I'm home

We arrived late yesterday afternoon from our vacation to Maine. We had one sunny day, one day we had to wear our raincoats and the rest of the days were cloudy. Youngest thinks the sun never shines in Maine. In spite of the gloomy weather we had a great time.

We visited museums of all types - auto, Native American, art, wood carving and whales. We walked through several small towns checking out the shops and local artists. Son loved the wood carving museum. He was able to spend time alone with the resident wood carver and take home a started wood carving with directions. We also bought him a kit. His grandmother had bought him wood carving tools a couple of years ago when he spent an afternoon with another wood carver. Oldest loved visiting the potter. The potter gave her a tour of her work area and some tips. Oldest just completed ceramics 1 and will be taking ceramics 2 this year at school.

The first day we headed to Belfast hoping to catch up with a high school friend. He was biking for the American Lung Association. We never made it there that day. Instead we went up in the Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory. It is one of three in the world and the only one in the Americas. It is 420 feet high or 42 floors. The view was amazing even with the cloud cover and we were able to view osprey nests and a peregrine falcon nest box. Once at the top the elevator broke. We spent two hours talking to Lynn the guide before the "correct" people showed up. They were the only ones allowed to call the fire department to stop traffic on the bridge as the emergency door opens onto the bridge. We walked down the 42 flights of stairs. Youngest and I rode in the ambulance and hubby went in the rescue truck with son and oldest back to the parking lot. For a family of fire fighters this was fun and we took pictures of their equipment and asked tons of questions. We ran into Lynn later in the week and as of Wednesday the elevator was still broken. We received 5 free passes to Maine state parks before touring Fort Knox (named for the same man as the one in Kentucky).

Hubby took the kids to see Transformers on opening night. I stayed home and read.

We went to the lumberjack show and watched lumberjacks and jills compete. The jills won. Several of the lumber jills compete with the chicks with axes tour that goes all over the world. Youngest was able to go on stage and try the two person saw. It was a lot of fun.

When we did finally make it to Belfast we went in a used book store. Jackpot!!! I found two old pharmacology books. I'm still grinning.

We also spent time in Acadia National Park and saved the sunny day to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Thunder hole was great to see in the mist as the water was really churning.

Once I download all the pictures I will have to post a few.

While I was away Bill "Oatmeal" O'Meara passed from this life. We graduated high school together. Peace Bill!