia is that it probably is THE national park you should visit if you're terrified of being alone. I specifically planned our trip so we would be at the park mid-week, yet it still felt like Grand Central Station. As a point of comparison, Acadia gets considerably more visitors than Glacier National Park (our favorite in the U.S. Park system) and is 5% as large. I haven't ever understood enjoying (???) nature alongside throngs of strangers, but I certainly am glad that most people are content to leave other places for the rest of us. Again, if you would rather have scenery and outdoor adventures that are every bit as good - arguably better - but a lot less hectic, just continue northeast up the coast for 75 miles or so and you'll basically have things to yourself.

One sidebar regarding Acadia ... While most of the decent hikes in the park won't afford you anything remotely resembling solitude, the Dorr Mountain Trail is a notable exception. There are many ways to reach the summit, but the route I chose is a 3.5 mile loop that climbs (and then descends) around 1200 feet. The South path, which runs around 2.3 miles to the top, is more gradual, and the North path, which includes the aptly named Ladder Trail, features the same vertical distance crammed into about 1.2 miles. Most of the North path involves granite steps carved or placed into the mountain and going dead straight up. It seriously feels like you're with Sam, Frodo, and Gollum as they're making their way into Mordor via the back stairs to Cirith Ungol. I've included a representative picture below, but because it's 2-D you can't really get a feel for it. At times it is absolutely comical. In three different spots, there are metal ladders bolted into the face of the rock where steps were a no-go (again, see below). I point all of this out to indicate that of the trails I researched that looked to have decent payoff, this is the only one that seemed like it would be tolerably unpeopled. I saw zero people on the way up, 3 people on the summit, and 8-9 people on my way down. Paige wanted me to clarify that she most emphatically did NOT make this trek, so consider yourself enlightened there.

Another sidebar regarding Acadia ... Many people who come to Bar Harbor book short cruises in the hopes of seeing things like puffins and seals. The boats that leave Bar Harbor are big. Meanwhile, if you drive an hour northeast of Bar Harbor, you can book with Acadia Puffin Cruise, which is a family operation with a single boat that holds around 15 people. Because the boat is small, it's able to get quite close to the places where puffins and seals congregate. The main island this outfit visits is Petit Manan, which is about a 30-minute ride out to sea. Our experience was terrific.

We finished off the trip with half a day in Portland. That's half a day more than I would recommend spending in Portland (unless you're into congestion and free-range, organic, recycled artisanal light bulbs), but the Portland Head Light - Maine's oldest lighthouse, established in 1791 - is only about 25 minutes from the airport.

To close things out, I'll make a few recommendations. Every accommodation and pub / restaurant we visited gets a grade of B or better, but these are the A grades.

Lodging

• Maple Hill Farm Inn, near Augusta - 100+ year-old house on 130+ acres, also serving as the poster child for why small inn owners should not build their own websites.
  
• Walden Farm, near Greenville - Upstairs at a family farm close to good moose areas.
  
• Highbrook Motel, Bar Harbor - Looks like a 1950s motor lodge and basically is, but with rave reviews, great location, family-operated, super-quiet, maybe the cleanest place we've ever stayed.
  
• West Quoddy Station, Lubec - Very cool use of an old, abandoned Coast Guard rescue station.

Food

• Water Street Tavern, Lubec
  
• Havana, Bar Harbor
  
• West Street Cafe, Bar Harbor (do NOT miss the crab cakes and stuffed haddock)
  
• Coplin Dinner House, Stratton

Oh ... and one final point that will be critical if you're planning a Maine-land driving adventure: budget a lot more time than you ordinarily would. Especially in the central and western parts of the state, getting from Point A to Point B is sort of hilarious. It's not obvious when you take a first glance at your route, but before you know it you're on narrow, semi-maintained (charitably) roads winding all over the place as you navigate toward your destination. That being said, you'll see some gorgeous country in these areas. You'll also be exposed to some stellar rural Maine living (see below, with blue toilet by mailbox but missing the fence made of rusty bicycles). Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

That's all for now. I'm trying to talk Paige into going to Savannah for a Flannery O'Connor pilgrimage in a few weeks, but she's claiming to be too busy at the moment. If I can change her mind, you might hear from me again this summer. If not, I'll see you around Christmas.

Mike