Cathedral Pines, Eustis, Maine

Spent the weekend up in the Eustis area. Left Belgrade Lakes around noon on Friday, after getting up at four a.m., unable to sleep. I was definitely ready to sleep about half way to Eustis. Pulled off at the picnic area in Carabasset Valley and shut my eyes for five minutes and felt like a new woman.

Met Cindy and Mary at The Plaza in Stratton for a couple drinks, then went over to the campground and Woody helped me set up the camper real quick. Cindy then drove us over to Grace's house. What a nice surprise. Last time I saw Grace she wasn't really talking and really didn't seem aware of her surroundings. But this time she was talking in full sentences and really hopes to be able to walk again before long. She had a brain aneurism and a stroke a few years ago and it's been downhill for her for a long time. She was always so full of life and she's only about 50 now so it's so sad to see her like that.

We took her back to The Plaza with us and had some drinks out back around their campfire with some interesting locals. Rick got into town about 10ish and picked me up there and we went out to the campground and crashed. I slept extremely well and woke up to probably 40 degree temps. We had a campfire to warm up and after coffee and breakfast Rick and I headed out to the North Branch of the Dead River for a paddle. It got warm very quickly and we were in short sleeves for most of the paddle.

We saw an interesting assortment of critters on the paddle. First these ducks. I'll have to do some internet research to figure out what kind of ducks they are.

and this turtle.

We sat in our kayaks at the foot of the dam and let it pull us slowly around in a whirlpool about five times while we ate a snack and drank a beer. I always expect water rushing over a dam to create a fast current that you really have to paddle against, but more times than not it seems that you encounter a whirlpool of varying strength. I'm sure at some dams it could be quite dangerous, especially if you were swimming. But in most of the places I've been, it just creates a lazy little whirlpool where you can just kind of go with the flow. This one took us full circle about once every 3 or 4 minutes.

Came across this heron on the paddle back.

There were several - maybe 5 or so loons just off our campsite. They were very vocal all weekend. At one point one of them went flying in circles overhead, calling the whole time. Very odd, but very cool.