Wow. Just outside of Bethel is this wonderful covered bridge that goes over the Sunday River. I took this photograph of it, then the photographer on his Celebration Tour of Maine took me down a path through the woods that led to the river bank and an even better view of this amazing structure. I'll let you guess yet again which photos he took and which ones I took. ;-)
In the same field as Olympia SnowWoman, we saw these beautiful wild flowers, as well as spittle bugs, lady bugs, and rain clouds. Mother Nature was putting on quite a show!
Today, we went to the site of that amazing accomplishment and even though 5 months have passed and it's now summer (hello! July 1!), there are still remnants of that great snowperson.
Yes, that is actually a big pile of snow. Obviously not as big as the original snowwoman but still a giant pile of snow. Amazing.
I'm loving being on this Celebration Tour with Rodney, not just because it's fun and he's fun but also because he's a great photographer and I'm learning all kinds of cool things from him. He has an iPhone as well and takes a lot of photos with the camera that comes in the iPhone, but today his iPhone is on its way to Fort Worth to be repaired, so he's borrowing mine! Look at all the cool shots I get to have on my iPhone. I'm not telling which ones he took and which ones I took. :-) Okay, one of them is obvious, but on the others you'll never know.
As we left Paris Hill (headed for I wasn't sure where, but Rodney had an idea), we stopped at this rest area with a water fall. Not unlike Smalls Falls on the way to Rangeley, it's just sitting at the side of the road, waiting to be explored--no admission fee, no gift shop, just a pathway, a parking lot, and a bridge.
Hannibal Hamlin, vice-president to Abraham Lincoln in his first term, was born in Paris Hill, Maine. His birthplace is a private residence, so you can't tour it, but it's very well kept and quite an impressive place:
The town of Paris Hill was the original county seat for Oxford County, then everything moved to South Paris to be near the train station. This is the original county jail and it is now the Hamlin Memorial Library with the library on the first floor and a museum on the second floor. If it looks tiny in this photo that's because it's tiny in real life. Maybe 15 feet x 30 feet? Tiny.
We had a nice visit with the head librarian who is now curator of the museum (she was originally hired as the children's librarian). Though they're proud of Mr. Hamlin and will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth next year (2009), their real claim to fame is Harry Lyon, navigator on the Southern Cross plane when it made the first-ever trans-Pacific flight from the US to Australia.
As you can see, the drizzle cleared up. It was actually on-again, off-again. But here in Paris Hill, it was off-again. Many years ago, Paris was the original county seat of Oxford County and all the lawyers and doctors lived here on Paris Hill. Now there's Paris, East Paris, South Paris, and Paris Hill--none of which are the county seat. But Paris Hill is still the place with all the really big, nice, old houses.
...and then the photographer suggested I take it portrait instead of landscape. I think I like both of them. :-)
Today I get to join Rodney in another day of his Celebration Tour. My job was to meet him at his brother's house in Buckfield (home of the Mentos and Diet Coke folks) where he is dogsitting. I won't say that I got lost, but there were two U-turns (are you counting, Lindsay?) and a lot of uncertainties. Seeing a sign for the "Where In the Heck R We" Campground did not instill any extra confidence. But I did make it. We had to skip the kayaking portion of the day due to more drizzling rain, but we had plenty of great adventures.
There are three pick your own strawberry patches near Farmington. I had directions to Stevenson's based on a recommendation from Kristin but MRM called Monday night and asked if I wanted to go with her. You betcha! I met her at her house at 7am (the early bird may get the worm but the early strawberry picker not only gets better strawberries but beats the heat) and we drove to Rome, only to find that that particular strawberry patch wasn't open today. You really should call ahead (we learned that with blueberry picking, too). So then we went to Pike's which is practically across the street from Wal-Mart, right in town. It was very fun and the strawberries were yummy. Locals (including MRM and her mom) knew that strawberries could be bigger, darker, and sweeter compared to other years but to this city girl, they were wonderful. Here we are picking our strawberries. They provide the cardboard flat to put them in.
At checkout, you put your flat on the scale and weighs your pickings (7.67 pounds for me), the clerk uses a calculator to subtract the weight of the carton and then multiply by the price per pound ($1.75), then rings up your total on this great old cash register and gives you change from the wooden drawer.
The citizens of Sanford are way behind this baseball team. They volunteer at the ticket booth, in the gift shop, and in raising money for the scholarship fund. They can't pay these boys for playing on their team, but they can give them college scholarships. It's a win-win situation. Besides the typical 50-50 ticket sales (which you may remember I never heard of until the Farmington Fair, but now I can say it's typical), they sell "Lucky Tickets". Okay, so they're raffle tickets, but they give away so many free goodies during the game from local sponsors that it feels like practically every ticket is a winning ticket. One of the most coveted prizes you can earn with your lucky ticket (besides a free oil change) is the chance to watch the game from these two recliner lounges from the local furniture store. You sit right on top of the visitors' dug out. What a deal!! MRM's dad actually won those seats at the game on Friday night, but all he won on Saturday was the oil change. None of the rest of us won anything. But we all had a great time and the Mainers won their game in spite of the drizzle.
After our day of touring the coast, we ended up at our destination of Sanford, ME. MRM's parents live here. They had a baked bean supper waiting for us (it is, after all, a Saturday night) and then we all headed out to the Sanford Mainers' baseball game. The Mainers are in the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). It's like the minor leagues of the minor leagues and it was a blast--in spite of the cold. I actually got the emergency blanket out of the trunk of my car to bring to the game for Rodney 'cuz he was cold during the day, but I ended up being the one who used it at the game. Front row--mom and dad. They have season tickets. They're such loyal fans that dad actually got to throw out the first pitch last week.
Next to dad sat MRM who read a book through most of the game. (Remember, she plays Soduku when watching Red Sox games at the house.)
Next to MRM are her niece and her sister-in-law--the nice folks that included me in their Thanksgiving dinner last year.
On the second row are me (not pictured), Rodney (who takes his baseball very seriously, obviously), RBF, MRM's brother, and her sister-in-law's mom whom I met at Thanksgiving last year, so it was like old home week!
There's a better picture of MRM's brother and his mother-in-law. Behind them you can see the Mainer's mascot, Broose the Moose.
It turns out that Maine has the same expression that we have in Texas: "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." But it's been rainy and drizzly most every day since I've been back and today was no exception. You don't see many pictures of OOB or Kennebunk or Ogunquit because the skies were gray and you couldn't see the horizon.
Rodney is moving to Oregon and has a list of places and people he wants to see before he leaves. We're calling it his "Celebration Tour" of Maine (I refuse to let him call it a farewell tour because that would imply he's not coming back). So he's letting me tag along with him whenever our schedules permit. It's so much easier for me to do my "Welcome Tour" of Maine with someone who already knows so many great spots and how to get there.
This part of the state is overrun with Canadians in the summer. They love coming south to Maine for their vacations. There are plenty of folks who speak French that live in Maine year round, but signs like this are intended for the tourists who speak French.
I drove to work today because I was dropping off a bunch of stuff that was too heavy and big to carry when walking, plus I had more errands to run. These are some of the wild flowers right at the edge of the parking lot. They are literally "growing wild" and are just spectacular. You couldn't have planted a more beautiful garden if you tried. God is such the perfect gardener.
