Popham 2012

Full moon over Popham Beach, Phippsburg, Maine.  

We spent last week at Ocean View Campground next to Popham Beach State Park as we have the last few years.  Lots of sitting on the beach and reading, evenings of music around the campsites, good food, good company, oh, and fireworks, lots of fireworks (even though we had to wait till the 5th to shoot them off due to inclement weather).  

Brandon running after lighting one of his contributions to the fireworks display.

Tom - throwing kids into the water - they stand in line.  

We took a walk along the beach on today.  I love walking on the shoreline – the way my beach skirt flutters in the breeze and take off my hat to allow my hair to do the same.  The sand, as always, feels lovely on my toes.  I realize this is the first long walk I’ve taken this week and feel sad that it’s our last day here.  I also actually jumped into the water today; first time I’ve done that since we started staying here.  It didn’t even feel that cold.  

End of vacation

I have been very negligent in posting recently.  I see my last post was my second week of vacation.  We ended up going to Stonington instead up Cobscook Bay.  Spent two nights down at The Old Quarry Campground; a nice place right on the ocean, great docks, nice people.

Here's a picture of me hanging out at the campground . . . and hanging out . . . and hanging out.

Bill, the owner took us out on a guided kayak tour of the islands one day and Captain Steve took us out the next day in a lobster boat tour to Isle au Haut and around the archipelago.

kayaking around the islands

Isle au Haut

He dropped us off on Green Island, a deserted island where the only other visitors left in a sailboat just as we were arriving.

There’s a fresh water quarry where we went skinny dipping while Steve took his only other passenger back to Stonington.

The freshwater quarry

Rick taking the plunge

Me, enjoying the water

The other passenger was the owner of another island, one of the potato islands I think.  Steve had arranged to pick her up and bring her back to Stonington. We met up with her out in her dory about 50 feet offshore.  The dory shot out from under her as she was boarding our boat and Rick and Steve had to pull her up out of the sea and get her into the boat.  She was very good natured about it; not that unusual an event on the islands perhaps.   

After retrieving us from the island we went to see some nesting ospreys, then a circuitous route back to Stonington.  We had to head right back home, take quick showers and drive up to The Granary in Farmington to celebrate Christopher’s 21^st birthday. 

Chris enjoying his first legal drink

I returned to work on Monday where my office was torn apart with stripped walls and floors.  So I worked through Wednesday out of Sara’s office and Rick and I left mid morning on Thursday to go to the Podunk Bluegrass Festival in E. Hartford, CT.  Nice festival grounds and nice people.  It was very hot but the band played well though they only earned 4^th place in the band competition.  Don placed 2^nd in the songwriter’s competition with his song, Ice in Your Veins.  Ken Irwin of Rounder Records was very interested in Rick’s original song, Highway to Your Heart so they’ve been emailing back and forth and he’s trying to get a national band to record it.  He’s also interested in other songs Rick has so he’s started recording some demos to send him. 

Rick playing at Podunk

The NitPickers

I went back to work on Tuesday at which time my office was ready for me to move back into with newly painted walls and hardwood floors laid.  They also bought me a nice new desk and it was good to get things set back up after purging a shitload of old files. 

Still boxes to unpack

Jared’s 25^th birthday was on Wednesday so we had a little party for him here at the house with Justin and Keely, Chris and Sara, Auntie, Donnie, Glen, Tom, Lisa, Chelsea, Bill and his girlfriend Frederique who had just arrived from France the night before.

Bill and Frederique

Bill and Frederique stopped over again on Friday afternoon and accompanied us to The Depot for pizza and beer after which we strolled through the Gardiner Art Walk.  Bruce was have an opening at Mad Dog.  He and Bill had known each other 20 years ago but of course he never knew we were brother and sister. 

Today Rick went to play at a pig roast and I went up to Aristo and had Justin do my hair.  I stopped by his house afterwards; it’s coming along nice and he’s been taking good care of his yard.  He’s got some delicious blackberries growing out back. 

Tomorrow the NitPickers are playing at The Village Inn.  Eddie and Michelle, and Bill and Frederique are supposed to be joining me up there for dinner.  

Popham Beach Vacation - Post 2 - July 11th

The week at Popham was the best weather we've had all summer, with only two days of rain out of seven. We spent time at the beach playing Bocce (Rick and I are the official champions having beat the Bernier boys and even skunked them one game), swimming, frisbee, playing with Babbs and Shay Shay, and a little kayaking. My sea kayak is not really a surf kayak. Rick and I watched someone in a great surf kayak later in the week that looked like a blast for use along the shore. But I paddled out to one of the islands and Richard gave it a try later, flipping it as he was getting in but climbing right back in and paddling out a few hundred feet and back. It was pretty rough seas for one's first time in a kayak.
The NitPickers played every night but one, with various campers stopping by to listen for a while and we'd head to bed fairly early and rise fairly early each morning. Friday night the band was asked to go up on the deck and play to the whole campground.
The two days it rained were spent reading some good books within view of the ocean and listening to the sound of the waves as well as a trip into Brunswick to do a little shopping and dinner at an Irish Pub in downtown Bath.
Overall it was a lovely week with mostly great weather and we went ahead and reserved the cottage for the same week next year.

The Weekend

Friday felt like a lost day, spent basically preparing for unknown amount of time without power. Would it be a couple more hours, or will it be three or four days? No answer at the power company; MPR says a million without power and it will take days to restore it all. So we got the generator. . . read full scoop at Rick's posting for the day: http://thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/heavy-snow.html

After Christopher beat us all at Scrabble (Rick by one point), a replay of The Kite Runner on my laptop which I was powering from the generator along with the sump pump, fridge, and cell phone, and then trying to remain warm by staying within 10 feet of the fireplace, the electricity came back on at about 9:00 p.m. to the delighted cries from Jared and Chris. Rick had to drive an hour away to play what turned out to be a rather painful gig with the NP’s. If you really want to appreciate something like electricity, go without it for about 14 hours during a Maine winter.

Saturday we drove to Eustis, met Vicky and Chuck who hosted the whole NP and SO’s for the night at their “camp” on Flagstaff Lake, right next to a camp I’d rented with the boys for a week about three summers ago. Small world. Nice place. Good dinner and then Rick dropped me off at Cindy’s and she Mary, Kat and I went over and visited Grace and K-Lee for a while before heading up to The Rack at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain. Fun night; NP’s sounded great; lots of dancing! Head finally hit the pillow about 3 a.m.

A rather mediocre, slow breakfast for 10 at The Stratton Diner and we arrived home around noon. Jared brought home a Christmas tree, I hung lights and decorations, we all enjoyed a pot o’ soup (Sunday is now soup night it seems) did the puzzles, and off to bed. One more week of work and then I’ll be on vacation for two weeks.