A day on Peaks

Last Friday a group of friends and I decided to take a trip to Peaks Island. It's a small island not far from Portland, accessible by a 15-minute ferry ride.

We couldn't have chosen better weather for our little excursion: sunshine, wispy clouds, no humidity.

The purpose of our trip was, supposedly, to visit the Fifth Maine Regiment Museum, which we did, indeed do.

But we also stopped to check out the "famous" Umbrella Cover Museum, which is "dedicated to the appreciation of the mundane in everyday life," because its door was open and its curator was welcoming.

We couldn't leave there without joining the curator in song as she played a catchy tune on her accordian. I'm serious!

From there we sought out a little general store and purchased sandwiches and chips. These we ate as we sat on benches and watched island residents and day visitors go about their business.

The Fifth Maine Museum opened promptly at noon, so we walked over to it and had an interesting tour. Along the way, though, we spotted two yard sales, so we felt duty-bound to check them out. I'm still regretting not buying a Dick and Jane reader. I'm sure it was the very edition of the reader I learned to read from, and I still remember many of its catchy sentences: See Dick. See Jane. See Spot. See Dick chase Spot. See Jane chase Dick and Spot. Why didn't I buy it? I'm wishing now, too late, that I could take one last trip through the Dick and Jane Reader and remember the fun and excitement of learning to read.

After the yard sales and the museum visit, we had a two-hour wait for our return ferry to Portland, so we decided to walk the circumference of the island. It's a four-mile trek, and the views out over the ocean, up and down the coast, and of Portland itself are spectacular.

I was especially interested in the cairns being erected at one point along the coastal road. Apparently folks passing by who have the time and the inclination can stop and build a cairn. Some of them are quite imaginative and even resemble sailing ships. My header photo is one that I took of the cairns.

We got back to the ferry terminal with a little time to spare, so we dashed into the ice cream shop and treated ourselves to a treat. I chose Gifford's Moose Tracks, which is one of my favorite Maine ice creams. I almost went with Deer Tracks but decided this was a day for Moose, not Deer. I also spotted a flavor with "lobster" in its name, but somehow "lobster" and "ice cream" do not belong together.

We were lucky to board the ferry when we did, because after we'd made our way up to the top deck to enjoy the sights on the trip back to the mainland, we heard an announcement that the ferry had reached its maximum passenger capacity and anyone not aboard would have to wait an hour for the next ferry. Phew. Close call.

We returned to Portland somewhat sunburned, definitely tired from all of the fresh salt air, but yet refreshed from our day on Peaks Island.

New friends from far away...and bubbles!

Yesterday we were invited to the home of my niece-in-law's mother (Naomi) for a barbecue and to meet Naomi's good friends from Tokyo, Yuki and her son Rintaro.

Naomi and Yuki have been friends for many years; Naomi is a psychologist and author here in the States, and Yuki, also a psychologist, has translated many of Naomi's books into Japanese.

Eight-year-old Rintaro and our almost-six-year-old great niece, Violet, have become fast friends. They greeted us in their kimonos (Violet's was a gift from Yuki and Rintaro), and Rintaro immediately handed us as gifts the two origami birds shown in my header. He made these birds himself.

It was a pleasure to get to know Yuki, a very gracious and friendly lady. Since she is a clinical psychologist, she has traveled to Sendai and surrounding areas where the earthquake and tsunami were so devastating. She said there are two distinct groups of survivors from that region: those who face what has happened and have moved to whatever accommodations they've been able to acquire and are getting on as best they can with their lives, and those who still cling to their damaged homes, refusing to believe what has been thrust upon them. She told us of visiting the home of one lady. The house appeared to be intact, that is until the lady pulled back a curtain that she had hung along one side of the house. Behind the curtain her home was little more than rubble. Yuki says the situation in the Sendai region is still extremely critical, and she spoke harshly when saying she feels the government is not doing enough to help its people.

As we adults talked about the earthquake and tsunami and the aftermath, it didn't occur to most of us in the room that young Rintaro is still very much traumatized by the earthquake that shook Tokyo and, no doubt, by the news reports out of the Sendai region. I saw Rintaro gently shake his mother's sleeve cuff. He was asking her to change the topic of conversation. Who can blame him? I'm sure there are many thousands of youngsters in Japan still troubled and frightened anew each time a new tremor is felt.

Our visit with Naomi, Yuki, and Rintaro wasn't exclusively serious, though. Ken had helped me prepare a "Super Bubbles Kit" to take along for Rintaro and Violet to play with. While I mixed the bubble solution (water, Dawn dish detergent, corn starch, baking powder, and glycerin), Ken shortened some retired broom handles and dowels, put eye screws in one end of each handle, and left it to me to thread the eyes with heavy cotton string with a washer or two on the longer string, for weight.

The Super Bubbles Kit was a hit.

It takes a bit of practice to learn how to make a large, elongated bubble, but soon everyone had mastered the art, and giant bubbles floated around Naomi's neighborhood. Violet and her dad even developed the ability to make simultaneous bubbles, which were especially impressive.

I'm glad Naomi included us in her get-together for her dear Japanese friends. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Neighbors

My friend Pam is dying. She was told by her doctor last week that she has between two weeks and two months left.

Pam was diagnosed with a tumor at the base of her skull in June of 2009. At that time the tumor was thought to be benign and completely removable. But the biopsy after Pam's surgery revealed something else: a malignant, incurable cancer.

So the past two years have been a difficult challenge for Pam, to put it mildly. But she figured she had another year or two left, maybe more if she were lucky.

In late May Pam and her husband drove to the New Hampshire/ Vermont border to attend a large family gathering which was actually a memorial service for Pam's mother, who died last fall. Pam carried her mother's ashes with her, in a beautiful urn which Pam had kept on her mantel until now.

And here's where the title of this post comes into play...

While Pam and her husband were in New Hampshire, their neighbors got to work. Theirs is a lovely, small, historical neighborhood of colonial homes (and even a large former inn which has a dance hall on its third floor.)

The neighbors built for Pam a beautiful flower garden. And I'm not talking about a small flower patch. I'm talking about a large garden, perhaps 20'x 20', with pathways and birdbaths and various perennials and annuals. The flowers and plants are all nicely mulched with bark chips, and the pathways are lined with wood chips. A split rail fence encloses the garden.

One neighbor, Trish, came up with the idea of building this garden for Pam. She went door to door and enlisted the help of the other ten or twelve families in the neighborhood. It wasn't difficult for Trish to enlist help, because everyone thinks the world of Pam. A kinder, gentler, more respected and loved lady simply cannot be found.

So Pam and her husband returned home from their long weekend to find a beautifully designed flower garden at the end of their driveway.

When Pam's husband went to the gardening shop to pay for the split rail fencing, the owner refused to accept any payment. "I didn't do this because I wanted any money," he said.

But now Pam has been told she hasn't much time left. So she sits for a time each day in her garden, under the shade of a large tree, appreciating the moment and her neighbors and their kindness.

Playing tourists

Yesterday Ken and I decided to pretend we were tourists visiting Maine. It all started when I mentioned earlier in the week that I'd never seen Bug Light in South Portland. I've heard it mentioned a lot lately, with a newspaper photo of kites being flown there on the Fourth, a post by a Facebook friend that he'd spent a day at Bug Light, etc. It was time we saw it for ourselves. It's not as if it's a long drive for us to get to it, after all.

So we found Bug Light and were surprised to see the nice public park surrounding it. We walked the short distance to the light, then we read the many memorial stones placed in the walkway facing the city of Portland across the bay.

My sock went to Bug Light too, of course. I always take knitting along with me on rides.

After checking out little Bug Light, we drove a short distance through the campus of Southern Maine Community College to get to Spring Point Light. Although Ken attended SMCC many years ago, and Spring Point Light was, of course, there at the time, he confessed he'd never walked on the breakwater to get to the light.

The length of the breakwater is deceiving. It's almost a 1/4 mile walk out to the light, but it's fun to choose your path over the huge granite slabs that form the walkway.

After checking out Springpoint Light up close and personal, we then wandered over to the memorial built for those who worked on the Liberty Ships at the South Portland shipyard during WWII. The shipyard itself is long gone, so the memorial provides a tribute to those who worked there, among them Ken's father.

Our next stop was supposed to be Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, but we could hear two lobster rolls calling our names at the Lobster Shack, so we drove past Fort Williams Park, where the Head light is located, to the lobster rolls. As usual there was a long waiting line to order our lunch, but the line moved quickly and we (Ken, the sock, and I) were soon seated at a picnic table overlooking Casco Bay, enjoying our lunch, listening to conversations all around us, and watching folks "from away" snap photos.

Now it was time to backtrack to Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light. Blogger allows me only five photos per post, so I've put the photo of the Head lighthouse on my banner. It was a beautiful afternoon to be at the park, but then, every afternoon seems to be a beautiful one to be there. I never tire of the view of the lighthouse. This is the first year food vendors have been allowed to sell snacks inside the park, but Cape Elizabeth has set tight restrictions on how many can be there (three). I noticed one vendor selling hot dogs and another selling lobster rolls. I'm thinking a little yarn shop would be just the right addition to the park!

Fort Williams Park has several new walking trails and gardens near the lighthouse, so we wandered around a bit and checked out the views. We spotted two lobster traps in the rocks just off shore near a large mansion. I at first thought the traps had washed onto the rocks, but Ken inspected more closely and decided they were the private traps of a local resident. Probably someone at the mansion was planning a lobster dinner last evening....

We were back home by mid-afternoon, satisfied that we'd done a little coastal sightseeing this early in the summer. We've been known to crowd in a day playing tourists on Labor Day Weekend!

Yes, sir; yes, sir: Three bags full

I was up-front about this from the start: In April, when I first suggested a trip to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in May, I told Ken I was feeling the need for a good yarn-shop crawl in those provinces. He's an accommodating guy who supports my interests 100%, so it was no surprise to me that he was determined to make sure this trip was everything I'd hoped it would be. And it was.

Our first stop on our way to NS and PEI was at Briggs and Little's outlet in Harvey, New Brunswick. I'd been there before but that didn't stop my pulse from racing out of control as we pulled into the parking lot. I was so excited to be back that I forgot to take any pictures while there.

Their bins of mill "rejects" are to die for: every single glorious skein of beautiful woolen yarn for a mere $2. (I've bought these "reject" yarns before and know they're perfectly fine yarns that can't be sold for full price because their dye lot is a smidge off from the norm.) I dove into the bins and surfaced with approximately 25 skeins of yarn for sweaters, yarn for mittens, yarn for hats,....

Then I closed-in on their yarns on the display shelves. I selected yarn for a sweater, several yarns for socks, yarn for scarves...

At one point I was feeling a bit "closed in" with Ken breathing down my neck. I always find it hard to relax and shop with a man in tow. The store clerk apparently sensed this, because she suddenly said to Ken, "Would you like to take a look at our mill while your wife shops?" He agreed, she ushered him into the adjoining mill, and I thanked her for her insight when she returned.

The thing is, though, that Ken himself returned not two minutes later, saying there "wasn't that much to see in the mill."

I forged on regardless, piling skeins of yarns onto the counter, eventually whipping out my credit card, and joyfully ushering two huge bags of yarns to our car.

This took place on a Friday; the Yarn-cation was off to a perfect start.

We arrived in Halifax, NS, on Saturday. It was raining and chilly, so we grabbed a late lunch/early dinner, did a little sightseeing on foot, and settled into our hotel room across the harbour in Dartmouth.

The next day, Sunday, we would drive to Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg. I'd googled yarn shops in NS before our trip, of course, and knew there was one in Mahone Bay, near Lunenburg. A check of the shop's website, however, said it was open "Sundays after Victoria Day." This was the Sunday immediately before Victoria Day, so I was disappointed that there would be no yarn shop visiting that day.

As we drove through Mahone Bay, though, I still looked for the shop, thinking that being able to spot it, at least, would be a thrill in itself, even if I couldn't go inside.

We came upon a large yard sale as we drove through town and decided to check it out. As we walked from our car to the yard sale, I spotted "Have a Yarn,"....with an "Open" sign positioned just outside the door. I couldn't believe it. Come to find out, their website's notice of being open Sunday's "after Victoria Day" should have said, "Open Sundays beginning Victoria Day Weekend."

I didn't spend as much time as I'd have liked at Have a Yarn, because our destination was Lunenburg, but I did scan the three rooms well-stocked with luscious yarns, bought another skein of Briggs & Little sock yarn, snapped some pictures, chatted with the friendly shop owner, admired the cute felted baby booties on the counter, and joined Ken at the yard sale.

When we returned to Halifax later that afternoon, we stopped at "The Loop," but I found that yarn shop to be rather exclusive in its yarns and rather scant in its inventory.

My next big yarn shop thrill came in Baadeck, NS, on Cape Breton Island. Again, I'd read about Baadeck Yarns on the internet and knew I wouldn't be disappointed.

We arrived in Baadeck in the afternoon and hadn't had lunch yet, so we made a beeline first thing to The Yellow Cello. While there, I asked our waitress for directions to Baadeck Yarns. (I love the fact that this yarn shop has "baa" in its title. Very fitting for a place selling wool yarns.)

It was now time to find a hotel, but Ken said, as we left the Yellow Cello, "I bet you want to go to the yarn shop first, don't you?"

He was right, of course.

It's a wonderful shop at the back of the owner's home, and it's stocked generously with yarns, patterns, sample knits,...everything a knitter could want. Ken settled into an easy chair and I browsed and chatted with the shop owner. I was aware we really needed to find our lodging, so I tried not to dally too much. I left the shop with yarn and a pattern for felted baby booties (pictures in my header), yarn and a pattern for a shawl, a pattern for a hat, some fancy jeweled knitting markers, and a promise to return to the shop one more time before we left Baadeck. My word was good, because I did go back to Baadeck Yarns the next day to buy a gift for my knitter friend, Lynn.

Three days later we were on Prince Edward Island. This meant a must-stop at MacAusland's Woolen Mill. I'd read about this place, too, on the internet and wanted to check out their yarns at very reasonable prices.

Ken checked out the mill's working machinery while I dashed upstairs to their yarn shop. The inventory wasn't extensive, but it was interesting and offered some worsted weight yarns in colors I hadn't found at Briggs & Little.

The stop at MacAusland's was my last stop on my Yarn-cation. I came home happy and contented with three large bags full of wool yarns and a little collection of in-car knitting that I'd done during our ten-day trip. A great yarn-cation for sure.

Beautiful little Prince Edward Island

We hadn't visited Prince Edward Island in several years. I think the last time we went there was around 1998. We used to go to PEI, as the natives call it, frequently with our three-man tent and, later, our tent camper in tow.

Somehow we switched allegiances, I guess, and Nova Scotia became our favorite of the Maritimes. On this trip we visited both provinces, and I came away feeling that my heart is now with PEI again.

We took the ferry from Nova Scotia over to PEI, a 75-minute ride. It was a beautiful, warm-and-sunny day, which tricked us into thinking the weather had finally turned for the better. Wrong.

Nonetheless, the PEI countryside was as sweeping and beautiful as ever. The rich farmland is ideal for growing potatoes, PEI's principal crop.

This spring, however, the weather in the Maritimes has been as miserable as the weather in all the Northeast, with a lot of rain, so as of the end of May, farmers still hadn't been able to plant their potatoes. I hope they've been able to get the seedlings into the ground since our visit.

The northern coast of the island is our favorite area, dotted with little villages nestled into valleys and beautiful, red beaches. The ocean water is warmer there than it is here in Maine, because PEI gets the benefit of the Gulf Stream currents.

The Anne of Green Gables House is located in Cavendish. We didn't visit it on this trip because we've been there before.

For some reason I didn't read any of the Anne series as a child. I guess I was too hung up on Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden.

So on one of our visits to PEI in the mid-70's, I purchased several in the Anne series and read them all while on the island.

We spent one day in Charlottetown but didn't seem to find much going on. The tourist season doesn't get into full swing until early July, I'd guess, and the weather has surely deterred tourists this year.

When it was time to get back to the mainland and head home to Maine, we took the Confederation Bridge over to New Brunswick.

The building of this $1 billion bridge was quite controversial in the early 1980's. You can imagine how folks feared it would ruin the culture of their here to fore-accessible-only-by-ferry province. Eventually the bridge did get built, and it opened in 1997. It was quite a thrill to drive across the bridge the first time.

The bridge, 8 miles long and the longest bridge in the world over ice-covered water, is a masterpiece of engineering.

I talked with a clerk in a PEI sweater shop, asking her if she felt the bridge had dramatically changed PEI. She said no, it hadn't. She went on to say what a pleasure it is to be able to get to the mainland any time one wants to now, rather than waiting for a ferry, perhaps missing it, and having to kill time until the next ferry came along.

She surprised me then by saying each fall she and three friends rent a van and come to North Conway, NH, to shop in the outlets. I shop in North Conway, too, but I can't imagine being willing to drive for 12-14 hours for the experience!

We traveled across the bridge in mid-morning, spent that night in Bangor, Maine, then drove the rest of the way home the next morning.

It was a good trip all 'round, and it was fun to be in that area of North America again. Now I'm looking forward to going back. We're thinking some September, when the leaves are beginning to turn, would be a good time to go.

Cape Breton

The island of Cape Breton, on the northeast tip of Nova Scotia, is our favorite part of the province.

I've often thought that those who go to Nova Scotia but limit themselves to the Yarmouth-Halifax region don't really see the true beauty of the place.

Cape Breton is about a 4-5 hour drive from Halifax. We set out for the Cape early in the morning and, after taking the Canso Causeway onto the island and driving another hour, arrived at our destination, Baadeck, around mid-afternoon.

Baadeck is a small village on the Bras d'Or Lakes. It's where Alexander Graham Bell and his family spent their summers, so of course there's an excellent Bell Museum located here.

We spent two nights in Baadeck. All the while we were there we debated whether to drive the Cabot Trail, surely one of the most scenic drives anywhere, or give in to defeat and head on to Prince Edward Island. The weather just wasn't cooperating: clouds, misty rain, chilly temps. We'd already driven this trail three or four times over the years, so I said if we didn't drive it this time, that would be OK with me. Ken agreed.

Then the morning of the perhaps-drive arrived, clouds and all, and Ken said, "Let's do it. Maybe we'll get some clearing along the route."

I was glad he suggested that, because it turned out to be a beautiful drive. The clouds did lift, and the coastline showed us its stunning beauty. We also spotted some patches of snow when we reached the summit of the island; this was a surprise since it was late May and the maximum elevation was perhaps 500 metres.

This (below) is my favorite view along the Cabot Trail. I'd waited for this view ever since arriving in Nova Scotia several days earlier. Once you see this area of the province, you understand how Nova Scotia which means "New Scotland," got its name.

By the way, the east coast of Cape Breton is heavily Gaelic, and to this day you still see place signs in both English and Gaelic. (Be sure to click on the link here to see a beautiful video of the Gaelic culture of Nova Scotia.)

The west coast of the island, though, is heavily French, so Gaelic gives way to French on the road signs.

The drive along the entire Cabot Trail, with occasions stops for photos and a stop for lunch, takes five hours.

We ended up back in Baadeck and headed immediately to the mainland again. We would catch the ferry to Prince Edward Island early the next mornining.