Wordless Wednesday: Atlantic coast

A mini-Enchanted Rock in Maine

A nice little hike near Freeport, Maine (if you're tired of visiting LL Bean) is up the eponymous "mountain" in Bradbury Mountain State Park.

After inserting the "mini" into my post title, I was surprised to learn that its elevation is about the same as its big brother in Texas, although it's not nearly as broad and has much less rock exposed. The trail to the top wasn't nearly as strenuous, either, and the environment is a lot different...

no forests along the trail in Texas!

I don't think I've ever seen fungi on any of the much smaller trees along the trails at Enchanted Rock...

what happens when a climate includes more than minimal rainfall

I'm always fascinated by the almost artistic impression that lots of intertwining roots make in the woods. Even though they do sometimes make for unsure footing!

A special treat for the kids was the appearance, after our picnic lunch at the top, of horseback riders...

As the park website notes, it's the only park in this part of Maine that has some shared trails for horses, mountain bikes, and snowmobiles. We only saw the horses this time.

My oldest granddaughter pointed out to me the one thing you can't see from the top of Enchanted Rock that is just visible here—the ocean! Click to enlarge this picture and look in the red box.

It will be fun when the girls are a little older, to take them to the big rock here in Texas. When their dad and aunt were young that was one of our favorite outings. 

Early winter comes to New England

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I got a big dose of family visiting early this year with a trip to Maine. Playing with granddaughters was the major objective of the trip, but I did get to do a little sight-seeing and and a few touristy things as well.

I was disappointed when I had to leave Colorado in late September, before there was much color on display. So I was pleased to find a little bit of the fall attraction still around in Portland, as you can see above. Pretty much the end of their season, however. And in fact an early dose of winter was upon us soon after my arrival...there was even some snow!

Among our many fun adventures was a hike at a nearby state park that I'll tell you about next time. But closer to home were many other enjoyable outings, like a quick trip up the coast to Brunswick and Bowdoin College. Its campus includes not only a very impressive free art museum and tremendously handsome, ultra-New England-architecture...

...but also a wonderfully expansive (and flat) quad that makes a perfect biking route for 5-year-old riders, as you can see here (click to enlarge).

Also in Brunswick, we visited an artisanal vinegar store—a first for me. Boy were the samples tasty! As all agreed...

Another child-friendly outing that was also great fun for the adults was a visit to Pineland Farms' educational center, where we got to make butter! Another first for Gramma!

Yes! I was very excited to see my perfectly-formed little ball of butter where only heavy cream had existed just moments (well, several minutes) before.

Did you know that all you have to do to make butter is just shake cream for a while? I never knew that's what churning was all about. My understanding is that it's not a chemical but a physical reaction as the fat molecules clump together when agitated. So cool! And tasty, too, since we got to put our product on some toast when we were finished.

We also got to see where the cream came from with a visit to the dairy barn and then had a nice lunch in the Pineland cafe.

More mundane food-related outings were trips to Portland's Whole Foods, but you must know that pushing the giant car-cart around the store is something of an adventure itself...

...but, anything for my granddaughters!

We also went to a real NE craft fair, where I bought a pair of mittens, after discovering that the gloves I brought with me were not up to the task of hand-warming in these early winter conditions. Here's a panoramic shot of the fair...

and here are the mittens:

snuggly warm!
and when it's really cold I do a double-decker with my gloves

One of the more bizarre "entertainments" we had was watching a couple of crazy moms take their monthly dip in the ocean. Yes, my otherwise rational daughter-in-law and friends have made a pact to go into the ocean once a month. (This is the first winter in the pact.) The warmest day of the week they chose was still pretty raw, around 40° and rainy. But they did it anyway! Keeping hats on, though, I noticed.

I was in charge of holding my youngest granddaughter during the quick dip, and, believe me, she was not happy at seeing Mom head out to sea. But she came back quickly enough and maintained that it was easy to get warm again...a visit to a nearby bake shop helped.

Other than the temperature differential with home, the most noticeable thing about winter this far north is the low sun and the early sunset. However, when it comes, it can be rather glorious. More than once while I was there the clouds broke just at the horizon and just at the right time, treating us to a really fabulous sunset...at 4:30, but still fabulous...

More about my latest northern sojourn next time.

Wordless Wednesday: sunset stage lighting

Facelift

Miracles do happen! We have had the trim (and screens, and doors) that were sorely in need of boatloads of care, fixed and repainted! After only x-number of years of wifely nagging!

But doesn't it look lovely now?! And it's functional, too. All the windows have screens with only the tiny holes they're designed to have, and not gaping openings that made having them essentially superfluous.

guests in our guest room (above) can actually
open their windows now!

We have friends at a local architecture/remodeling firm to thank for the handsome color scheme. And the same wonderful crew of workers who (can it be?) 10 years ago redid most of the interior of the house proved just as skillful and diligent with the outside.

One of the biggest portions of this latest job was the garage, that not only needed to be painted to match our smart new color palette, but which also needed a bunch of rotten wood replaced...

Ditto with the utility room...

Of course, there are always complications that are unforeseen at the beginning of such a job, but which we think were eventually solved beautifully. Like, how do we paint the decorative metal work on the back porch doors? We decided on making them the "pop" color:

Longtime readers (not to mention visitors to our house) will know that we've had a lot of egregiously-deferred-maintenance issues on the exterior, and I tried to find some examples in old blog posts, but stopped looking with this one. Yes, we had squirrels living behind our fascia, and why not, when the wood was so rotten they didn't even have to wear down their little rodent teeth to get in? (You can compare the picture just below with the comical appearance of the (admittedly, effective) repair work done six—yes, six— years ago...yes, we had that red board up on our fascia for SIX YEARS.)

So, the little monsters (rodents of various kinds) will have a considerably more difficult time working their way into Henry and Kathy's house now! And we don't feel quite so embarrassed by the haunted house vibe that we've been giving off all these years.

Art in ABQ

Better late than never, I guess, to tell you about my brief but fun stopover in Albuquerque on the way home from my extended Colorado stay.

In addition to the fun of a New Mexico United soccer game played at the Isotopes' field, plus of course enjoyable visits with good friends, I was also able to take in a couple of cultural high points. (High points not related to ABQ's most famous recent cultural phenomenon, however  )

First stop was the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, a very nice museum featuring—along with an excellent restaurant that made a fine lunch stop—not only live action art...

...but also modern pieces...

...as well as charming folk art, like this cheerful bird and the storytelling snake at the top of the post...

On next to the Albuquerque Museum, whose grounds were all we had museum-energy left for, but which offered some wonderful, and whimsical, pieces. (I'll have to take in the whole shebang on my next visit.)

The gates that lead out the back of the Museum to ABQ's old town are impressive works of art themselves, we thought (this is just part of one set):

But whimsy is the most common theme of this sculpture garden. The lady below isn't always holding her cell phone, but it's easy enough to add that detail...

Here's one of her "colleagues," getting his news in a more old-fashioned manner:

I thought this amalgamation of a lovely rock and some industrial chic was quite arresting...

...and this handsome take on the King Kong motif is terrific, don't you think?!

I couldn't help but be reminded of the etched panels at the American Air Museum in Duxford, which I visited in 2008. Although of course that sculpture is much more somber in tone, I still noted the resemblance of the planes here. And art can always call up multiple emotions, especially when you've been treated to such a wide variety of forms in such a wonderful setting.

Wordless Wednesday: old and new tourism magnets