Travels With Wesley

An early morning ride to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.  Cold and windy on top, but pretty vistas.

After freezing on Cadillac, we drove into Northeast Harbor and had lunch at the Docksider Cafe.  The we visited the Asticou Inn Azalea Garden.  Very pretty.

The gardeners were cleaning out trees while we were walking around.  This looked interesting, but then what can I say?

Then on to Jordan Pond in the Park.  We had eaten lunch at the Lodge at Jordan Pond on Tuesday, they are famous for popovers.  Which seam to me to be no more than a little bread filled with a lot of air.  We took off for a short walk around the Pond, which turned into a 2 1/2 hour hike.

Acadia National Park is one of the most picturesque places I’ve visited with the mountains and the ocean, islands galore.  Well worth a visit.

Winding down, tomorrow is the last day the a long drive back to the airport on Saturday.

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Wednesday morning we rose early (thought you would want to know that) and drove two hours up to Baxter State Park which is 70 miles or so north of Bangor.  The wikapedia reference to the park: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baxter_State_Park.

Baxter is a very primitive park, no facilities past the entry points to the trails.  The Park Rangers keep very tight control on vehicles and people entering the park, requiring an outside phone contact for you, logging the vehicles in and out and requiring hikers to sign in and out  at the trail heads.  We took a nice hike in questionable weather.  It was still spitting rain off and on.

Some scenes from the park around Sandy Stream Pond.  Notice the leaves are beginning to turn up north at Baxter Park.  Down around Ellsworth and Acadia they had not begun to turn.

You can really see the colors here.

Stream flowing out of the pond.

A rainy drive home, and more lobster for dinner.  I began to notice our skin turning a ruddy color and hands warping, becoming claw-like.

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Got to Ellsworth Mon. evening, staying at the Hampton Inn.  What a nice little hotel, clean and friendly.  Tuesday was more of the same with rain off and on, and generally grey.  We drove down into Bar Harbor.  Three cruise ships in the harbor.  The vermin run off the cruise ships as soon as they dock, and infest the streets.  Two logged vermin I’m speaking of.

A pretty little cove in Bar Harbor.

We drove on to Blue Hill, bought a book at Blue Hill Books, then drove on the Deer Island and Stonington.  Stonington has the only working harbor left on the island.  A Stoinington cove.

A leaf.  why I don’t know.

I should belong to this organization.

Ate dinner at a great family owned lobster pound in Trenton, Lund’s Gateway Lobster Pound.  Highly recommended.

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Sunday in Portsmouth was rainy again.  Church at a nice Episcopal Church, coffee and buns at a coffee shop, then a performance of Cabaret at the local rep theatre.  An excellent performance.  A mediocre dinner at the river House on Bow Street, then bed.  Monday dawned the same, overcast and rainy.  We had tickets for a boat trip on the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth.  The weather improved throughout the day.

Here is an interesting building on the river, the Portsmouth Naval Prison, no longer used, too expensive to renovate and too expensive to tear down.  It is on the property of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Here is a link to info about the prison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Naval_Prison

Fort Constitution and the Portsmouth River Lighthouse: http://www.nhstateparks.com/fortconstitution.html

The weather was in and out blustery and sunny all morning.  This is the Whaleback Lighthouse at the mouth of the river.

http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=552

An abandoned structure on the whaleback ledge near the lighthouse.

Pulling up lobster pots in the river.

After the river trip, we started north to the Ellsworth area in the rain which started again as we left the boat.

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It was a rainy, dreary evening in Portsmouth, N.H.  The fog and mist reminded one of a london pea soup.  Walking across the Memorial Bridge, closed now to traffic, being readied for demolition,

I caught sight of this dreary boathouse on the Kittery, ME side of the river.

It was that kind of an evening.  Being however a happy soul, I saw the boat house as bright, beautiful, how it might have appeared on a better evening.

After a fine lobster dinner at Warren’s in Kittery, ME, we walked back across the bridge and found ourselves in the middle of a celebration of the bridge, and one of the best firework shows I’ve seen, made even better by the pea soup.

Waiting for the bus, I became entranced by this church steeple in the fog.

Portsmouth is a nice little city, and I recommend it as a place to visit.

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