October in Maine

      New England, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in October conjures images of brilliant red, orange, yellow foliage against the dark green of conifers, small fishing boats hauling up lobster pots, rocky, narrow coves following the the north, north-east pattern of past glaciers, rocky headlands, small towns with old houses and simple white church steeples, and farms with rock fences enclosing pastures. 
     

 

 

Remember, you can click on photos to see them enlarged

 

       And so, off we headed to Northern New England and to two of the Maritime Provinces.    Chris, his father and I hopped a plane for Portland, Maine where we spent a couple of nights before heading to Bailey Island, where we stayed in a lovely cottage.   Bailey Island, part of the Harpswell Peninsula, not far from the town of Brunswick, and north of Portland, is a quiet fishing community with a number of summer homes.  One of them belongs to friends of one of the people Chris and his dad had met on a previous photo cruise.   We were able to stay at this great spot and use it for some exploring along the coast before our cruise.


Here is the delightful "cottage" where we stayed.  

     The original plan was a bit more complicated, with a flight to NYC, a visit with an "adopted" relative on Long Island.    But since he came down with a nasty case of shingles, we changed flights and went directly to Maine, for-going the train ride from Connecticut to Maine.    We missed the socializing,which was a disappointment to Theron and Chris.  Actually to me too, as I have heard much about John Kuo.   It will have to wait.
     The second half of the trip was a cruise from Boston to Halifax. The reason for this particular cruise was a photo workshop led by Arthur Bleich. Chris has taken previous photo tours in Tahiti\Marquesas and the Caribbean with Arthur. More on the cruise portion in the blog entry below. This one will deal with Maine, mostly through photographs.

This view was a walk of 50 steps from the house where we stayed.

One of the harbors on Bailey's Island

 

                                                                               

Access to Bailey Island is over this causeway, a crib stone bridge, the only one known in the world.   Large blocks of granite have been laid in a crib pattern, allowing the tides of the north coast to flow through the bridge support.   A small opening allows fishing boats, like the one shown, to enter the harbor.

   
  

One of our side trips was to Bath, Maine.  The Bath shipyards are famous for their ships over the years.   The current project is the new Stealth Destroyer.    Near the shipyards is the Maritime Museum.   These two scenes were taken on the grounds.  The small white building overlooking the deep channel which makes Bath such a great place for major shipbuilding, is the old  caulking shed.

Since Chris and I both love maps, a visit to the Delorme Map headquarters in Yarmouth, Maine was a must.   Inside is the world's largest rotating globe.   It was a grey, drizzly day which made the foliage outside beautiful, but we realized the most dramatic shots of the globe are taken outside the building at night when the inside lighting is focuses on the globe.  Oh well, it was still a worthwhile side trip.  The globe is three stories high and balconies allow you to view the globe from the Arctic to Antarctica.  Since it is topographical all the faults and land shifts are visible.  Chris loves geology.

 

 

At the end of our delightful stay in Maine, we caught Amtrak for the trip to Boston.   It was an inexpensive and easy way to make the trip. One of the train stops was Durham, NH where I worked and went to grad school.  

 

Here is the Old State House in Boston, now surrounded by high rise office buildings.  It was here that the Declaration of Independence was read to the public for the first time.