Aren’t vacations the best thing since sugar tong splints and fracture boots? I mean, what an opportunity to see new places, explore new destinations, revisit old haunts. Do tomorrow what you don’t get done today – manana, baby, manana.

Rather than fly off to the exotic destinations I hear everyone talking about around the office, my wife and I opted to spend our two weeks off right here, enjoying the finest scenery anywhere. We headed for the coast and my parents’ summer cottage in Milbridge where they change the water out front twice a day and cleanse the spruce with morning fog, where the osprey and eagles soar by at least once a day, and the lobster boats growl by well before sunrise.

And there are the occasional sailors in their graceful sloops, yawls and ketches who stop by for the night in the safe anchorage across the bay at Trafton Island. We joke about heading over to collect dockage fees.

Early mornings are reserved for a hot cup of coffee and quiet meditation – and some entertaining chatter on the VHF radio. I tell you, you don’t need a newspaper or television station to keep up on the day’s events. The lobstermen out on the water will keep you tuned in and informed, provided, of course, you can interpret the dialect.

Later, there’s time to Google Down East style – go exploring. There are yard sales, “antique” shops and, or course, ever-beautiful scenery.

We began our time off gradually. Friends dropped by, we cooked lobster, invited cousin Fred over for supper, later watched the meteor showers. Along about Monday when we decided to take the kayaks out (had them off the roof and ready to launch) the sound of distant thunder canceled those plans. (Put away the gear, repack the back of the truck, reload the kayaks…)

Fine, we’ll visit friends one peninsula over.

They weren’t home.

OK, we’ll just do some exploring. Off we went to Harrington and the reward for the day was a great egret standing in the marsh some 200 yards from Route 1A. Our first great egret sighting! We watched for 10 minutes or so while cars and trucks sped by inches away in the travel lane.

Back on the road, Jasper Beach beckoned. (Take a right off Route 1 in Machias, drive about 10 miles down a blacktop road and turn left when you see the big radar dome.)

We strolled the length of the pebble beach as the fog danced in and out. More than an hour later, our pockets bulged with tiny, shiny stones (they all look so neat when they’re wet), we waddled back to the truck.

Pettegrow Point called us down for a look as fishermen came in from their tasks. The sun highlighting the fog over the water made for a beautiful picture. Life was good!

Until that tick, tick, tick, ticking sound started coming from the tires as I pulled back onto the blacktop. Maybe it was just a rock and it would fall out.

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

Maybe it needed a little prying to free it from the tread. I stopped, got out and did the four corner inspection. There, on the back right, in the middle of the tread, sat not a stone, but a 3/8-inch, self tapping hex-head bolt with a little less than a half inch of thread exposed above the tread.

As I yanked on it and heard the sickening sound of escaping air, I decided that screwing it in all the way was a better idea. Gingerly, we drove the 9 or so miles back to Machias, where no doubt, help (spelled Triple A) would arrive on a white horse. We called.

Back in Machias we pulled into Helen’s parking lot and waited. (Hey, you pay for these services, why not use them. Besides, my wife insisted I not get my new, light-colored L.L. Bean tropical pants dirty.)

Darkness began to approach and I decided I should, at least, get out the necessary tool to lower the spare tire from its hiding place up under the back of the Explorer. That meant unpacking some 10,000 pounds of paddling and camping gear (we planned to use some of it at some point, why not cart it around?).

We struck up a conversation with the gentleman painting lines in the parking lot (turns out he used to work with cousin, Joe), and another nice man up from Portsmouth, N.H., visiting his mother. He stayed for the longest time and chatted. A bit nervous about never seeing the Triple A man, I decided to loosen the lug nuts and jack the axle. Much grunting and sweating later, mission accomplished. Then after more of a frustrating wait, I decided to change the tire myself, since dark clouds were accumulating to the north and west.

No matter how hard I tried, the 14 mm hole pattern on the spare wheel was not going to fit on the 12 mm lug pattern on the vehicle. You can get one stud and hole to line up, but that’s it. (Several incantations were in order.)

The friendly Portsmouth man offered that the Irving station just up the road probably had a tire patch kit. Naw, the Triple A man will know what to do. Guess what? When he did show up and grasp the situation he was out of ideas as well. (He came under the pretense that all he was going to do was help change a tire.) He couldn’t actually recommend that I patch the tire – but he would give me a ride up to the station while I bought the repair kit.

Portsmouth man, Triple A man and I manage to remove the bolt from the tire, ream an even bigger hole in the tread, glue up a plug and shove it into the carcass. Voila! No leak. Triple A man had an air tank and topped off my newly plugged tire and we were back on the now dark, rain soaked highway. Thanks, Triple A man (he had a cordless impact wrench) and Portsmouth Man (he had a flashlight to shed light on our patching party). We wished one of them had a sandwich to spare since we didn’t have a chance to grab a bite to eat in all the confusion. The plug, by the way, is still doing its job – not a pound of air has escaped! Now I’ve got to find a different wheel…

Tuesday we got a chance to paddle. Wednesday we got a chance to sail with cousin Fred. The near gale conditions didn’t settle with my wife nor Fred’s 19-foot Lightning Class Sara Sue. We broke the connection between the jib sheets and the jib and it flapped mercilessly like a flag in a gale as we bobbed precariously about the Harrington River. Whitecaps threatened to join us in the boat. I was able to keep the boat headed up while Fred jousted with the errant jib and managed, somehow, to coral it and jury-rig a connection. Otherwise we’d have been up the river or worse. We limped home.

Thursday Kathy and I got in another paddle – this one down to the end of Tom Leighton Point. Turned out to be a nice outing. We capped it off with an evening at the Milbridge Theater and stunning lightning show afterward. The sky was electric with non-stop jolts for about an hour. We turned out the lights and had a nightcap, mesmerized by the display. Truly awesome!

Friday was another Google day. We returned to Machias for the beginning of the Blueberry Festival and later, on our way back to Milbridge, we swung down to Roque Bluffs State Park for a walk on the beach. Another day in paradise! Could life be better? Not much!

Until Saturday, of course, when I was the victim of a Great White Shark attack that left me hobbled! There I was, bobbing innocently on a glassy sea, lost in reverie as I watched the terns dive for their dinner. Suddenly and without any warning…

OK, it wasn’t a Great White. I wasn’t even in my kayak. I was doing chores on Saturday morning, as we cleaned and cooked anticipating the arrival Sunday of my parents for a visit. A light rain was falling and as I was headed out to the garage to do something I took a step on the wet pressure treated walkway and next thing I knew I was in a heap looking up at the dripping spruce trees, soaking up the puddle under me and thinking something didn’t feel quite right.

I crawled to my feet and hopped into the house where I was greeted with a quizzical look. “Fell on the walkway,” I said, “I’ll be all right.” Monday, after hopping around Saturday and Sunday and driving to Freeport and back, I was coerced into going to the hospital in Ellsworth where, after the obligatory waiting period, I was X-rayed and told by the technician that I would not be walking out of the hospital.

One sugar tong splint and two aluminum, made-in-China, crutches later and some teaching moments for new nurses, I was sent on my way.

My second week of vacation was spent staring longingly at the ocean and wishing that there were some way to melt that sugar tong splint and hit the water. Next year I think I’ll plan to go sky diving. Why not?

MITA volunteers

Congratulations are in order for a couple of friends of mine and of most of the islands on the Maine Island Trail.

Dave and Deb Morrill of Orrington were recognized by MITA as the Island Cleanup Volunteers of the Year at its 19th annual Stewardship Party on Aug. 23. “The Morrills were cited not only for participating in many island cleanups over the years but particularly for ‘digging deep’ for embedded trash that had defaced islands for a long time – all the while providing good humor through weather thick and thin,” said Tom Frankllin, MITA’s director of marketing and membership.

Having been on several island cleanups with them, I can vouch for their steadfast stewardship. And having been the recipient of numerous baggies of balloon and ribbon remains Deb has removed from shorelines (she really hates the idea of setting balloons and ribbons free because they most often wind up in the ocean or on shorelines), I can vouch for their persistence.

Thanks MITA for recognizing them, and thanks to Dave and Deb for taking the time and effort to help keep our shorelines cleaner.

Jeff Strout’s column on outdoor recreation is published each Saturday. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.