Southing

I left Washington County, Maine, in chilly rain this morning. Now I'm basking in sunny 65° Intervale, NH, back in the White Mountains and in Verizon's cellphone coverage. Both changes are welcome but I'm already homesick for Margie and her lovely house and the sights I didn't find time to see on this trip. I'll be back.

On the way south I made the trip to Mount Desert Island (pronounced like the verb "desert" accented on the second syllable) that I didn't quite fit in Wednesday. Rae would have loved downtown Bar Harbor - it's a shopper's paradise - but my discovery was tiny Grant Park, site of the second (1869) summer cottage built in the town. It provided a great view of the harbor with cruise ships at anchor and a buzz of activity by small craft, apparently launches taking passengers to shore and back, that reminded me of New York Harbor when I knew it best in the early 1960s; nowadays I see very little movement there, but in Bar Harbor, if you click to enlarge the image and look closely, you'll see the wakes of the small craft racing through the anchored yachts on their errands.

From there I continued southwest down I-95 to Augusta and then west into New Hampshire. Here's the view of Humphrey's Ledge and Crawford Notch from my hotel room - not bad, is it? Tonight I had a great dinner with Margot, Paul, Gillian, and Lucie at A Taste of Thai in North Conway. Tomorrow morning all five of us will be hiking up Cranmore Mountain in the Jens Friends 13th Annual Hill Climb Against Cancer. I'll take lots of pictures and try to include at least a couple in tomorrow's blog post.