Arlington Heights to South Bend

I'm reading Sports Illustrated's college football preview issue (let's hope the Cover Jinx is alive and well) and I'm already getting giddy for fall Saturdays and all the games to watch. It's an amazing atmosphere, a college campus on gameday, and I may have the opportunity to go to three games at three stadiums (one not on campus, though) in three weekends. We'll have to see how that works out.

It was weird returning to Notre Dame so quickly after graduation, and doing it in the summertime when hardly anyone was there. I came in on the day summer school got out (and there was a small graduation ceremony) and it was strange, kind of a reverse of the first time I set foot in South Bend, on a visit in June after my junior year of high school. I love knowing the different faces of the Notre Dame campus � from quiet mid-summer to Artic mid-winter to raucus autumn Saturday � and knowing that it's quite similar on just about every major football campus in America.

But my focus will shift tomorrow, when I get up early and hit the road for Maine. While many of my peers spent parts of every summer away at camp, my only regular summer ritual was the week-to-10-days vacation we'd take to Uncle John's every August. It was always August, maybe because that's when Mom and Dad would take their breaks from tutoring. Or maybe because that's when Mom and Dad knew how much money they had left until those first paychecks of the new school year came through in September. Most likely it was because that's when it's the best time to go to Maine. I've been up in April and May and June since, but we'd never go in July because of the legendary black flies we always heard about. I've never experienced them, but I've heard they're not to be taken lightly.

So August during my childhood meant Maine. It's always been a favorite location of mine; even now, simply thinking or saying the word � "Maine" � produces an excitement and a swelling in my chest, a sensation heightened now by the nearness of the journey. By this time tomorrow, I'll be surrounded by the scent of the pine forest. I'll likely have just sauntered across the meadow that serves as my uncle's yard and meandered down the path through the woods to the river. We'll probably be preparing dinner with corn and vegetables either harvested from their garden or one down the road with the produce stand set up at the end of an enterprising Mainer's driveway.

I'll make my regular pilgrimage to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse and take a few more photos, not that I don't have enough of that one. I'm planning an active Monday, when I'm hoping the crowds at Acadia National Park will be a little smaller than on an August weekend. I'll drive 90 or 120 minutes to get there, I'll hike up Cadillac Mountain and drive the main park road. I'll enjoy the rocky coast and ocean air. Currently, I'm planning on stopping in the outlet mecca of Freeport and browsing the L.L. Bean flagship store � which I could do at 10 p.m. or 3 a.m. as we've done in the past � and only buying something if I need it, like a new raincoat (because I do). I'm just looking for a fun, relaxing four-day weekend with my cousins � one of whom is off to college in a few weeks, the other off to Ecuador for her junior year of high school early in September � my aunt and uncle and my sister, who drove up there from Massachusets on Thursday. It's been three years, I think, since I've been there. Maybe less since I've been to the state, going up with Elise to her family's farm on the New Hampshire border, but this is the first time in a while I'll be 10 miles north of Route 1 near Wiscasset, at the house my grandparents bought for a retirement summer home and my uncle then bought from my grandmother and turned it into a permanent dwelling.

I feel refreshed already.