2021
July
23
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Monitor Daily Podcast

July 23, 2021
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

As cooped-up Americans have burst into the great outdoors this summer, there’s been one predictable, irritating side effect: traffic. 

Interstates are jammed. A year of pandemic-limited travel has produced pent-up demand for vacation road trips. Which is why you’d think lots of people would be yelling at Mike Saxton.

Last week he and his Midwestern trucking crew hauled a giant prefab building into a Maine vacation area where roads were already packed. And got stuck.

Twice.

The first time, the trailer hauling his heavy cargo bottomed out when trying to make a sharp left onto a bridge over the Penobscot River. The second time, Mr. Saxton had made it onto Mount Desert Island – home of Acadia National Park, one of the most-visited parks in the country – when he got stuck at another sharp turn.

The delays surely made some people mad. But that’s not the whole story.

The cargo was a special building to house medical equipment at the Bar Harbor hospital. As it crept along the coast, social media posts closely followed its progress and hailed the crew’s efforts to keep going, according to the Bangor Daily News. People offered food when they were stuck. In Bar Harbor Mr. Saxton got an ocean-view room, a lobster dinner, and lots of offers of breakfast.

And a GoFundMe page to bring Mr. Saxton back to Bar Harbor under less stressful conditions raised $2,600 in a few days. “Let’s get him here for a proper vacation!” said organizer Molly Damon.


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A child takes part in “UNIQLO Tate Play,” an interactive exhibition on the floor of Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, in London on July 23, 2021.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Come back Monday, when we’ll have a report from Tokyo on the army of family, friends, and trainers that surrounds every Olympian. 

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2021
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