Wednesday, 8/8/07: Lighthouses in Portland area

Today was Marty's last day. :-( The plan was to drive to Old Orchard Beach (2 hours south and east of Farmington and not very far from the Portland airport) and visit Dr. Grace. She had invited us to come to the condo, walk on the beach, and eat lunch before heading to the airport. When Marty had mentioned that she had never seen a lighthouse, I asked Grace if there were any in her area that we could stop off and see before coming to her place. She said to go ahead and come to her place and she would take us to a lighthouse and then we would eat lunch at The Lobster Shack nearby.

Our first stop was Two Lights lighthouses. It was rainy and overcast and there was a thick fog, so it was hard to see them, but Grace knew the back roads and drove us right up to the lighthouses. One is a private residence now, but we got to see them pretty close-up. Yea! But two lighthouses weren't enough. Grace stopped at the Ranger station in the nearby state park and asked how to get to Portland Headlight. It messed up the lunch plans of eating at the lobster place, but we had priorities.

Cool! It was so worth it. This was a great lighthouse and we got to touch it and see it up front and really close. Across the water we could see another one--halfway something (I already forgot the name of it). Now Marty could say she'd seen four lighthouses! We stopped in the gift shop, then headed on to the airport.

We decided to eat at the airport due to heavy traffic and the fact that we didn't want Marty to miss her flight. We got Marty checked in and then went to the restaurant. They had lobster rolls on their menu. Even though we knew they wouldn't be as good as The Lobster Shack, Marty and I ordered lobster rolls anyway. The waitress said they were made with fresh lobster. We knew they'd be overpriced as well, but oh well.

As we sat there, Marty couldn't find the earbuds to her iPod. After we ordered, I went back out to the car to see if they had fallen out in the car. I searched pretty well, but didn't find any earbuds. Rats. As I headed back to the restaurant, I saw Helen from Dallas sitting in the waiting area talking on her cell phone. I couldn't believe it! She was talking to her daughter, Louise, who was on the other side of security waiting at a gate for her flight to JFK. Helen was waiting to make sure Louise got in the air before she headed down to Boston to visit college friends.

It's my first "5 degrees of Theresa Overall**" event in Maine! Helen is about to eat her sandwich that she brought with her so I invite her to come join Marty and Grace and me in the restaurant. If she's just going to be waiting anyway. So she did and the four of us told Girl Scout stories (Marty had worked at The Wide Games event this year that Helen and her girls had worked at for many years, so they even had something in common) and Maine stories until the lobster rolls came (and whatever it was that Grace had ordered). They were pretty darn yummy for airport food.

We finally all said goodbye. Marty got on the plane, Helen confirmed that Louise was going to be okay and she got on the road, Grace headed back to Old Orchard Beach and I headed back to Farmington. What a great day!

**find out more about 5 degrees of Theresa Overall at:
http://www.theresaoverall.org/mylife/5degrees/index.html