7/5/2011 Belfast

On the drive home, Stephanie asked if we would mind stopping in Belfast for a quick errand. What?? See a town in Maine I haven't been to yet? Twist my arm! Belfast is awesome! There's a bustline downtown with great shops and a gorgeous port. There was even a newspaper article about the booming businesses in Belfast in a local paper recently.

Fun way to cover up a door that's no longer in use:

Lots of galleries with beautiful as well as eclectic art:

One of many unique benches in the downtown area:

Wow. Picture postcard perfect:

Hahahaha Thank you Stephanie for helping us find this awesome photo opp!:

7/5/2011 Farewell Castine

I do love a good Dutch door. And in Castine, the weather is so nice (and in this case, the view of the elm and the yard) that you can actually use your Dutch door. Of course, Mrs. C. has one.

KMO, Mrs. C. and me in Mrs. C's backyard.

Stephanie and me.

We had breakfast at Bah's Bakery. KMO and Stephanie had quiche, I got the famous crab cake (for breakfast?? why not!). It was delicious and the view of the harbor while eating was nice, too.

Because you can see a lot of people on this schooner, Mrs. C. said it must be the Bowdoin. A Facebook friend suspected it was the Bowdoin as well. I'm doing well to know it's a schooner. What nobody said was that the Bowdoin is owned by the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. It's a teaching ship!

7/4/2011 Town Band concert program

7/4/2011 4th of July Concert, Castine, ME

Not sure what this was about. This car was parked at the Town Commons for the Town Band Concert. I'm thankful for the 4th of July, does that count?

Instrumentalists getting ready for the big concert. Look right between the T and the I in the word Castine on the big drum, now go up to the rim of the drum, . . . there's my sister!

The Tarratine Fifes and Drums made a guest performance at the concert. Oh look! There's my sister--second fife from the right.

The Dice's Head (or Dice Head or Dyce Head . . . depends what you read) Lighthouse right on the edge of town.

We had a big barbecue tonight. Mrs. C. and her son and daughter-in-law and 3 grandkids plus 4 family friends plus my sister, me, and my friend Stephanie. We ate barbecued brisket, sausage, and ribs sent from The New Braunfels Smokehouse by Mrs. C's daughter Katy who is my sister's best friend which is how we got here in the first place. Gorgeous evening. We all sat underneath Mrs. C's really big elm tree. Yes, elm tree. Castine's elms didn't get hit by the Dutch Elm Disease blight and in fact, all the trees are carefully cared for and tagged and baby elms are now being planted across the country from cuttings from Castine's elms. Anyway, it was a gorgeous tree to sit under and enjoy our wonderful meal. Then we went inside for dessert of brownies and strawberry-rhubarb pie. What a great 4th of July!!

Next on the agenda was the fireworks display at 9:15. At 9:00, two fireworks went off into the fog and just kinda, sorta set the fog aglow. Not much to look at. At 9:15, the harbor lights went out and one more firework went off and glowed. Even the bang didn't sound right in the fog. Next thing we know, they're announcing that the fireworks are postponed to Friday night. :-( A smart decision, just not the evening we were expecting. (This photo is of the Maine Maritime Academy's big ship at the harbor . . . you can kinda tell that there was a lot of fog.)

We came home to Mrs. C's house with a welcome flag. The US flag flies high and proud on a lighted pole on her rooftop, but this flag hangs proud and welcoming in the front porch.

7/4/2011 4th of July in Castine, Maine

KMO was invited to return to Castine to visit the mom of her best friend and most especially, to play flute for the Castine Town Band and fife with the Tarratine Fifes and Drums. She's been to Castine many times before but this time I got to play chauffeur and it was my first time to this historic Maine town. My good friend from UMF, Stephanie, joined us for the fun. I picked up KMO Sunday night at the airport and we spent the night at a hotel in Portland. Left by 6:45 this morning and headed to Augusta where we picked up Stephanie and then headed to Castine. We arrived at 9:45, in plenty of time to get to the Children's Costume Parade at 10:00. The parade was around the Town Commons area. No floats, no bands, no commercial or political statements, just patriotic music blaring from the 1790 Congregational Church steeple and lots of children (and a few accompanying adults) walking through town. What a glorious way to celebrate!

After the parade, there is a giant celebration on the Town Commons including free watermelon, lemonaid, hot dogs, cotton candy, and fried dough. They also had sack races, a tug of war (with a REALLY long rope and a lot of people on both sides), a pie eating contest, and free fire truck rides. How Norman Rockwell can you get?!

This is The Abbott School on the Town Commons.

After the festivities on the Town Commons, we headed down to the wharf, but there were so many kids lined up for the fire truck rides that those were still going on. We got to see one in action.

We stopped at The Breeze, a local fast food place on the wharf. I got their chocolate chip ice cream sandwich made with fresh chocolate chip cookies. It's bigger than it looks. It was as big as it was delicious.

The morning started with a lot of fog ("marine layer" as some call it), but it started to burn off around 11 and though the rest of the day had a haze (and threatened rain off and on), we could still see the beautiful Castine harbor and I managed to get a good sunburn.

On the second floor of Mrs. C's house is a staircase that goes to the ceiling. But at the top of the staircase is a big hatch and you lift that door and you are on the roof of the house with room enough for 7 deck chairs and a big table with this dramatic view.

6/27/2011 Helicopter Hovering on the Horizon

For most of the morning today, this helicopter has been flying over the town of Farmington. In the late summer, we're used to a day or two of a helicopter flying low over the area looking for marijuana. We're not sure what this one is looking for. Later in the morning, it wasn't flying over anymore, it was hoving . . . low and long.

6/25/2011 Kingfield Pops

At The Kingfield Pops. This is David Mallett performing. His song "Garden Song" (Inch by inch, row by row...) has been recorded by over 100 different artists.

After a day of arts and crafts and mini concerts (we didn't go to that part of the day), there were a series of performances on the main stage, all building up to the main event: The Bangor Symphony. They mostly play short, familiar, patriotic, and/or fun songs so that the children will enjoy themselves and associate good times with great music. It works for the grown ups, too.

No burn ban here! Great fireworks top off a great evening of fun.

Nobel Prize Laureate comes to Maine

Yes, we rock in Maine. Check out this article about an amazing opportunity that some high schoolers in Maine had. But it wasn't luck and it wasn't politics, it was good kids doing great things that earned them this wonderful opportunity.

Maine Awnings

Sue's neighbor sent her this photo. It's a picture of Sue's house as seen from the neighbor's yard. This is called a "Maine awning." It looks like an awning protecting the porch from sunshine . . . until you look closely and realize that's snow that has slowly slid off the roof but stayed together as one giant sheet of frozen something and it's just hanging there. How does it do that??

Recycled Sled Contest

I saw this sign in the stairwell of my building last week.

Somehow I missed the first one last year, but I decided to attend this year! It was attended by a small but creative group of students. Here you can see two students riding their recycled sled down the hill by the amphitheatre (behind the student center).

I believe this is the sledder who used a snow shovel for her sled (the body in the foreground is a photographer).

This was constructed from a box that a mini-fridge came in (a dorm-sized refrigerator). That's a beaver (UMF's mascot) on it. One sledder used this as a sled with the beaver on the front and didn't get very far but the next sledder used the same sled but turned it 180 degrees and put the beaver on the back and was quite successful!

Cookies, music, warm beverages, and prizes -- it was quite a successful and very fun event.

Traffic Stopper

This is the scene in the parking lot of The Maine Mall. They plow the parking lot, but that snow has to go somewhere. So they picked this portion of the parking lot to dedicate to snow storage until it melts. Every parking lot in Maine has fewer parking spaces in winter than it does the rest of the year.

Resident Sand

I saw this area and the sign in the parking lot at Deering Oak Park. This raises so many more questions for me than it answers. I can guess, but I really don't know.

WinteRush

When I went to pick up the candidate at The Comfort Inn, I arrived earlier than we had planned, so I hung out in the lobby. I watched the news while I waited--that's a rare treat for me since I don't have any television reception in my apartment and I refuse to have cable. The ending story was on WinteRush in Portland. They were interviewing a team that was doing a snow carving and told of all the fun family activities that would be in Deering Oaks Park that day. It looked like fun but I didn't think much more about it until I happened to drive by Deering Oaks Park. So I pulled over and found a parking spot and checked out the snow carvings. Pretty fun!

After I voted for my favorite (I'll never tell which one), I headed back to my car and ran into Marisella, a friend from UMF! It was so great to see her. She was there with her family. Her little one had done the sledding on the hill and also the "book trail". There's a children's book about snowshoeing and they had made an enlargement of each page (poster-sized) and put them all around the park. The kids borrowed the snow shoes provided and followed the trail, stopping to read the book at each station along the trail. There were also snowball fights and hula hoop contests and many other fun events planned.

Portland Head Light in Winter

When we were at LL Bean, Dake bought postcards of Maine to take home as souvenirs. The very nice clerk asked her if she had actually seen any of the places on the postcards and Dake explained that she really hadn't had any time to do that but that she wanted to come back. The clerk said, "Well, you should at least see the Portland Head Light. It's not very far from here." Twice, I've been to Portland Head Light (one of many lighthouses in Maine), and both times, someone else was driving and it involved a lot of curvy roads through neighborhoods. So you can imagine that I was a little leary. The clerk assured me it wasn't difficult, so I let her give us directions which involved "The Million Dollar Bridge." After we left, Dake and I decided it was best to stick with our original plan and get her to the airport since I was unsure of this detour. But after I dropped Dake off at the airport, I decided to try the adventure. The directions worked! I think I could take you to the Portland Head Light if you came to visit me! (You better hurry though, 'cuz I'll forget pretty quickly.)

It was my first time there in winter. The gift shop wasn't open and the main parking lot wasn't plowed, but there were plenty of people walking around, braving the cold and soaking in the sight.