Rick and I took a hike up Round Top in the Kennebec Highlands today. Here's a view from the top - not far from the porcupine dens.

It was a great day for hiking. Not too hot/not too cold.

3 a.m. ramblings

It's 3:15 on Friday night/Saturday morning. Can't sleep. Well actually I was sleeping quite nicely until I awoke from the pain I've been suffering for the last 10 days. It started after I several dips in the lake and I was hoping it was just an ear infection. But after seeing the doc today and getting that hope dashed, I'm quite certain there's a root canal in my immediate future. This isn't just a little cavity kind of toothache; it's like take out the whole right side of my head kind of ache. I've had one once before and a root canal was the cure. A cure almost as miserable as that which it is supposed to be curing. But at least the root canal only takes an hour or so and this damn pain has been attacking me every night to some degree or another, even after taking 3 advil before going to bed and 3 tylenol upon waking in the middle of the night.
So seeing as I'm up and I haven't posted in a while, what's new that I can write about . . .

Now that the Gardiner house has sold we have funds to do some work on our home here in Belgrade Lakes. First order of business was to buy a new refrigerator. Our present one actually has duct tape in place of some parts. So we picked out just the right fridge, to be delivered on Monday and here comes Hurricane Bill and damages the one section of the warehouse holding our beautifully engineered new appliance. The next closest one the dealer tells us is in Florida and can't arrive in Maine for 3 weeks. Do we want a loaner in the meantime? No thanks, we'll spruce ours up with a new application of duct tape and hope it holds till mid September and keep our fingers crossed that Florida doesn't get hit with a killer hurricane and further delay our much anticipated new addition to the family.

So second order of business was to get our water tested so that we can rest assured that when the new fridge comes with its ice maker and chilled water feature we will be able to hook it up. We have a dug well and have never trusted it even though it tested fine when we bought the place. We got the test back on Thursday, and again it reported all is fine. We need some new pipes laid to bring it directly to the house instead of going through the cottage first so we take the cover off and look inside and find slugs, spiders galore, and two dead mice floating on top of the well water that just tested completely within all potable recommendations. Yuk. But ok, maybe all wells look like that, yes? So we have the well guys come and take a look and he's pretty grossed out when he sees the water. Not a good sign. But maybe it's 100 feet deep and what's on the top doesn't matter, right? So he throws his rope down there to see how deep it is. 8 feet deep. That's it. Eight feet. Suddenly we feel really happy we've been having Crystal Spring water delivered by the five gallon jugs ever since we moved in a year ago. But still, we brush our teeth with this water; we boil pasta in it and wash our dishes and our bodies with it – with mouse water! Ewwww.

So now the well drillers are coming next week to drill a new well. There goes the first bunch of money. Not to mention the lawn is going to look like a bomb went off once they're done. Add another thousand for landscaping afterward. I wanted aesthetics for that cash – not infrastructure!!! I want to paint, put down new flooring, remodel the master bathroom, build a deck. All those things will come, but I guess we have to start with potable water. At least we won't have to pay $50 a month to Crystal Springs anymore.

So we go to the bank who owned the mortgage on the Gardiner house we just paid off and apply for a home equity line of credit. We own our home here in Belgrade Lakes free and clear, albeit a mobile home. It's a 24 by 60 foot double wide with cathedral ceilings, realitvely nice kitchen with center island, two baths, and there's a little four room cottage here as well and a one car garage. In addition to that we have the camp out on Cobbossee Stream that we own free and clear. However, the bank tells us we don't qualify for a line of credit; they don't offer those on mobile homes, or on seasonal camps. I say, what do you mean, we have over $250,000 worth of real estate that we own free and clear and you won't give us a few thousand dollars line of credit? WTF? We'll give you a mortgage she says – 6% fixed. No thanks. I don't want a lump sum that I have to pay interest on whether I'm using the money or not. I want a line of credit at three point something percent, like you told me about when I called. So she says she'll talk it over with another loan officer and see if they can make something work. A few hours later she calls back to say sure, they can do the line of credit. Duh.

So now we'll have $50k to work with. It's tempting to get all the work done at once. But it's also tempting to remain relatively mortgage free – do the well, pay it off; do the bathroom, pay it off, etc. I suspect we'll end up someplace in the middle. The deck – around 3 sides of the house, if not four – with one section made into a screen room – may as well wait till next spring. But the bathroom is definitely a fall project, and painting and new wood floors perhaps a winter project.

Speaking of camp – I was speaking of camp back there a while ago – we were out there earlier today and just as we were getting ready to leave, here comes this huge bald eagle swooping over the shore, frightening our little muskrat friend, Edmund who was sunning himself on a log, and lands in a branch in the marsh. We watch him for a bit tearing at some poor critter he'd just claimed for his lunch. His wing span must have been a good five or six feet. What a magnificent creature. They never fail to impress, no matter how many times I see them. (I don't think I ever posted here my blog about an eagle and the day my mother died, so I'll have to find it and post it later if I still can't sleep.) But anyway, here's a picture of the eagle we saw today. (Hi Mom. :-) It's good to see you.)

When we arrived at camp we found some foreign object out in the stream – a big yellow thing with fingers coming off it. So though I hadn't planned to kayak, I couldn't leave that ugly looking thing out there to mar my view, so I jumped in the kayak while Rick was napping in the sun and went out to retrieve it. But once in the kayak, I had to go for a paddle even though I hadn't even worn my life vest as I had just planned to go the 50 feet offshore to get the object. I've never tipped the kayak in all my years of paddling, so I said to heck with it and took off for a short paddle around the stream. I realized pretty quickly how well designed my kayak is. It is meant to be paddled by someone wearing a life vest. The vest comes down and hits the back of the seat creating an extremely comfortable position that makes it possible for me to paddle for hours without discomfort. However, without the life vest there's no back support and it's not at all comfortable. But I have to admit that I really liked the feeling of freedom, the lightness, of not wearing the vest. So I did a 20 minute power paddle around the stream – no leaning back and floating lazily around as it was very uncomfortable, but the absence of the vest made me feel like a paddling machine!

Ok, I've been writing – rambling – for an hour, and it's now 4:20. hmmmm . . .

Sold

After 13 months on the market! Yippee!

Another Fine Day on The Cobb

Last time I went kayaking on The Cobb I found this little channel through the reeds that went on and on, accessible only by a kayak or canoe. It continuously looks like it deadends but once you get closer, you see it continues around the next bend. Very cool.

I then paddled down to the cormorant tree and found them hanging out there in the middle of the day, which is rather unusual.

They're such odd looking little birds but really quite interesting to watch, especially the way the take off out of the water, flying very close to the surface of the stream for quite some distance before gaining height.

I found these interesting flowers along the shore. I don't remember seeing them before but a little googling tells me they're called buttonbush, or more technically, Cephalanthus occidentalis.

I think these ubiquitous little purple flowers are called pickerel.

The sun had started to set by the time I got back to camp, giving a bit of pink/purple tinge to the sky.

Another fine day on The Cobb.

Los Angeles - July 27 - 30

Sunday we left San Francisco about 9 a.m., getting stuck briefly by some of the 5,000 runners in a marathon taking place that day, and drove down Route 1 through Big Sur. This was the most beautiful part of California in my opinion. The ride through the mountains with the constant switchbacks and the cliffs going straight down into the ocean were just magnificent.

It was a hazy day and there were times when we couldn't even see all the way down the cliffs to the sea.

Unfortunately my pictures can't begin to capture the beauty of this area. I'd definitely like to return and spend some time around Big Sur.

We veered off Route 1 long enough to drive through Carmel by the Sea, and then spent the night at a seedy little beach town called Pismo Beach. We found an inexpensive room at the seediest motel – The Dolphin Cove Motel. We walked the beach and pier and then went to a little Italian Restaurant called The Grub Zone. Very friendly owner who ended up comping us two of our six Margaritas. Thanks, Beau!

We woke up early Monday morning, discovering that it doesn't get light on the west coast until about 6 a.m., and drove down Route 101 and then Route 1. This is such beautiful country. Huge farms and ranches that go on forever, right next to the ocean, that just make you want to jump on a horse and ride.

We checked out Malibu, looked for but couldn't find Latigo Beach, but drove past many other beaches along the way, and arrived in Sierra Madre at about 1:00 pm. After settling into Jason's

Here's a pic of Jason's house:

This picture taken from Jason's doorstep.

and meeting his landlord, we drove down to Venice Beach, had lunch, and walked the strip for a couple of hours,

stopped and had a beer at one of the bars and drove back to Jason's. For dinner we had ice cream at a little place in town and had a beer at a so-so local Irish Bar. We went to the grocery store to get some picnic makings for the next day and then went back to Jason's and watched Weeds and crashed.

On Tuesday we hung at Jason's for a while, playing with Marlie, his big lovable cat that is expert at catching balls, before packing up our picnic and heading out to Joshua Tree. A beautiful drive out with views of mountains all the way and an amazing windmill farm. We discovered that the Beatnik Cafe that Rick had talked about for the past three years had closed down so we went right out to the park. It's a mystical and magical place that makes you feel like you're on another planet.

We scampered around a while found some shade and had our picnic


and found this little guy enjoying some shade as well

and took photos and went back into town for a beer at The JT Saloon. Very unique place that looks like something out of the gold rush days.

We got back to Sierra Madre around 5 and freshened up a bit and went to dinner at a nice Mexican Restaurant in Sierra Madre, then went to another place down the street where they were having trivia night. We thought we'd done pretty well but were a couple of points shy of placing in the top three. After that we headed into Pasadena to a bar called Barney's that Jason recommended. Nice place with a good crowd but we were pretty beat by then so stayed for just one beer and then back to Jason's. Watched an episode of Hung, played with Marlie, and then crashed. Well one of us crashed a little harder and earlier than others. : )

On Wednesday I had come down with a pretty nasty cold but we had one more day of fun left so we headed into Hollywood. We'd just gotten there and were walking down Hollywood Boulevard when Jason recognized Diamond Dallas Page, a wrestler that he and Rick had followed in his hey day. They were really pleased to meet him and I took pics of them together doing DDP's signature sign of the diamond.

DDP had the guys with him take a picture also, saying that he'd put it up on his Facebook page. We haven't seen it there yet but he did respond to both Rick and Jason with personal emails via Facebook. Seems like a pretty cool dude. He's done some acting since retiring from wrestling and has some exercise videos called Yoga for Real Guys or something like that.

We walked the boulevard, took pictures of the Hollywood sign and some of the stars along the boulevard. When we got to Michael Jackson's star, there was an assortment of souvenirs people had left at his star, so Rick left a copy of his book there.

I had my picture taken with a Gene Simmons look a like – tongue and all. We stopped for a drink at The Pig 'n Whistle, then drove back to Pasadena for an excellent dinner at Maria's Italian Restaurant and called it an early night. We got up at five the next morning and were out the door headed to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana to return our car and catch our return flight.

The flights were all fairly uneventful, with a short delay leaving Las Vegas causing us to have to run to catch our flight to Portland out of Philly. But we got home, luggage and all, about 1:00 am Friday morning and Jared had a spaghetti dinner waiting for us cause we hadn't eaten since breakfast.

I was feeling really run down with my cold and all the traveling so I took some Nyquil and slept until noon on Friday and then napped off and on for the rest of the day.

It was a wonderful trip for my first time in California and it was really nice to spend some time with Jason. He is a fantastic LA driver, never once getting us stuck in a traffic jam and not once did I feel nervous about his driving. It was only the drive in and the drive out that we had to maneuver on our own that caused some stress, but even that, with Jason's direction, was pretty easy.

San Francisco - July 23 - 25

We arrived around 8 pm on Thursday night, left our luggage in the room and headed right out to explore and find a place to have dinner. We ended up at Joe's Crab Shack which apparently is a chain, but we had a delicious meal of two different kinds of crabs, shrimp, corn and fries. When we asked about music, the waiter at Joe 'sdirected us down the street to Lou's Blues Club where we listened to Willie G and the G Spots. Very entertaining and good music.

Friday morning we started out walking around theFisherman's Wharf area to find a breakfast cafe. We walked by several mostly empty cafes and then found the Hollywood Cafe on North Point St that was packed so we guessed that it might have good food. It was good, though really, how can you mess up your standard eggs and french toast?

Came back to the room briefly and then walked over to the cable cars and took a ride to the end of the line at Union Square.

We checked out a few shops and walked over to Chinatown, checked out a bunch of the shops there and were looking a bit overwhelmed I guess, trying to decide which of the 300 restaurants we should try for lunch, cause some local came up and suggested the Capital Restaurant at the end of Wavely street, where we had a nice lunch.

Next stop was the north beach area, specifically the City Lights Bookstore where Rick reverse shoplifted a copy of his book, and then across the street to Vesuviou's where I had a beer and Rick a Jack Kerouac (tequilla rum, orange and cranberry juice and a lime) and a good conversation with the friendly bartender.

We then walked up to the Stinking Rose and over a few blocks to catch the #39 cable car up to Coit Tower.

We walked down Filbert Steps and saw the parrots of Telegraph Hill, (check out the movie of the same name). This was a huge ass bunch of steps that veer off on multiple levels to apartments and condos where people live. I can't believe they actually have to walk up or down these steps to get home each and every day, carrying groceries, etc., and moving their furniture in and out. Amazing. We then walked over to Embarcadero and down to Pier 39 to see the sea lions and all the happenings on the pier. Then a walk back to our hotel for a little rest before going out for dinner.

We had a delicious dinner at the The Stinking Rose where the waiter directed us to The Saloon just across the street for music and dancing. They claimed to be the oldest saloon in SF. We got there before the crowd, giving us great seats at the bar where we listened and danced to a fun performance of blues music and later took cab back to our hotel.

After touring the Castro District Saturday morning we took the ferry over to Sausalito where we met my friend Penney who took us up to the hills and enjoyed a delicious gourmet picnic while overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

She then drove us around the hills and beaches and back to the ferry just as one was headed back. It was a slightly earlier one than we had planned but the timing was too good to pass up.

We took a street car back to Fisherman's Wharf, shopped a little, and rested briefly before going to Tiernan's Irish Pub for dinner. We chose it because they had live music – very mediocre live music as it turned out, much like their food. We left there and walked around a bit and decided to go back to our room and call it a day.

Vacation is Over

Vacation is over :(

I'll post a San Francisco and a Los Angeles entry soon.

It's been a good five weeks even though the weather in Maine has sucked pretty much the whole time. Fortunately the last week was spent in sunny California so it felt like I got a taste of summer, especially given the 100+ degree temps.

The first few days I spent alone at camp. I had hoped to kayak and spend some time in the yard and in my hammock swing, reading in the sun, but it rained steady the whole time so I was relegated to reading inside and other indoor activities. It started out fine but by about the fourth day I became pretty depressed and went home. Our plans were to go to Popham Beach the following week and I was in kind of a panic about having to spend over a thousand dollars to spend seven days in a one room cottage while it rained all week as all the weather reports were predicting. I actually went on line and tried to find someplace we could go that was predicting sun and the closest I could find was Pennsylvania. In fact, the town where Rick used to live and where he makes regular visits to see his mom, was predicting sunny weather all week so I tried to convince him to blow off Popham and go PA. Definitely not a comparable vacation – the seashore vs. a small town with not much going on – but I was so desperate for some sun at that point I didn't really care where I was as long as it was sunny. I hadn't realized how adversely a lack of sun affected me until then, but crying all the way home from camp at the prospect of another week of rain made me realize I needed to do something drastic. Fortunately, as it turned out, Rick wasn't buying the last minute change of plans. He tried to placate me with the option of going to Popham and if it really sucked, we'd leave and go to PA. Fine. I agreed to give it a try. And it turned out we had 5 beautiful sunny days out of the seven. Not bad at all. Even the two rainy days were nice, sitting inside reading, watching and listening to the waves.

When we returned from Popham we had just two nights at home before we headed up to the Stratton/Eustis area to howl with the wolves. See post on that. Of course it drizzled rain most of the time we were there.

After that we came home for a couple of days during which it was cloudy and drizzly, and got ready to go to White's Beach Bluegrass Festival that weekend. We spent Friday and Saturday there with some sun, and then headed home early Sunday, which turned out to be a beautiful day, in order to get in our first kayak paddle of my vacation. (Well, except for the half hour paddle at Popham). It felt so good to be out there paddling in the sun. Rick went home and I spent Sunday night alone at camp, went kayaking again on Monday, and invited Betty out to spend the night Monday night. She and I kayaked again on Tuesday and then I went home and she spent that night alone at camp. I needed to leave so as to get ready for our California trip.

So Thursday morning we left for California, returning the following Thursday, late in the evening. That left just Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (today) before returning to work. I think the fast pace of our California explorations must have worn me down because I got hit with a nasty cold on our last day there and spent my first two days back home feeling miserable and sleeping. I woke up this morning feeling fine and got up early and went for a walk around the neighborhood. It's been mostly overcast all day but it hasn't actually rained.

So I just check weather.com and see that seven out of the next ten days are predicting mostly sun. Fuckers.

Howling With The Wolves

We were hunting for wolves and found moose.

Rick and I saw an article in the local newspaper one moring about the Wolf Inquiry Project. They were looking for volunteers to go out into the woods and howl and record any responses you might get. They are trying to determine if there are wolves in Maine. Apparently they are well established to our west and north in Canada but no concrete evidence of their existence in Maine.
We thought it sounded interesting so we went to the Audobon building up in Holden one Saturday in June to learn more about wolves and learn how to use the high tech recording equipment, and signed up to go out for a couple of days which we did earlier this week.
We decided to go to western Maine, up around Stratton and Eustis. We have some familiarity with that region and the WIP folks wanted it surveyed, so it seemed like a good choice. We arrived in Carrabassett Valley Monday around noon, dropped the truck camper off at my friend Cindy's office on the Sugarloaf Access Road, and took the Honda Element and headed up the Caribou Pond Road. This was probably the roughest road we were on during our whole survey. The idea was to scout the roads, and then go back during the night sometime between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. After traversing some really rough pot holes and some pretty decrepit bridges, we were unsure whether we wanted to wander that route at night. We returned and picked up the truck and headed out to the Bigelow Preserve to set up camp before tackling our next scouting route.
Things had changed slightly at the Bigelow campsites since I was there last summer on a solo trip. One branch of the road into the campsites had been closed off and loggers were using it as a logging site within feet of the other arm of the access road. There were a group of campers in the big campsite and what appeared to be a fairly permanent tent (all tarped over and tucked in tight) at the smaller site right next to the water and 3 or 4 young men hanging out down at the third shorefront campsite. No one ever came to the tented/tarped site but we couldn't very well pull up and park the truck in their space even if they weren't there. Though there's a 14 day limit on camping at these sites and a policy of not allowing people to leave their tents up unless they're using them, it's tough to enforce so we set up in a little spot in the woods where we couldn't see the water and wondered whether our neighbors, with flames painted on their cars, were going to be tenable.
We left the camper, not set up, and headed out to scout the Old Dead River Road within the Bigelow Preserve It has a few hiking trails but no houses or tent sites. We drove out about 4 miles and found no major obstacles. The road was rough but felt like a highway compared to the Caribou Pond Road. At the end was a gate that prevented us from going further, but there was plenty of room to turn around. On our way back we saw our first moose of the trip. She was trotting down the road when we came upon her but by the time I got my camera out, she had headed off the road and completely disappeared into the camouflage of the woods.
We decided that the Dead River Road was a definite to survey later and headed out to find the King and Bartlett Road, which according to the Maine Atlas (every true Mainer's Bible), veered off from the Flagstaff Road just a couple hundred feet in. We found the Flagstaff Road easily and though it didn't really follow the route indicated on the Atlas, we continued down it, going through some good size puddles and pot holes till just before it dead ended at Flagstaff Lake. There we came across a puddle too deep to cross. The road had only gone about a mile or two before dead ending so we went back to the beginning and tried a branch off to another road we'd seen. Our Garmen called it by names different than the Atlas (Scott Road/Grand View Road/ and eventually there were signs indicating Trails End Pub was up ahead) and we continued on, going over some of the roughest terrain we'd seen yet. A couple of times I egged Rick on to go through puddles or over pot holes that were pretty sketchy, but when we came upon a puddle that was a good 20 feet across he went out in his waterproof sandals and walked into the puddle to see how deep it was. It came up almost to his knees, which wasn't too bad, but then discovered that just beneath the surface was a boulder sitting in the middle of the puddle that was also almost up to his knees. There was not enough room to go to either side of it, and it'd definitely take out the undercarriage of the Element, so we decided we'd better try to turn around – not an easy feat on a path that was only slightly wider than the width of the Element. However, an 8 point turn later,and we were back on the path headed out.
We decided to stop by Cindy's house in Stratton to try and get the scoop of why the Flagstaff Road was so different than indicated on the Atlas. After some discussion, we realized there's more than one Flagstaff Road in Eustis and we weren't on the one shown on the Atlas. In fact, the “road” we were on (indicated by a single dotted line on the Atlas) was really just a snowmobile trail. Cindy was quite surprised to learn we'd gotten as far as we had on it. But by this time it was almost dark so our scouting had to end and we were left with just the Old Dead River Road and maybe the Caribou Pond Road to survey that night.
We went back and set up the camper, had some dinner and a beer, and killed some time till it was late enough to start the survey. At 9:30 we got out the recording equipment, a Fostex digital recorder and a Sennheiser boom mic with a windscreen cover and headed out for our first stop. I'm.sure we looked quite the sight, standing out there in the drizzling rain in the middle of nowhere at 12 o'clock at night, the heavy shoulder bag filled with the recorder, headlamps strapped to our foreheads, big headphones, and the mike, howling like fools. It's definitely something you want to do far enough out where no one is likely to come across you.
Unfortunately, after two hours of howling and waiting for responses, we'd heard nothing but some bullfrogs. And the weather was too sketchy to try some of the other more remote sites we'd scouted earlier, so we called it a night.
We awoke at 4:00 the next morning to loggers working right next to our campsite. Chainsaws, trucks, and a log loader and it was still dark, and still drizzling.
We made coffee from coffee bags, had some Kashi and decided we'd check out Cathedral Pines campground on our way to our next scouting trip. It is a beautifully well maintained campground right in Eustis, with clean bathrooms, showers, quiet, spacious sites with electricity and water. Definitely not for those who prefer a more rustic setting but the cathedral pines are truly magnificent and reminded me how much I'd like to see a similar stand of redwoods when we're in CA next week.

Unfortunately there were no sites open on the water but I think we'll go back up in September with some of the band members and try to get a waterfront site. We told the lady we'd be back later to bring the camper in and set up.
We headed north on Route 27 again and drove past the real King and Bartlett Road and stopped down beyond Serampus Falls at a short pull off looking up toward Sisk Mountain. It's a beautiful location in a big dale with great views of both Sisk and part of Kibby I think. We couldn't see any construction on the side of the mountain we were viewing so if it's Kibby then they must be putting the windmills in on the other side. We certainly saw a lot of evidence of construction on the Gold Brook Road which we decided to pass by, though it had been our initial destination in this area before we realized it was the site of the huge windmill project up here.
The area looked like it would be rife with coyote, if not wolves so we put it at the top of our list for later that evening and then drove back to King and Bartlett Road. The weather was becoming a bit less drizzly and we'd stopped at Serampus Falls on our way north. We also made a stop at the DOT maintenance building where we watched and photographed our second moose of the trip, having spotted him in the bog on our way by.

Moosie #2 - didn't like his picture taken much and wandered slowly off into the woods. But notice the beginner antlers and the beard.

King and Bartlett Road is a nice wide, well maintained dirt road that went on for just over 4 miles before dead ending at a gate and station near Jim Pond. With very sparse traffic, and no houses, it seemed like a good place to survey. We took a side trip down a road labeled as Farm Hill Road. About a mile in there was an older but good sized camper trailer, and about a half mile beyond that the road started getting too sketchy so we turned around. We figured we'd wait till later to decide whether we wanted to make the trek down this road late at night.

Photo: looking down Farm Hill Road.

On our way out, we passed a big four wheel drive truck with a couple guys in it headed down the road. I wonder if they got further than we did or if they turned around also.
Our next destination was a dirt road off Route 16, headed to Rangely. On our way there we pulled into the sandpit where moose are often seen and sure enough we got to watch and photograph our third moose of the trip.

Moosie #3 - He's definitely a happy moose. He also has the furry little beginner antlers and what I think they call a beard hanging down from his neck. Not sure what that's all about.

We drove down the dirt road (I can't remember the name of it now) for several miles but never were more than a minute or two between houses or camps. It seemed too populated with humans to be a likely location for wolves so we crossed it off our list and headed back to the camper to spend some time at our nicely groomed campsite. We started to eat at the picnic table but it was drizzling and occasionally raining again so we ate a sandwich and had a beer and took naps to refresh ourselves for later. Rick had told the woman at the office when we checked in that we'd be leaving for a few hours and coming in very late so she was sure to give us passes to the gate that locked at 11 pm. We headed over to the Stratton Plaza for dinner at about 6:30 and had fun playing the Megatouch games while waiting for our pizza. Cindy stopped by and Mary was working at The Plaza so we had a chance for a short visit before heading back out.
We started out at the valley looking at Sisk Mountain, to no avail. We then drove to King and Bartlett Road and followed the same routine as the night before: drive a mile in; stop and take latitude, longitude, and temperature readings, howl quietly for nearby canids, listen for two minutes, howl louder, listen for two minutes, howl loudly again, and listen for two more minutes. The recorder always has a ten second loop going so if we heard anything, we could hit the record button and we'd be able to capture everything we'd heard ten seconds prior to hitting the button. Unfortunately, we had no opportunity to hit the record button. There were sounds of gurgling brooks one wouldn't have heard without the boom mic and though it had cleared and we could see the stars, we could also hear the sound of the rain drops falling off all the leaves in the woods as a gentle wind blew. At times the wind would gust a bit and the rain drops would fall suddenly, and a twig might break, but through the boom mic it would sound more like some creature thundering through the woods. Spooky cool.
So we returned to the camper later that night (sighting moose #4 on the way home) with some data of where canids were NOT found on a certain night, but with no recordings of howls to be analyzed at the university (Tufts I think it is) who's working with the WIP folks on the project. Just because we didn't find wolves there on that particular night doesn't mean they're not around that area. Perhaps we, or another volunteer, will survey that area again later this summer and maybe at that time we'll find different results.

Here's two more of my favorite photos of moosie #3.

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.

Popham Beach Cottage vacation

We arrived Saturday afternoon to a blue sky, beautiful sunshine and Annie's margaritas. We quickly brought our things into the cottage and headed out to enjoy the beautiful day. We were able to grab a few rays of sun before the first rainstorm hit. A heavy downpour for about a half hour – just long enough to put our cottage in order – and then back out to more sunshine.



Here's a pic of the cottage. We were located just off the dunes, well within sight and earshot of the surf.

Enjoying my margarita.

It had been so long since we'd seen clear skies I had no idea we were in for a full moon till it rose in all its glory Saturday night, shimmering over the breaking waves.

Sunday morning I rose shortly after the sun and took a solo walk on the deserted beach.

I love walking along and being the first footprints of the day

It was still chilly - maybe around 55 degrees - so I dressed warm. By the time I arrived back at the cottage around eight, it had warmed up considerably and we were ready for shorts.

I love all the interesting markings and shapes you find on the beach early in the morning.

Whatever event of nature that created this marking seemed to be questioning . . . or is it asking, lend me your ear?

Morning at Camp

I wake to the sound of the loons calling from somewhere out in the fog drenched stream, the chatter of the red squirrels, the call of the crows, and the whistle of an osprey soaring overhead. I feel the tight muscles in my lower back grouching for lack of movement and delight in the feel of the soft sheets against my skin. I'm guessing it's about 5:00 and when I turn to glance at the clock, see I'm “dead on balls accurate.” Though I had been feeling a little lonely and out of sorts last night, not being able to get into Deb's “best book she's ever read” and feeling too uninspired to drum or write or even listen to music, I'm now once again reveling in the freedom allowed by solitude and complete lack of a schedule, to get up or not, depending solely on my own desires. No worry about the deafening sound of the coffee grinder, but to my own ears, or that my puttering about at this early hour will disturb my partner's sleep. No questions of “whatchya writing” as I tap away on my keyboard, or “whatchya doin” as I'm sitting there doing absolutely nothing but being present with the emerging morning. I can blather away about nothing (as evidenced here) with no expectation of some great revelation to be enjoyed later by a reader who is not the writer. Or sit and watch the various shades of white turn gradually into rippling water and summer trees. There's no newspaper delivery out here so no news to be consumed, no puzzles to puzzle over, no tv blaring stock prices or predictions. Knowing that all of those things that I've come to love are just a 45 minute drive away allows me to luxuriate in their absence. If I didn't have a sweet man at home, would I feel as peaceful in my solitude? If I didn't have my connection to the world through newspapers and tv available to me at any time, would I feel so content in my ignorance of local and world events? If I didn't have my seven room house on the lake with all the accoutrements of modern day living, would I so readily celebrate the simplicity of my one room camp on the marsh? I think not.