Last Saturday was our fifth of six weddings spanning October 2011 through September 2012. There was actually going to be a seventh, but the bride and groom decided to delay their wedding for awhile. I don’t imagine we will be so wedding-rich again for some time, if ever.

Last weekend’s wedding involved a former student of Mer’s and one of my former improv students. Dan has stayed in touch over the intervening seven years since he graduated, and we were very pleased to be invited to his wedding. Dan had met his bride, Carolyn, online, which I think is the third such wedding we have been to since the dawn of internet dating made such meetings possible.

The wedding was in Pittsburgh, which is always an adventure, even with a GPS. For those who have not driven in Pittsburgh, the city is very hilly, and so the streets tend to wind, and the intersections can come up very quickly. We made it to the church with little difficulty (we were not quite so lucky on the way home, where I took two wrong turns, from which the GPS rescued us). Dan’s younger brother, Mike, was also in my improv group, and had just gotten back from a months-long mission trip to South Africa. We were able to chat briefly with Mike and his girlfriend at the reception, and made plans to catch up with Mike later.

The actual wedding was an Anglican wedding, and was presided over by two priests – Mike’s priest from New York and Carolyn’s priest from Pittsburgh. The ceremony was from the Book of Common Prayer, and the homily was given by Mike’s priest. She looked a little tired from her trip the previous day, but she did fine. The entire service was a real church service, lasting over an hour, and included several congregational hymns, and Dan and Carolyn served each other communion, which I found very touching.

The reception was nearby in a fire-fighters’ hall. Mer and I were seated with Dan’s fellow-students, most of whom were in my Royal Fools improv group, and most of whom have stayed in touch with both me and Mer. It is always a great time to see this group of former students; we have a good time together. The food was excellent, and the fellowship was grand. There was dancing after supper, and Mer and I got to dance a fair amount. The only downside to the evening was that the music was too loud to allow for conversation, even when we were on the other side of the hall. That was fairly minor, as we figured we could make plans to see most everyone, and we made definite plans to see Mike.

The next wedding will be in early September, and will involve the same group of students. It will be a fine way to wrap up the Year of the Wedding.

This last week was mellow, but family-focused. On Monday, we drove down to Canton, to Aunt Mary’s place. We got take-out from Chipotle (Aunt Mary got a salad from Wendy’s), and we went back to the house to eat and to do our classic game-show watching: we played along with Wheel of Fortune and then Jeopardy!

On Thursday, Mer and I drove up to Cleveland, to the airport, to pick up Mer’s parents, Dale and Carlene. They were moving back to Ohio, which made me and Mer pretty happy. Their possessions were en route and would not get to Cuyahoga Falls until Friday, so we all drove back to our place for the evening. It was a later flight (8:00 pm), so Dale and I went to bed fairly directly, while Mer and Carlene chatted for awhile.

On Friday, Mer and Dale and Carlene went over to Dale and Carlene’s new home – a two-bedroom apartment in a nearby retirement village. The furniture was being professionally moved, so the movers did pretty much all of the heavy lifting. They got the heavy things into place, and took a bunch of boxes over to a storage unit until such a time as Dale and Carlene are ready for more boxes to unpack.

I ran over with Mer after work to see how things were shaping up. The place has real potential, although it was full of boxes. We brought over our older LCD TV, and I set it up on the existing cable line. The picture came in pretty well. The management of the apartment complex had left a cake for Dale and Carlene, so we all had a piece of that. I know it cannot be easy for Dale and Carlene to leave their home of the last fifteen-plus years in Florida, but it is my hope that having family and old friends in the area will help the transition. Mer and I are pleased to be able to “drop by” when we want to; it remains to be seen if Dale and Carlene see that as an advantage or not.

We left Maine late Friday morning, with the goal of reaching central New York. We stopped near Portland to eat brunch at IHOP, eating a ridiculous amount of food including a stack of “cinnamon roll” French toast. That certainly held us until our late supper.

We drove until about 7:00 or so, reaching Syracuse. We got off the highway to look for a motel, and the first one we saw was called the John Milton. Milton is a famous English author, and so it seemed as if we should stay there. It did not hurt that it was only $42 a night. It was a bit run-down, but it was clean, and was located next to a Dunkin Donuts and a Denny’s. We did smile at the notice that people who did not pay their bill on a daily basis would be asked to leave, no matter how long they had been in residence. That is not a sign we had seen before in Hiltons or even Motel 6 chains. The front desk also had a sign that said something to the effect of “Poor customer service will be remembered long after the joy of a cheap price is forgotten.” The odd thing was, the sign was pointed at the customers, when I would have expected it to be a reminder to the people behind the desk.

We ate supper at the Denny’s, and grabbed dessert at Dunkin Donuts. We got back to the room around 9:00, and went to bed. I slept fitfully, and was up before 5:00. Mer had to use the bathroom, so I used the opportunity to urge us to get on the road. She acquiesced, although a bit grumpily.

We got home about noon, and used Saturday and Sunday to get caught up on house things, like laundry and paying bills and such. One unfortunate occurrence was I found out our hot water heater was leaking, and so I put a call in to get a plumber to come out and replace it (which he did on Monday evening). It put a slight damper (ha!) on the vacation, but we had a great time in Maine. The kitties were all safe, and it was good to sleep in my own bed again and not be rooting around in a suitcase for clean clothes.

Thursday was our last full day in Maine, and it was Mer’s day. We had arranged to go to Julie and Paul’s house in Brunswick in the evening for supper. Add to that the fact that my wife likes to see everything, and I figured out, when we were still twenty minutes outside of Brunswick, that we were headed back to Brunswick, to take and finish the campus tour of Bowdoin College .

The tour group looked to be huge, with forty or more people, and I was not looking forward to it. Happily, there were three tour guides, and so the groups split into smaller groups of twelve to fifteen, and each person could choose a guide. Mer, not surprisingly, gravitated toward an English major. We toured around the main quad of Bowdoin, with the guide pointing out various dorms and various department buildings. We went into a science building, and into the student union/fitness center. The fitness center was a gift from the guy who founded Subway restaurants, who had graduated from Bowdoin with a physics major. Mer wanted to know when I was going to found a multi-million-dollar business with my physics degree. The tour lasted about ninety minutes, and we came away with the impression that Bowdoin was very similar to our college, Middlebury College (except we both think Middlebury is prettier).

After the college tour, we drove a very short distance to the center of town, to the Skofield-Whittier House. The house is a Victorian-style house that is now owned my the Pejepscot Historical Society. It had been built by a sea captain who had done well, and handed down through a couple of generations. In the 1930s the last of the family, a young woman, left the house with everything inside, and eventually gave it to the historical society to keep up. As such, many of the furnishings date to 1900 or even before, and the house is in pretty good shape, although the historical society is small enough that upkeep on the house is an ongoing task.

Our tour was excellent. It was just Mer and I and our tour guide. We were taken all around the house and told its history, and I saw at least one newspaper on a cupboard that had a headline about Nixon (the last woman who owned the place did come back from time to time, but changed nothing in the house). It was interesting to see various appliances from the 1920s and 1930s, and the house itself is very pretty.

After we finished the tour, which took about an hour or a little more, we drove over to see if we could tour the Brunswick Naval Air Station, a major air field for the Navy. We got there only to discover that the base had closed (in 2011, it turns out, with the last flight in 2009). It is now open as a civilian airport, but there did not seem to be much to see, and no way of knowing any of the history of the base. So, we moved on.

We headed south toward the ocean and a number of scenic islands that are joined to the main (Maine) land by small bridges.We crossed over Great Island to Orr’s Island, all the way to Bailey’s Island to where the road stops (a gift store called Land’s End). We got out of the car to look around briefly on each of the islands, and wandered around quite a bit on Bailey’s Island. The bridge from Orr’s Island to Bailey’s Island was worth stopping to see. It is a cribstone bridge, which is a bunch of granite blocks just lying on top of each other in a grid pattern. It is the only working bridge of its kind in the world.

We drove back to Brunswick to Julie and Paul’s house, where they had supper waiting. We had a good supper of corn on the cob and chicken, and then we sat in their backyard and chatted. It was a fine evening, and it was a good night to sit out. Julie and Paul’s daughters needed to get ready for bed before the sun set, so we left while we still had some daylight. We decided to use it, and Mer had me drive south to South Harpswell to a peninsula, all the way to where the road ended, with a fine view of the ocean. The sun was not quite ready to set, but it was still very pretty. We did not linger too long, as we had a ninety-minute drive back to Dad’s place, and a start to the long drive back home on Friday. The relaxed evening was a good way to end our vacation.

Mer did arrange to have dinner with her friend Julie and her family, on Thursday. So, we swapped days so that Wednesday was “my” day. I wanted to take a hike, but several of the hikes I looked at were either very difficult, or very far away. After a little online research, I found out that the southern coastal town of Oqunquit had a mile-and-a-quarter-long paved trail called “The Marginal Way” that was right on the ocean. In addition, the town was supposed to be charming, so I settled on Oqunquit as our destination for the day.

Oqunquit is very far south in Maine, only a few miles from New Hampshire, and a good thirty or more miles south of Portland. It is on Route 1, and is very much a tourist-driven town. We got there late morning, and found a good municipal parking lot to park in, near the center of town and very close to the beach. Food seemed like a good first order of the day, so we wandered toward one of the main streets and found a restaurant called The Wild Blueberry. We were both in the mood for breakfast, so it seemed a good pick. For some odd reason, Oqunquit has a town law forbidding restaurants from serving guests on their decks, so we had to eat inside, even though it was a beautiful day. The food was good, albeit about fifty percent more expensive than it should have been, but that is the cost of eating in a tourist town.

After breakfast, we walked over to the Marginal Way path. Once we got to the ocean, I was shocked at what I saw. From the start of the walkway, you could see Oqunquit’s beach. I had no idea that Maine had such beaches. Most of Maine’s coast (and many of the lake shores) is all rock, with little or no sand. Oqunquit had a huge sandy beach that ran north to the town of Wells, where the beach continued. In fact, Oqunquit’s beach was a small island joined to the town by a small bridge, so the beach actually wrapped around the southern part of the island. Even though there were lots of people on the beach, the beach was so large it did not appear crowded. I was amazed.

The Marginal Way itself was no less a happy find. It wound along a rocky section of coast that had a couple of very small beaches along the way. The path itself was very easy since it was paved, and it climbed gently to a high point that had a good view. The rocks of the coast were immediately accessible from the path, so Mer and I clambered around a few rocks. There were many small hotels and rental beach houses facing up against the path, but there were also some very beautiful private homes that commanded spectacular views of the coast. The path ended (going south) in a little coastal grove of trees, and finally in a parking lot with a few restaurants about. Mer and I walked it to the southern end, and then returned the way we came, taking a short detour to explore one of the mini-beaches, where we both waded into the fairly cold Maine ocean.

Once we got back to the northern end of the trail, we walked a block through town and took a footpath and bridge over to the main road bridge that led to the island-beach. The beach is very low-lying, so that I think much of it must disappear at high tide. The sand goes out very gently, as far as I could tell. Mer waded in the ocean again since she always wears easy-off sandals. By then, it was late in the afternoon, so we headed back to the car and started heading back north along Route 1.

On the way into town we had seen an ice cream stand called Sundaes on the Beach, and we decided to stop there on the way out of town. Sundaes on the Beach has an interesting business model: you order your ice cream, and then you can top in any way you like from a small but good sundae bar. We had seen similar places that worked with yogurt, but never anywhere that used ice cream instead. We were both pretty pleased by the concept, and we were happy to have stopped. After our snack-break, we headed back home.

On Tuesday, early in the morning, I drove up to Augusta to take advantage of their paved running/biking path that runs along the river south for 6.5 miles. By running a short section of the path twice, I was able to take advantage of the wonderfully cool weather and run about fifteen miles. The biggest issue was the small, rolling hills along the path. By the time I got back to the car, my hamstrings were in a fair amount of pain.

Once I got back to the house and Mer and I got ready for the day, we jumped in the car and took a winding and scenic route south and west to the the New Hampshire border, to the town of Fryeburg, Maine. Fryeburg is best known for its fair in the fall, having the second biggest fair in New England, after the one outside of Boston. It’s an odd place for a huge fair, since the town only has a few thousand people, but that is what it is known for.

We were there because I wanted a scenic drive, but also because the town had a company that offered kayak rentals to paddle on the shallow and slow Saco River. It seemed like an ideal place to try kayaking. Before the big river adventure, we ate at one of the three restaurants we could find in town, the Fryeburg House of Pizza and Family Restaurant. The food was decent, although the air conditioning was cranked to an uncomfortable level, even for me.

On the way back to the kayak place, we stopped briefly to check out Fryeburg Academy, a private high school with a dorm option for out-of-town students. It was very pretty, with several brick buildings and large athletic fields. I later looked up tuition, and decided that forty thousand dollars a year (for boarding students) should buy some scenic views.

The kayak folks did have a kayak for us, so we opted for the shortest trip, a ninety-minute excursion down the river to a landing where the company would pick us up. We had a tandem (two-person) kayak, with Mer in the front and me in the back. We felt comfortable in the boat right away as far as stability, and as the river was never deeper than three or four feet, we felt quite safe. Most of the time, the river was only about a foot deep, with a sandy bottom, so it really was a  perfect place to try kayaking.

The day was fine, and the river pretty. The only frustration we had was that our kayak did not steer well. We had always seen that kayaks would turn away from the side you paddled on. So, if you paddled on the right-hand side, the kayak would go slightly left. For whatever reason, our kayak would do that occasionally, but more often it would turn toward the rowing side. Even when we tried correcting for this by rowing on both sides, we never did get the kayak to go where we wanted it without my dragging my paddle in the water as a break. We will need to try kayaking again sometime to see if it was just that particular kayak.

Despite the steering issues, the trip was worthwhile because of the surroundings. We often chose to drift to enjoy the river, and while there were people about on and in the river enjoying it, we often had stretches of the river to ourselves. We made it to the landing in about seventy-five minutes, and by luck the company was there picking up some other people, so we did not have to wait.

Once we got back to the car, I decided to drive north to Bethel, Maine, as that would take us through the White Mountain National Forest. What an incredible drive. The forest was very dense on both sides, and the road wound up into the western Maine mountains. We even zigzagged into New Hampshire a few times. It was the prettiest place I saw inland on this trip to Maine.

Once we got to Bethel, we drove back through Rumford and on to Jay, and back through Livermore Falls, back to Dad’s. At least I figured out how to steer the car.

Monday was Mer’s day, and she pointed us toward the Augusta area, where we jumped on Route 24, which is a scenic drive alongside the Kennebec River. We headed south along the road, and she gave me leave to take any little side roads that I wanted to take, so in general I tried to take small roads that would keep us as close to the river as possible, since I figured that would be the most scenic.

We did stop in the small riverside town of Richmond. Richmond is an interesting little town in that it has a beautiful situation. The river runs alongside the town, and the main shopping street is on a hill overlooking the river. Mid-river is the nature reserve Swan Island, which I was very excited about. It turns out you can get a boat over to Swan Island, but you need to make reservations. That may be in the plans for next summer. Anyway, the town has these wonderful advantages, and the main street is cute, but there are also several buildings either empty and/or in disrepair. It seems as if the town cannot quite make out if it is succeeding or starting to decline. I hope it makes it, as it has a lot of promise.

We continued our scenic drive south, and finally ended up in the town of Brunswick. One of Mer’s college friends, Julie, lives there with her husband and two daughters. Julie’s husband, Paul, owns a cafe in Brunswick called The Little Dog (Paul and Julie indeed have a well-behaved little dog). Mer wanted to see if they were home, but first we had lunch in The Little Dog. Monday was Paul’s day off, so he was not there, but the food and hot chocolate were excellent, and we got to eat outside on the sidewalk, which Mer always enjoys.

On the way back to the car, we noticed a gelato (Italian ice cream) store that we had never seen before. It was called Gelato Fiasco, and we decided to check it out. They had the real-deal Italian ice cream (sometimes places just call themselves a gelato store to sound pretentious, when they really sell normal ice cream). Gelato is denser and more flavorful than standard ice cream, and is always served in much smaller quantities. Gelato Fiasco made their own gelato, and they had tons of flavors. Mer and I were both excited that they offered cookie sandwiches made from huge chocolate chip cookies stuffed with your choice of gelato. We each got one and ate those out on the sidewalk as well. It was a rather grand lunch, in all.

After lunch, we went over to Paul and Julie’s house, but no one was home. We decided we would take a walking tour of nearby Bowdoin College to pass some time, and try back later. So, we left the car on the street and walked over to Bowdoin, where Mer wanted to find the Admissions Office to see if we could get a tour. We found the office, but had missed the most recent guided tour, so we took a self-guided tour booklet and started off. We did not get very far, as the second building we came to was the library. It turns out that both the poet Longfellow and the author Hawthorne had graduated from Bowdoin in 1825, and the college library had original documents from both authors. We decided we had to try to check those out, and so we went up to the special collections area of the library on the third floor. The librarians were very helpful, and after we filled out a short form, they went to pull some items from their collection. In the meantime, I checked out a display case that had some letters and other items that had belonged to Joshua Chamberlain, a Civil War hero, Bowdoin College president, and former governor of Maine. I especially enjoyed reading a short letter Chamberlain wrote to his wife when he thought he was dying from wounds he had received. It was eloquent and touching, and happily, Chamberlain survived his wounds.

The librarians brought up some items from special collections. They included a handwritten copy of Longfellow’s poem “Excelsior!” and a letter to his sister. From Hawthorne, they brought us his well-marked copy of Bowdoin College’s rules for 1824 and a first edition of The Scarlet Letter. It is amazing that they let us handle these; the letters from Longfellow were in plastic sleeves, but the Hawthorne items were not. Hawthorne’s copy of the rules was interesting in that the covers were filled with his practicing his signature. I’m not sure why, but that is what was scrawled all over it.

We went back to Julie and Paul’s house after we left the library, and Paul was home with one of his daughters. He kindly let us in, and we visited for about a half hour before Julie came home. Julie had to walk their dog, so we joined Julie and the other daughter (who had not been home with Paul) for a walk along Bowdoin’s athletic fields, which included a wonderful path through the woods. I love walking while talking, and the woods were pretty as well as cool from all of the shade. The walk lasted over half an hour, and Julie and Paul encouraged us to come back for supper later in the week if we were able to.

We head back to Dad’s, and found that Kellee had used a gift certificate she had received at Christmas to buy us each two different kinds of whoopie pies. We ate them both, after supper, while watching episodes of The Big Bang Theory, which we had brought with us. I’m not sure we needed more food, but they were very good, including an unusual peanut butter whoopie pie that was made with cookie ends instead of the standard cake ends. While the purist might wince at that, it was pretty darn good.

Sunday was the day we had scheduled to head over to my Dad’s place in East Livermore, about ninety minutes from Rockland. We did get to start the day off with church, with Carleton at his church, which was a good way to start the day. After church, we all went to the Offshore Restaurant, where we had lunch. After lunch, it was time to go back to the house and pack up, which always seems to take awhile. I’m always amazed at how much stuff we bring along in the car, but I’d rather have it with me than miss it during vacation.

The trip out to East Livermore was uneventful, except I got stuck in the wrong lane in the first rotary in Augusta, so Mer got to hear my rotary rant for several minutes. She is a patient soul. Dad was actually over at a friend’s house helping him with a project when we got there, but my stepmother Kellee was home, so we unpacked and visited with her. Dad got home just as I was getting the grill going with chicken, and so we were able to have supper together.

Dad had received a DVD called Conscientious Objector from someone (he did not know who sent it to him), so we watched that together. The film was a documentary about a WW 2 medic who was a committed Seventh Day Adventist, and as such refused to carry any weapon. It told about all the grief he got during training and his early deployment, but he stood by his beliefs. The men in his unit were won over when they saw how dedicated he was to going into dangerous situations to rescue and treat wounded men. He exposed himself to intense danger during the battle for Okinawa, staying on top of a defenseless ridge for twelve hours to rescue wounded men. For that heroism, he won the Medal of Honor. It was an excellent film, and was, to me, a great reminder of how God can help those who stand by their faith. Mer joined us for about the last third, and she was impressed as well.

After the film was done, we said goodnight to Dad and headed downstairs to the guest bedroom, where we went to bed. Even though Dad’s place is inland, we were still able to leave the widow open for fresh air, and needed a blanket, as it got quite cool overnight.

Saturday was back to being Mer’s day, and she wanted to start the day locally. We drove the short distance to the Rockland Lighthouse Museum, where we started in the gift shop reading a children’s book about a Maine Coon cat who wanted a home and love. After we finished reading it, Mer went to the bathroom to clean up her face from her tears, and then we went into the museum itself.

The Lighthouse Museum is contained in two rooms: one normal-sized room where they show a video on lighthouses, and present displays with the history of the government agencies who had supervision of lighthouses, and one very large room that contains everything else. The larger room focuses on the life of lighthouse keepers (summary: it was difficult and lonely), and has many lenses from lighthouses. They have displays on the evolution of the technology of lights and fog bells/horns, and have an extensive display on the rescue services of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. We were able to do the entire museum in about two hours, and it was an interesting and well-done museum.

From the museum, we drove directly to Mer’s cousin’s house in Thomaston. Dana and her husband Dale were hosting the family Fourth of July picnic, albeit a few days late. There were about twenty people there, including friends of Dana and Dale, as well as family members that I knew. Dale had cooked up a ton of food on his grill, and so we grabbed chairs and ate too much while chatting with various folks. It was a pleasant day, in the shade, and we were there for over two hours before Mer announced we should move on to the the next destination.

We drove over to Damariscotta, another coastal town Mer had never been in, and we walked around the main street and down to the harbor. We strolled along one side street as well, where there were some very pretty seaside homes. Damariscotta is not too large, so we were only there for a fairly short time before we drove over to nearby Damariscotta Mills.

Damariscotta Mills has no downtown that I saw. What it does have is water. It has a freshwater lake, a very cool fish ladder made of stone, and a large lake/bay that connects to the ocean. I’m not sure how much of the large lake is fresh water and how much is salt water. We drove around for several minutes trying to find a parking space so we could get out to check out the fish ladder and the upper lake, and we finally settled on parking in a parking lot at the bottom of the fish ladder, even though there were not other cars there. It turned out the lot was owned by the city or the state, and was okay to park in; people just did not park there because it requires you to walk a ways to get to the lake.

We walked over to and along the fish ladder as best we could. Much of the ladder is on private property, so you can see it, but not get close to it. A fish ladder sounds dull, but this one is very pretty; it is made of stone, and twists back and forth as it comes down the hill. We got an excellent and close look at the top and bottom, and could see most of it from the road that led to the upper lake.

The upper lake had a swimming hole, and it was popular, from the looks of things. It had a bridge to jump from, and lots of trees for shade. In good Maine tradition, there was no real beach – just rocks and some patches of lawn, but it was still a good spot for swimming. Mer had a schedule in mind, so we did not linger long at the lake, and returned to the car by the way we had come. As we approached the very bottom of the fish ladder, there was a huge splash from the stream next to us and something huge caught my eye. I was startled, to say the least, and just made out the tail of a seal as he swam into the larger lake. Mer was sad she missed him, but she did get to see his head poke up in the lake as we drove away. I’m sad we did not see him as we came down the path, but I was not exactly looking for wildlife that close to a parking lot.

We headed over to the coastal town of Port Clyde, where Mer had arranged for us to have a sunset cruise on the Monhegan mail-run boat. The boat is used to ferry mail and passengers to Monhegan Island, but they also do pleasure cruises. The sunset cruise also promised to try to see puffins, a surprisingly small seabird that nests near Port Clyde.

The boat was a good-sized wooden boat that dated back to World War 2. It had some function in the Philippines, but I forget exactly what its role was. Mer and I got to sit in the prow, so we had a great view. There was only the crew (three people) and one other couple on board, and the other (very young) couple seemed to know the crew, so we were pretty much the focus of the crew and the on-board commentary. It was pretty much a private crew. I’m sure the crew lost money on us, but we had a great time, and they were very friendly the entire trip.

The cruise lasted a little over two hours, and it was lovely. The sun was warm, but the sea air was cool, so I was comfortable, although Mer had to put on a jacket once the sun went down. We saw several small islands where fairly rich people had built  homes, including the Wyeth family of painting fame. The focus of the trip, aside from the sunset (which was spectacular), was wildlife. We went out to a nesting island for many seabirds, and circled it several times. We did get to see puffins, as well as gulls and cormorants, and a small rock island filled with seals. On the way back from the island, we saw two porpoises. We were also passed by a party boat full of people, some of whom took the time to moon us, which was amusing since the captain of our boat called it before the boat came near us. We did get to see two lighthouses, and the crew had hoped we would see a couple of eagles, but they did not make an appearance for us.

It was a peaceful and lovely ride. The sunset was amazing, and as an added bonus, we saw a few distant fireworks from shore. If anyone ever gets to the coastal area of Maine, I can heartily recommend the Monhegan boat line cruises.

Thursday was Mer’s day again, and she had a busy little day planned. We started off by going back to Thomaston to go back over the various “Museum in the Streets” placards that we had missed. We got a brochure on the location of all the signs from the local town office, and we set off, starting on the far end of Route 1 and working our way back into town back toward the old prison site. When we made it back to the middle of town, we stopped at an excellent bakery to have a piece of cookie cake, and I had a hot chocolate. Thus fortified, we finished the tour, some of which was not easy. Sometimes signs were behind trees or on the corner of buildings, but to the best of our knowledge, we found them all.

The last signs were out by the old prison site where we had been on Tuesday. We crossed the street to look for a woods trail that was supposed to be there. We did find it, but it clearly has not been used too much – it is narrow and grown over. We tried to walk it, but gave up and returned after just a few minutes. There were several boggy sections that were muddy, and the bugs were out in force. We walked back to town and to the car, and drove on to the next destination.

Mer had never been to Friendship, Maine, before, so that was our next stop. Friendship is a tiny little fishing village that is known for one thing  – being the birthplace of the Friendship sloop. A sloop is a type of sailing vessel, and a boat builder in Friendship back before 1900 figured out how to build several boats per year (instead of the usual one boat per year), and that made his sloop more popular and affordable. We learned much of this from a very small but interesting museum in Friendship housed in the old one-room schoolhouse. It seems as if most of the one-room schoolhouses in Maine now house a local historical society. The lady staffing the place was very friendly, and when we were done with the museum, she told us how we could drive down to the ocean to see Friendship’s harbor.

Once we finished our Friendship tour, Mer had me drive to Union. Union is another town we had not seen before, other than to see from a nearby major road. Union is a very cute inland town, in the midst of hills and lakes. We drove over to the fairgrounds, to go see the Matthews Museum. The Matthews Museum is a large and eclectic collection of lots of objects. Most of them are farm-related or home-related, but the museum also had motors and old wind-up record players and horse-drawn buggies and sleighs, and more. We were both amazed at how large the place was. There is even a one-room schoolhouse still set up as it would have been when used up until the 1950s. The museum is named after the man who started it by donating his collection of stuff, which was large enough to start a museum. The museum even has one large room dedicated to the Maine soft drink of Moxie, including a wooden bottle of Moxie that is about thirty feet tall and used to be lived in as a bedroom for two children. It’s a strange place to browse, and interesting. We caught the museum on its opening day for the season, so we had the place more or less to ourselves, except for the three or four volunteers who were there setting up. We did not even come close to seeing everything in the two hours we spent there before they closed.

We went home and invited Carleton to supper, but he had already eaten. We headed over to Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro. We like Moody’s for their normal food, which is excellent (and they have the Maine tradition of calling shakes frappes, which is fun). The real treat of Moody’s, though, is that they have some of the best whoopie pies in the state. After we had supper, we grabbed four (including one for Carleton) and brought them home.

We had one more outing for the evening. We headed back to Thomaston to see their fireworks. The fireworks had been postponed for a night because of  fog, but this evening was fine, so we parked just outside of town at the Montpelier mansion, which is built on a hill. We tried to sit outside, but the bugs were bad, so we retreated to the car. To pass the time, I asked Mer questions from a game about books, and so we did not feel the wait too badly.

When the fireworks started, we tried another spot outside the car, but it too was buggy. We finally found that standing on the side of the road in front of our car was not too bad, so we did that for most of the show. We were lower down on the hill, so we did miss some of the lowest fireworks, which were obscured by the nearby trees. Still, we could see pretty well. The fireworks were mostly good, but the spacing and frequency was strange. I kept thinking the show was over because there would be pauses of thirty to forty-five seconds when there were no fireworks. There were at least three times when the show looked like a climax with many fireworks going off, and even after the finale and when we were getting back in the car, a few more isolated fireworks went off. It was a bit odd, but still a good show on the whole. We drove back to Rockland and to bed.

Friday was my day, and I had seen signs advertising a schooner race that started at the breakwater in Rockland. I had never seen a sailing race before, so I very much wanted to see it. Mer and I tromped out to the end of the almost-mile-long breakwater, all the while admiring the many boats sailing around the inside of the harbor. There were smaller ships with one mast, larger ships with two masts, and the Victory Chimes, a three-masted master-of-ceremonies ship. They were very pretty.

The start of the race was relaxed, and the ships set out based on class. As such, Mer and I were out on the breakwater for about an hour and a half. It was a pretty day, and there were a lot of people about, so it all felt very festive. As we were leaving, we could see a long line of sailing ships heading north toward Camden.

When we got back to the house, we invited Carleton to go over to the nearby Owl’s Head general store, to get their award-winning hamburgers. We got them to go, and took then over to the Owl’s Head lighthouse park, where we set up chairs and looked out over the ocean while a wonderful breeze blew in. It was a beautiful spot, and we took our time eating.

After lunch, we went back to the house, where Mer and I got our car and headed up to Camden. On Fridays in Camden, the library and the Chamber of Commerce offer free guided walking tours of Camden. We met the guide and his understudy at the library, and they took us around, just the two of us. We had a private walking tour! That was pretty great. We learned about Camden’s library, natural amphitheater, and seaside park and how they had been designed and cared for. The amphitheater is very close to obtaining a National Landmark designation. We took our time walking around, and after the seaside park we walked back up to the main street, where we learned about the woolen factories and grist mills that used to be on the river. The tour ended at the opera house, which is usually included in the tour, but was sadly closed by he time we got there. In all, the tour lasted about an hour and a half.

Mer and I took the recommendations of the tour guides and tried a new bakery in town, for a snack and a chance to get off of our feet. The place was very pleasant, and the baked goods we had were quite welcome. It seemed a fitting end to the tour of Camden.

Finally, in the evening, Mer and I walked to the far end of Rockland, to the Rockland Sail, Power, and Steam Museum. The museum looks very interesting and I hope to get back to it, but on this evening, we were there to hear a lecture on the maritime quest for a reliable way to calculate longitude. You can get latitude from sighting stars, but to calculate longitude, you need a reliable means of keeping track of time, either by a clock or by an astronomical means. It took a very long time to come up with a good clock that would work on board a ship, but a Yorkshireman named Harrison did it after over twenty years of trying. It was an interesting talk, and we got the bonus of having a pleasant evening walk back to the house.