Maine

 

A couple few years ago Alan took me to Maine. It was a great adventure, with a heavy emphasis on the latter word. I loved it.

Then more recently Scott and Jen and the girls took us to coastal Maine. Even more love. Toes in the ocean. Shorebirds. Exciting places. What's not to love?

Thus we decided on a DIY Maine mini vacation.

My dear brother got us an amazing hotel room with his points which made it even easier than we had planned. (Thanks, Matt and Lisa!) Think Eve Dallas shower...if you know you know...

The boss drove almost continuously from early Friday morning to yesterday afternoon. Mad props to him for doing a good job in a strange place, with a less than adequate navigator....just ask my birding buddies about that...For the most part until Sunday we met sensible, courteous drivers. Sunday was not that way.

We found a cool little independent chocolate shop, where we got Liz the taffy she requested. Becky found some really nice shirts at one place we stopped...wait until you see her! She looks amazing in them.

However, neither shopping, nor chocolate was the focus of the trip for me...I'll bet you can guess what my goal was...

Birds!

And we found them. More about that later. 

We saw staggering sunrises that defied description. I got my feet wet in the Atlantic, which is important to me for some reason. I watched more happy dogs at play than I ever imagined existed. Dogs of every size and description, cavorting and jostling with friends, chasing tennis balls down the beach or out into the water, eating and/or rolling in the most disgusting substances imaginable. It was a doggy paradise. I shuddered to think of the effort it was going to take to get them drawing room friendly again, but Lord, Lord, they were having fun. 

We greeted dozens upon dozens of friendly morning walkers, and exchanged multitudes of cheerful smiles.

It was nice. I love Maine.

We also had car trouble. Our much loved little Blazer decided it would be fun to start sharing electrical gremlins of assorted varieties. No heat, fans on all the time, no auto headlights. All problems were intermittent and refused to occur when we stopped at Sullivan Tire in Biddeford for help. Kudos to them btw. They spent a good deal of time and effort with us and didn't charge us a thing. Nice folks. 

As with all the best vacations it was wonderful, and yet oh, so good to be home. JSYK Ralph still snores.

A lot.

We love him anyhow. 

Many thanks to everyone who made it all possible.

PS, I took 374 pictures just with the camera, not to mention whatever ones I took with the phone. Now to spend some time weeding them out.