Month: August 2019

adventure, Camping, finding my way, friends, fun, gardens, Just do it, perseverance, photography, road trip, strangers become friends, technology, travel, Uncategorized

Portland’s Lighthouses…

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What a novelty it was to be chauffeur driven to THE sight to see if you see nothing else in Portland. Great company, nice lunch, and now I’ve seen it, and taken pictures too!  The Portland Head Light.  And more!  What a nice day, even if the sky was darkening as the day progressed.  Thank you Joan and Jude!

The Portland Head Light was so impressive that I began taking pictures from the parking lot!

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Also guarding the harbor we have the Portland Breakwater Light, affectionately called Bug Light.  Bug light is segmented, which means that if you are in the correct shipping channel you will see a white light, but if you are seeing a red light then you are in danger of going aground.Buglight1Buglight2Buglight3

And we also have Bug Light’s twin sister, the Spring Point Ledge Light…Springpointledgelight1Springpointledgelight3Springpointledgelight4Springpointledgelight6

And off in the distance in these shots you see Ram’s Head Ledge Light.  You may also have noticed why I love the 18 to 400mm lens.  Both of these shots were taken with that lens, hand held.  And with an extra challenge because I figured out later on that I had the lens stabilization turned off.  I was stuggling, now I know why.  Duh.Ram's HeadRam'shead2

Portland.  I’ll be back…PortlandPortlandfort

Oh, did I forget bugs?  There is an exquisite Children’s garden too!Children'sgardenfeature

 

adventure, Camping, finding my way, fun, go with the flow, Just do it, nature, perseverance, photography, road trip, second chances, strangers become friends, travel

Campgrounds…

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I walked down to the river at Shore Hills a couple of times, looking for the sunset and found it.Shorehillssunset

And now I’m at Wild Duck campgrounds, which is only a mile from the Scarborough Marsh Audubon site.  Which may explain this as the scenery I found as I explored the park.WildducksceneThere are quite a few egrets out there in the marsh, but even my biggest lens wouldn’t have caught them.  Not well enough anyhow.  This one, however, was in the little pond just inside the entrance, and I took a million pictures of him as he hunted.  Take my word for it, he has a little flat fish in his mouth, it just doesn’t show against that background.Wildduckgotem

And red dragonflies are a different variety to me.  I should look them up.  I should do a lot of things.Wildduckdragonfly

Last night I dutifully locked the car, using the key fob from inside the camper.  This morning I realized that I had left the front car windows open.  Almost as soon as I got here I was surprised to hear the sound that the acorns make as they drop on the roof of the camper.  They sound like they will leave dents in the roof of the car parked beside me. But when I got into the car just now to close it up I was surprised to find an acorn in the red baseball cap that was laying on the console.  How the heck did that happen???IMG_9871.jpeg

Yes, campers are a fun group.  While I always thought I’d love to do this I never really had an inkling of what the reality of it would be.  I love it.  It suits me.  And I could so very easily have talked myself out of doing it at all.  I’m so glad I didn’t…

'scene' along the way, Camping, finding my way, friends, fun, perseverance, photography, road trip, travel, weather

Bar Harbor

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Bar Harbor may have been a bucket list place for me to see, but I’m sorry to say I didn’t take full advantage.  I haven’t shopped at any of the touristy places I have visited on this trip. I used to love to shop while traveling, until I eventually realized that I was seeing the same things everywhere.  My cherished internet friend Marilu, who I once wrote a blog post about, told me that her son once visited Japan and brought her home a tea set.  After he left she turned it over and it said, ‘made in China’.  She said she never mentioned it to him.  But the facades of the shops were enticing as I drove through in a quest for a parking space.  And I did find one down at the water front.  I put all my quarters in the parking meter and got an hour and 15 minutes to see the town.  I considered finding a room, but I was tired even then, so I walked the waterfront path on that glorious day, and then started the long drive home.  Home being my little camper where I sleep like a baby.  Maybe I’ll be back another day, and I’ll stay longer.Barharbor1Barharbor2Barharbor3Barharbor4Barharbor5

'scene' along the way, a second look, adventure, birds, boats, Camping, history, honor, perseverance, photography, road trip, travel, Uncategorized

Bath, Maine…

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Ships and ship building dominate the history of Bath, ME.  Over 200 ship builders once made their living here.  During WW2 over 16,000 workers produced 80 ships for the Navy, roughly turning out one every 2 weeks.  Bath Iron Works has three Navy ships currently being outfitted, and contracts for 11 more, so this tradition continues.  The years of ship building along the Kennebec River, along with the related industries, resulted in the river being essentially dead.  No fish and no birds.  The captain of our tour boat was a font of information, and he seemed most proud to say that the river has recovered and the fish and birds are back.

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Juvenile eagle

This wasn’t the tour I had hoped to take when I drove to the Maine Maritime Museum.  I hoped to take a lighthouse cruise, but the only lighthouse on this cruise was the little one here.  Little because a lighthouse along a river only needs to be seen for 3 miles.  But in foggy weather ships couldn’t see the lights and still ran aground, so they built a bell tower as an added safety factor.  The lighthouse keeper was required to trudge through the woods every four hours in bad weather to wind up the bell. bathlighthosebathbell

This proved to be quite an interesting tour and talk, and even though it wasn’t the tour I had hoped for I was happy to have had the experience.  I was a Navy wife in the summer of ’71 when I lived here while my husband’s ship was readied for it’s trip to it’s eventual port in San Diego.  For a short while the plan was for the ship to cruise south around South America, stopping at all the famous (infamous) ports along the way, but clearer heads eventually prevailed and that plan was nixed, and his ship went through the Panama Canal instead.  That must have been an experience in itself, though not the one whomever made the first plan probably had in mind.bathscenebathscene2BathshipsBathwyoming2This represents the Wyoming, which was built in Bath.  It’s true to the size except for the masts.  They were an additional 70 feet high, but the FAA wouldn’t let them build those to scale.Bathzumwaltclass

The other two Navy ships being built are very different from this one.  This is a Zumwalt class ship, built to be stealth.  On radar this ship appears to be a 40 foot fishing boat.BathmaryEThis little ship is the Mary E.  She was built in Bath in 1906 and was in service carrying many different cargos over the years.  She was eventually sunk, but was brought back to Bath and restored to her original and now carries passengers instead.

In the feature photo you see the size of the dry dock itself.  It was built in China and had a long journey to Bath since it was too big to go through the Panama Canal.  This isn’t a town that grew up to serve the tourist trade, and it shows.  But it’s worth a trip to see.

'scene' along the way, adventure, bucket list, Camping, connections, finding my way, friends, fun, Just do it, perseverance, photography

Along the way…

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I chose the shortest, most coastal, route to Acadia National Park that the GPS showed me.  The most scenic, I thought.  But it’s taxing to have to keep track of the ever changing speed limits, and glimpses of pretty oceanfront scenery with no place to pull over for pictures is a tease.  Which explains why I stopped at the only scenic overlook that I saw on the way.  As I took a couple of pictures I realized that I was looking at the bridge that my native Maine friends had talked about over the winter.  The Penobscot Narrows bridge. Penobscot1Penobscot3 From their description I expected it to be a longer expanse, but I also remembered that they had talked about an observatory at the top of one of the towers.  I hoped I’d have the energy to take the same route back so that I could stop and check it out.  I knew that at the end of a long day, with a long drive back, I’d be tempted to take the highway, But I didn’t and I’m glad about that.Penobscot4Penobscot2Penobscot.jpgPenobscot5

The view from 420 feet up proved to be as lovely as my friends described, but getting pictures through the smudged plexiglass was a challenge.  I have a trip to the zoo with my photo group to thank for the fact that any of the pictures turned out at all.  The instructions we received there proved to be the key.  And the road to home was calling me, like any good old-fart would, I wanted to be back before dark, so I didn’t explore Ft. Knox.  (Not  that Ft. Knox, this is Maine after all.)  And the town looked quaint also, but it was getting late so I headed back out.  And I got back to the campground just in time for karaoke!  And met a new friend who leaped into action when I said I wanted a beer.  Her name is Sue, I figured I’d remember that.  Another nice day, to add to all the nice days so far…

adventure, food, fun, go with the flow, humor, Just do it, moments, perseverance, photography, road trip, strangers become friends, travel, Yummy

Red’s Eats…

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This week in Boothbay, Maine has been such success.  My first campground where I was truly on my own, didn’t know a soul, and it was fine.  And yes, I met people, and I had fun.  And I took pictures, boy, did I ever take pictures.  So this is silly, and I want to post it while it’s current, but I have so many more photos to get through that this is an extra post.  Did I say it was silly?  I meant tragic.  Tragic because I will never eat another lobster roll again.  Kind of like me and crab cakes, if I can’t have Charley’s crab cakes, or at least one from a favorite place in Baltimore, then I won’t have them.  I have now had a lobster roll from Red’s Eats, in Wiscasset, Maine, and never will another lobster roll ever come close to being as good as this one was.  So this was it.  I heard about this place before I got here.  Not by name, just that there was a great place to get a lobster roll nearby, so when I drove past this place and saw the line down the hill and around the corner I figured I’d found the place.  I drove past on several different days and it was always the same.  So I can’t tell you how disappointing it was to have finished the lobster roll, all the while anticipating taking a picture of the place, and the line, but at about 4:15 when we had finished and I stopped to take a picture there was hardly a line!  I didn’t think that ever happened.  So you aren’t getting the full effect.  When I stopped yesterday the line was down and around the corner, but I expected that.  We were in line for an hour easy. We being the lady in line front of me, my new friend Carol. Staff came around and offered water, and umbrellas (for the sun), so they are prepared to keep the patrons happy.  The regulars in line kept insisting that it was worth it, and they weren’t kidding.  There had to be more than one lobster’s worth of meat in each one.  I heard there was a pound of meat in them.  Served with a cup of melted butter.  We three, me, Carol and her husband, all agreed.  so very good.  Too good.  It’s tragic…

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Across the street were several places serving lobster rolls, with a waterfront location, and no line.  And yet we all waited, happily.  I wanted to go back today also, but I was still full from yesterday…wiscassetfeaturewiscassetscenewiscassetscene3