We got up at 4:15 AM in Portland Maine. We had a three hour layover in Baltimore Maryland. We arrived in Oakland, CA, then took BART to see Brian’s mom in San Jose.

Eleven hours of airplanes and airports. Ugh? Or Yeah! ?  Depends on you. We like to walk every available concourse, end to end or until we get tired. We look for observation decks and kids play areas. And we write in blogs! On board, we sometimes play cribbage on the iPad.

This is what a normal day’s flight paths over the U.S. look like, from a display in the observation area at the Baltimore airport:

Observations about New England.

There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts in every town, like Starbucks in the west. 

Even though the area is called “New England”, most people drink coffee, not tea.

The coastline is an intricate mix of land and water, salt and fresh, trees and rocks. If we lived here, we would want to learn how to use boats of all kinds. We would probably not do more swimming, because the water is too cold, at least the ocean water.

Seasons are important. Although we were only there for a short while, we noticed artwork depicting seasons in many places we visited. It seemed you could not last long if you were not aware of the seasons. Entire towns close. We often  Winters must be really harsh in Maine.

Private land dominates. We couldn’t find places to hike except in rare parks. Walking around on Deer Island was dangerous, because cars went by so fast.

In the cities, people come in every color and wear all kinds of clothes. In rural areas, people are mostly white skinned. Dress is much more casual and uniform, like gardening (or fishing?) clothes.

Driving seems a competitive sport here. Maine drivers pay no attention to speed limits. In Connecticut, drivers are impatient, darting between lanes and trying to pass everyone. And they are never going over the speed limit because there is too much traffic.

Maine is known as the Pine Tree State. The percentage of conifers was a lot higher than in Connecticut or New Hampshire. 

Lobster was in season, so we indulged.  We also ate crab and scallops. Great proteins here, but vegetables were rare. Perhaps people eat their veggies all at home and don’t want them when dining out? Lettuce and tomatoes were about it unless you ordered special side vegetables. 

So, off to California, a six hour flight. Grandma Pat picked us up at the BART station closest to her house. Her she is with her son Brian in her back yard.

Here is the room we stayed in for the past two nights on Deer Island.

Funky beams, eh?

We did not explore Deer Island much yesterday, because we needed the whole day for Acadia National Park. Although Deer Island is almost as large as yesterday’s island, it is completely private, so exploration is limited.  Fortunately, the B&B owned land, so here is the pond behind it:

Ponds, that is lakes without water flowing in or out of them, are common in the islands around Penobscot Bay. It took me a while to figure that out. They are glacially scoured low spots where rain water accumulates. The drinking water is delicious.

This morning, the tide was out, so we went across the street to the tidal flats.

Then we drove around Deer Island looking for places in the McCloskey books. We found a sandy beach and waded into the very cold water.

The water was super clear, super cold, and the seaweed had no insects nor smell, to our surprise. Perhaps the water temperature? There were a few jellyfish. This was about ten inches in diameter.

Later we drove back to the mainland to see Buck’s Harbor, mentioned in one of McCloskey’s books. 

Our next point of interest was the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden in the town of Boothbay. We found we could not resist their motto:

Could you?

I enjoyed the pumpkin exhibit:

Brian took visually interesting photos:

And we found displays in honor of McCloskey’s books:

This one is from Blueberries for Sal, with the bear family.

Brian took excellent photographs of all the foliage:

and a local native:

We closed the place down (they closed at 5:00). 

Then off to Portland, to stay near the airport for our cross country trip to San Jose, California tomorrow. 

Goodbye Maine and New England. It was a brief but fun visit. 

Blue, glorious blue! Most of the day, the sky was cloudless! All the colors were vivid.

Goldenrod at the shoreline in Acadia NP

Acadia National Park is somewhat spread out, but the part we visited today was on the island north of Deer Island, where we are staying at a B&B. It was supposed to be a low driving day, but to get to Mount Desert Island, we had to drive back to the mainland and around.

Asters with trees in the background

The topography in this whole area was formed by glaciers grinding over uneven terrain and accentuating the differences in the high and low areas. Two rounded highs were called “bubble” mountains – I am not kidding. The one we went up was Cadillac Mountain, which had views of 270 degrees around the island.

But before we saw those parts, we climbed down to cliff-edged beaches:

Granite slab above crashing waves

Where Brian tried to capture crashing waves.

And we wandered through pretty vegetated areas:

Mostly, however, we explored the knobs of granite

And other glacial features like this balanced rock in Bar Harbor:

At Bar Harbor, we watched a schooner that filled up with tourists right in front of us:

And unfurled its sails away from the dock:

By the time we got back to Deer Island, the sun was setting below a crescent moon.

Blue! O how I have ignored you, taken you for granted! I learned today that blue makes all other colors possible. Yesterday, with the drab drizzles and grey skies, my formerly favorite color was muted, inconsequential. But today, the green was magnificent! But, only with the blue skies. 

I know some might think I mean sunshine makes the colors more vibrant, and that is true to an extent. However, I saw today that green was prettiest when blue was behind. Red, too. Even in sunshine, if the background was grey or white clouds, green was not the vibrant color that has always been my favorite. It wasn’t until today that I realized I have been exceptionally narrow-minded about my favorite color. I grew up in Southern California and have lived since in Colorado where blue skies happen 300 out of the 365 days of the year. OK, OK, that was a rant. But it was also how I was feeling!

Another driving day, but in character, we went to a park first. This one was called “Echo Lake” and it was a tiny park. We drove to the top of glacially scoured granite (like Yosemite Valley) and looked at an oval lake below us (Echo Lake). Beautiful!! I could not help but compare this to other places we have visited. The shear cliffs and rounded granite were like Yosemite but the trees were absolutely NOT! Most of the trees here were deciduous and a minute percentage of those were turning color. The overall view of the rounded knobs of granite with the deciduous trees was also like the Blue Ridge Parkway, a bit south of here.

Shear granite cliff at Echo Lake with a bit of red foliage

Some people put locks on the fence, near where rock climbers. I remember reading about a similar tradition in France that caused the government to take all the locks down because of the weight on the bridge.

Next we visited Augusta, the capital of Maine. Surprise! Three capitals in four days. A record for us.

The capital dome In Augusta was bronze, we think. And the overall ambiance was less affluent and ornate than the two capitals we visited so far this trip. But all three had replica Liverty Bells, complete with painted cracks. 

This one also had a display of flags.

And they had a kids handout to look for fossils in the stonework of the floor and walls – an activity after my own heart.

Our final destination today was Penobscot Bay, because Roberth McCloskey wrote a children’s book about it and won “The Caldecott Medal” in 1957, the year Brian was born. His mom read that book to him, and we read it to our kids. We just wanted to see, and here we are.

This bridge, actually a famous bridge with an observatory in one of the towers, is over the Penobscot Narrows. It also overlooks Fort Knox.

So we sleep on Deer Island, in Penobscot Bay, and we will read the book “Time of Wonder” to each other tonight. We will be here tomorrow night as well.

Happy!