Travel Log
Travel Log

Let us introduce ourselves. We are S.A.M.M. and there are five of us: four girls and one grownup. (We also had a pet rhino, several waggle-taggles and a lizard - they are plastic figures.) Mrs. Garthwait is the librarian at our school. Two of us are in fifth grade and one in seventh and one in eighth.

It was a cool and misty morning when we piled into the many-miled Subaru wagon. Three of us squashed into the back seat and one into the passenger side of the front (and one on the driver's side, of course). Our lunches were safely stowed in the back. Mrs. Garthwait started up the engine... vroom. Three assorted parents watched from the steps as we started off. We watched trees and houses float past the windows until we got to the Brewer station to tank up on gas and drinks.

We drove on for a very few miles when a train approached us at an angle. Because it felt exciting, we pulled over to watch it go by. The engineer waved to us. One, two, three... we counted the cars; there were 30 in all. After the flashing lights stopped, we drove on. Then we encountered another set of tracks and the SAME train. Oh no! we thought, this is so funny but at least we could see the other side of the cars this time. Graffiti was spray painted all over. This mountain scene was on almost all of them. We laughed hysterically and said, "Wouldn't it be so funny if we met it a third time!"
"If it's at least a mile before the next tracks," Mrs. Garthwait guessed, "We'll beat it!"

She forgot to calculate how long the train was from the beginning to the end. And we drove on only to find that the tracks crossed the road A-GAIN and the red lights were blinking A-GAIN. The train came into view. We waved at the conductor A-GAIN. And as usual he waved back and smiled.

Blue Hill

We had to stop In Blue Hill because Mrs. Garthwait was searching for a book for her homwork which she didn't find but instead she bought E.B. White Some Writer! (You'll see why we were glad to have it later). And during the day we learned a lot about EB White. All this made us hungry so we walked down town to get snacks; do you know what we got? Mrs Garthwait got a blueberry muffin. Greta got a pumpkin muffin, "because I love pumpkin." Lauren was going to get what she thought was a date bar. Emma and Hazel were going to get chocolate chip cookies. But, when we asked what it was we found out that the date bar really was a bar that had layers of graham cracker, chocolate chips, butterscotch, and coconut, with a total of seven layers! So Emma and Hazel changed their minds and got this too. Mrs. Garthwait dropped her purse in the middle of the street in Blue Hill, and all the coins fell out. All the young ones on the trip thought this was a big event! It is because of events like this that we call ourselves Searching for Authors, with Mishaps in Maine! (S.A.M.M.)

When we came back there was a cat sitting on the hood of our car. And it wouldn't move. When the car started, it finally moved slowly! It hopped onto the next car over, went into the window, and lay down on the back seat. The Car Loving Cat. (See, we got a picture of it.)

When we finally got to Brooklin, there are a couple of other things we want to tell you about. First, we had no clue that the library was where Circle of Friends garden or anything. (We had found that it existed by finding the hours on the internet.) So Greta and Mrs. Garthwait went in to ask directions, and the lady at the desk said, "You're the librarian from Orono, right?" Mrs. Garthwait said this lady had come to one of her workshops before so know who she was. The librarian, Gretchen Volnick, then told about the garden. Greta thought the Circle of Friends Garden was going to be a big garden with many sculptures of Stuart Little and his car and stuff like that, but ....

TO FIND OUT WHAT IT WAS REALLY LIKE: CLICK HERE!