Fun and food.

It snowed yesterday and it's snowing again today. This is what greeted me when I walked out of the front door this morning to pick up the newspaper from the front step:

I'm not really complaining about the snowy scene this morning because it is January 21 and this is the first time we've had any snow cover, or any lasting snow cover, and we haven't had to bust out the shovels just yet (though we may have to today). But I am complaining just a little bit, because it was not that long ago - just last week as a matter of fact - that we were still in Florida.

Florida! My experience with Florida has been minimal, limited to a trip I don't remember (only through photos) when I was probably 4 years old to my grandparents' place near Naples; a trip to Disney World when I was about 8 years old; and a fleeting trip to Disney World with my high school band, sophomore year (I think?). We flew into Fort Lauderdale this time to spend some time in the warmth with our friends Jipty, Chris, and their son Ely, and even though we stayed for only three full days I feel like I got to know Florida a lot better. And I liked what I saw (even with all the gray-haireds!). So did Doug. We're on a south Florida kick now in our house.

What did we see? Here's the usual photo montage of our trip.

At Everglades Holiday Park we took an air boat ride in the Everglades. We saw... a few birds, a couple of large lizards, and some alligator eyes poking out from some weeds. We'd have seen more if it was sunny. Still, it was fun.

We went to the beach and we actually SWAM! (Or, at least went into the water. In January!) The water was clear, the sun was out (and we have little patches of tanned skin to prove it), and the sand was soft. It was a great beach trip.

We saw lots of strange birds; strange because none of them live in New England, save the gull. This little guy was everywhere, and he's native to Florida. We affectionately call him the turkey duck.

Pelicans, too. We saw real pelicans at the beach, just hanging out in the wild. How amazing! Here are a couple relaxing with their cormorant friends on the beach in Key Biscayne. (The sand was so very soft here, too. I could have sat on the beach for hours.)

We got to spend more time with Ely, who we only see once or twice a year, so his development between visits astounds us. He is such a polite boy, and really, very well-behaved. You can have conversations with him - with full sentences! Fun ones. The ones we were having usually involved some reference to Toy Story, but that was fine with us. We had fun with him.

We went to Bill Baggs State Park and saw this fine example of a non-New England lighthouse, the first either Doug or I had seen. Naturally we were impressed, and all the palm trees and clear, green water helped.

At the park we decided to rent this bicycle-built-for-four, and what fun! Ely didn't do any pedaling, but he enjoyed being in the front seat and telling us where to go. Doug got to steer. I liked getting the exercise and didn't mind the stares we got from the other park-goers. They were just jealous they didn't think to rent one of these things!

And, of course, we spent some time in Miami Beach, walking along Ocean Drive, and got a taste of what it might be like there in Spring Break or in the height of the season. We ate at one of Gloria Estefan's restaurants, and while there wasn't much for non-meat eaters to enjoy on the menu (though the friend yuca was very good - better than french fries, I think), we still had a good time.

Doug and I could have spent a lot more time in south Florida, exploring Miami, revisiting the Everglades, driving to the Keys, and just spending time on the beach or at the pool. We hope Jipty, Chris, and Ely want to go away with us again next winter, because we'd go back in a flash. And maybe by then we'll all have to be on the look-out for the non-meat restaurants.

Jipty and Chris (and Ely, too) are vegan now. Have been so for a while. And this means that eating out can be a little difficult. No meat and no dairy. You'd be surprised how many restaurants have few options for this kind of diet. At Lario's on the Beach there was a vegetarian platter (the black beans were vegetarian, so that was good), but that was it. That was the only option for them. Everything else had meat - because who knew that Cuban food was such a meat-centered cuisine? After spending time with Jipty and Chris and learning more about veganism and plant-based diets, and seeing for ourselves how much healthier they are since they have had this vegan lifestyle, I began to be converted. Just a little bit.

Doug and I don't eat a lot of meat. In fact, we really only cook meat once a week if that. In the past few years I have incorporated more vegetarian meals into our diets than meat-based meals. Listening to them and learning about how much better they feel on their vegan diet made me all the more convinced that we need more plants and grains in our diet. Plus, fruits and vegetables are 0 points in Weight Watchers Points Plus system, so I can eat all of them that I want (more on this Weight Watchers thing in another post).

So now I am obsessed with healthier eating. I'm reading recipes and looking at cookbooks each chance I get. I've found two that I'm particularly excited about

(during the big Patriots-Ravens football game tomorrow we'll be enjoying acorn squash and black bean empanadas instead of buffalo wings), but am always interested in recommendations. I am keen on adding a Mexican and Indian cookbook to my collection. We are not giving up on meat (or fish) entirely, but we are certainly focusing more of our attention on plants.

With that, it's time for the gym - healthy living can't just be based in the kitchen.

The next step.

We're back from our annual trip to Maine. If you want a review of our fabulous trip, please see the wonderfully concise post from Summer Sweater, or the introspective post from Cotton. I'll blog about the trip soon, but I have other things on my mind (doesn't take long for my mind to start to work (or overwork) again, let me tell you).

Other Thing on My Mind #1: The house.

The house is now painted! Yay! Remember when I asked you to vote for your preferred color? Well, I received no votes, which is just as well, since Doug and I picked out our preferred color and would have gone with that one regardless. We went with the light greenish/gray color, called Roycroft Mist Gray, with Roycroft Bottle Green for the accents and Creamy for the trim.



Doug and I really like it and can't wait to get a new, dark green awning to really show off the green accent color. I also can't wait to plant flowers in my window boxes, which thankfully I did not have to paint myself.



Coming back to our newly painted house was very satisfying. We pulled up to the little place and I was glad to be there. I was reflecting on all of the work that we have put into the place - the painting on the inside, the landscaping, and now the repainting on the outside. While in Maine, Doug and I were dreaming of living there, in some kind of old farmhouse not too far from the rocky coast. But when I came home to our little house with its fresh coat of paint, those dreams fade a little. (A little.)

Other Things on My Mind #2: Career Change.

This next topic will thrill my mother, who I fear is convinced that I am wandering aimlessly and unhappily through life (which is not true, really not true at all). Vacation always gets me to thinking about how I am living my life when I am not on vacation (if you have read Cotton's post mentioned above, you'll get a glimpse of why), and now that I'm back from it and we are basically back to our old routine (though not fully, since we are down one cat (still at Grandma's Meg is) and I'm still allowing myself to eat as many sweets as I want) I'm dreaming of ways to prolong those vacation feelings. Those feelings of freedom, of light-heartedness, of possibility and excitement. I do believe that finding the right career path is key to having that kind of satisfying vacation-feeling even when I'm not on vacation.

Let's just face it - I'm not a librarian at heart. I love books. Love, love, love books. Love their covers, their smell, their contents. There's not much about them that I do not like, and even confess to loving electronic books and their electronic devices. But that doesn't mean that I love librarianship, or am meant to be a librarian. The minute details of librarianship I find trying. What difference does it make if I stamp the due-date in the back of the book before I de-sensitize it? Why does everyone have to do these tasks in a particular order, and why do we have to have meetings to discuss what the best order is? To quote myself when I was talking to Doug today, I'm just not jazzed about librarianship. I know some very good, very passionate librarians and I am so glad, so glad, that they exist. But I don't consider myself one of them and I may very well never be. I thought things would be different when I left corporate librarianship for academic librarianship, and believe me, they are, but I still haven't found my "thing."

For me, more than moving to a new location or finding a new hobby, I need to start down that journey of changing my career. I need to start doing that thing that I can feel better about, or at least more interested in, each morning when I wake up. I've narrowed it down to a few options, and now I just have to take that plunge. I feel a lot of pressure to make the right choice. I feel that the time is now, and that the spotlight is on this decision. I feel like I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I also am encouraged by the possibilities and the bright light of the future. These are good things, and I thank vacation for this.

I also thank vacation for another week of my life spend with three of my favorite people. Ruby is such a little delight, and her parents are just about the best people to go on vacation with. Ever. Doug and I are always so relaxed and comfortable on our trips to Liberty. We thank you, C, C, and R, for your hands in that!

Ah, the house.

I have a love/dislike relationship with our house. Some days I love it. I walk up the street on my way home from work and I look at the big windows in the sunroom and the flamingos in the garden and I cannot wait to get inside to be inside my house. I walk into the kitchen and I feel comfortable. I feel at home. This house feels right.

I had one of the "I love this house" moments this weekend; actually, several of these moments. Doug and I spent A LOT of time working in the front yard to weed and improve. So much improvement, don't you think? This is what the front of the house looked like before we got to it: And this is what the front of the house looked like after we got to it: Doug took out that big, prickery bush and I had my way with another of the nasty plants up front. And while I was very tempted to cut down the overwhelming rose bush on the side of the house along the driveway, I didn't because it's covered with these rosebuds and it will be a beautiful bush once those buds blossom.

But today I'm having some of those dislike moments about the house, because I finally called the handyman (not Doug for this one) to get our upstairs shower fixed, and while I was baking cookies in my kitchen that's the size of a postage stamp I turned on the faucet in the kitchen to get a glass of water and whoosh! A geyser of water sprayed out the stop of it. The thing is cooked. Broken. Dead. Done. So now we need a new faucet. Which will involve a plumber. All of this just after I put the deposit on the housepainting project that we have coming in August. So yes, I'm having some of those dislike moments about the house.

I remind myself, though, that there are good things. There are good things about my house, and also just good things about life in general. Blue Ribbon for dinner, Doug playing guitar in the basement, going to the beach and enjoying the warm sun on my (well-sunscreened) skin, wonderful and beautiful beach roses, and the fact that our house, the house into which we pour our time, our wallets, and our love, was not destroyed by a freakish tornado. As I go to bed tonight, it's those good things that I'm going to think about. And I'm going to avoid the kitchen faucet for a while.

Nantucket.

I’m not sure what it is about Nantucket that I love so much. I just identify myself with it. I identify my past with it. I associate fond memories with the island, with the landscape, the look and feel of the island, and with the history. I associate the good parts of my childhood with Nantucket. But in truth, very little of my childhood was actually spent there, and my identity as one who vacationed there as a child is really based more on my sister’s memories, and my mother’s memories, than of my own.

My sister and mother talk often of Nantucket and of their memories there. They stayed at 2 Ash Street, and they would go back with my uncle Barry on extended visits during my sister’s youth. I myself recall being there only two or three times as a young person, meaning pre-college, and I have been back only three times post-college. While that may seem like quite a few times to go to the same vacation spot, it’s not, really, not if you compare it to how many times I have been to Crystal Lake in New Hampshire, or how many times I have been to Cape Cod. Yet somehow I feel like Nantucket is a piece of me, or that I am a piece of it, and I hold my own vague and foggy memories of the island, along with the stories that my sister and mother tell, close to me. Doug asked me what my family does when we are on Nantucket, as he wanted to relive the family experience, and I answered him with things that my family has done, but not necessarily things that I have done, and so these things are not necessarily my traditions. It’s my sister who raves about the cheese soup and curly fries at the Brotherhood, yet we went here in search of those foods (only the fries are still on the menu) in order to recreate this supposed family tradition. It’s my mother who talks of the house at 2 Ash Street, and of the memories there; I never was inside, was not even born when there was any tangible connection to the house. Yet I stood outside it this weekend and Doug took my photo, capturing for us this family tradition, this link to the family past, that I was never a part of.

I was eager to take Doug out to ‘Sconset, to roam that more remote part of the island, but I have no real memories of being there, not until that one early January day in 1998 when my mother, brother, uncle, and I flew to Nantucket, just for the day, and stood on the windy ‘Sconset beach, staring out at the winter ocean. I think we stayed out near ‘Sconset once when I was young, in a house rented by my uncle, the whole brood of us, cousins and all. All that I remember of that trip was someone wearing a jersey nightgown with blue piping around the hems, blue whales on a white background blowing red waterspouts. And of eating popcorn before dinner, my first real introduction to appetizers. And of there being a pond near the rented house, and of there being a path we would walk down, lined with prickly sea grass and beach roses, to get to the ocean, which was bitterly, bitterly cold. Of course, I could be confusing this path with the path that we would walk to get to the beach at my aunt’s Connecticut cottage on the Long Island Sound; there were roses along that path, too. But these memories I associate with Nantucket, so to me they are the Island. And now, I have to somehow fit Doug into these memories.

This time on Nantucket Doug and I saw the Sankaty lighthouse, which was never part of the Nantucket of my memory. We rode Vinos along Milestone Drive and Polpis Road, two roads that meant nothing to me before this trip. Two mornings I woke up early and jogged out to Brant Point and walked along the small beach there, watching the fog veil the harbor; jogging and Brant Point were never parts of my Nantucket history. Neither was staying at the Sherburne Inn. Neither was dining at American Seasons. Not renting scooters, the Old Mill, the Quaker Burial Ground, or going to Easter service at the Congregational Church, either. These were new experiences, adult experiences, that now I have to somehow mix with the picture of Nantucket that I have had in my mind, that of my youth, my family’s past, my life without Doug. What does Nantucket mean now? How do I now relate to this place? I’m still not sure what to think, or, more importantly, what to feel. But at least these memories are all mine now. Whatever experiences I have now I share with Doug, and I won't be able to confuse them with stories from my mother or stories from my sister. They are our experiences and our memories, and Nantucket can be our place now, too.

Christmastime in New Orleans.

NOLA! We just came back from four days in the Big Easy, our second time there in a six-month span. How lucky can we get? You may recall that the last time Doug and I were in New Orleans, I was at a conference and Doug flew in on a red eye to spend less than 48 hours exploring the city while I was learning about copyright, contract negotiation, and other special library kind of things. This time we explored the city together, and neither of us spent any time inside the convention center. Again, how lucky can we get?

Pretty lucky, apparently. Look at all that we were able to do! We spent lots of time in the green spaces of New Orleans, like the Botanical Garden, and we walked around the some of the fascinatingly creepy above-ground cemeteries (like this one, Lafayette Cemetery No 1, in the Garden District, where some of Interview with a Vampire was filmed). We walked through Uptown, the Garden District, Audubon Park, and through a little of Mid-City. We spent a lot of time in the French Quarter, looking at the buildings and the people (there is no better city than New Orleans for people-watching, I've decided). We spent some time listening to music at Preservation Hall and Balcony Music Club, and went into some antiques stores along Magazine Street. We also took a tour of Oak Alley Plantation, probably one of the most photographed plantations around New Orleans, mainly due to the incredibly picturesque "alley" of live oaks leading up the long walkway to the front of the plantation. Like so: Not only are these trees visually stunning, but they don't shed leaves, either. These are my kind of tree.

Of course, when we weren't doing all these other fun things we were eating. Eating a lot. Doug ate this whole po' boy for lunch one day and then a few hours later enjoyed some oysters and some kind of shrimp dish for dinner. (That sandwich with the fried egg on top was my Croque Madame. And that was one of the healthier meals I had on the trip!) Desserts often went a little like this: We may have done a lot of walking on our trip, and our feet may have hurt, but my belly was hurting after a while, too. I'm just not used to that much food, or that much meat. Don't expect to stick to your diet when you're in New Orleans.

And now we're back, back home, back to reality, back to work (almost for me! I'm counting down the hours until I start my new job, and am getting a bit nervous about it. Get ready for me to be preoccupied and overly anxious for the next couple of months while I get my footing in this new situation...), and back to our normal routines. But one good thing that's keeping our vacation adrenaline still high is that it's Christmastime, and nothing seems hum-drum during the Christmas season. We put our tree up the night before Thanksgiving so that we'd be able to jump right into the spirit of things when we came back from NOLA. Here's our tree: And here's what we got to see in New Orleans while we were there: I've been blaring the Christmas music in our house all day every day, and plan to put some on my iPod later today so that I can have it to listen to while I'm on the train. A good part of my Christmas shopping is done and I've spent some time this weekend making some Christmas gifts for the kitties in my life (while listening to Christmas music and thinking about what kind of Christmas cookies to make next weekend). There's really nothing like Christmas to put you in good spirits.

Playing Catch-Up.

I'm going to try to play catch-up with this post. I'm going to try to cram in all that happened in the last couple of weeks. That's going to be hard to do, since there has been a lot going on, and one of the most important things that has been going on deserves a post of its own. So okay, I've just decided that I'll leave that bit out and save it for later, but I've still got about a million things to blog about, so let's get going.

1. Our friend from our genealogical days, Chris Child, turned thirty earlier in the month. We went to his 30th birthday party. I don't know how we did this, but we managed to only take photos of Chris's back the whole night. Like this one (he's the one in the hat): We wanted to capture on film his necklace. It was this giant "gold" cross with a lot of fake diamonds in it. If it were real it would have weighed about 10 pounds, because it was huge. But it was fake, and it was so homeboy over-the-top that it was so worthy of a photo. Next time Chris turns 30 we'll take a picture of his face (and the chain).

We did manage to have our photo taken, though. It's a good one, and because Doug and I rarely a)have someone take a photo of us and b)take a good photo, I want to share it with you. I also want to share with you a photo of the birthday card that we almost got Chris but didn't. Chris is not really a cat person, so we didn't think he'd find this card as roll-on-the-floor funny as we did (we nearly got ourselves kicked out of CVS for making a scene, I think), but wow. Look at those heads! On those tiny human bodies - in suits! Speaking that business-speak! And look at the litter box! Maybe you had to be there to get the full impact, but this one had us busting a gut.

2. La Bayadère, however, was not a roll-on-the-floor-laughing kind of event. Doug and I were given a couple of tickets from our very good and frugal friends to see the Boston Ballet's performance of La Bayadère, which was very appropriate, given that I had just come back from India. The India in the ballet is nothing like the India I saw, though. This was exotic India with women dressed like "I Dream of Genie" and some men barely dressed at all. The India of stereotypes and fantastical history books. It was a good story, of love and betrayal and all of that, but I decided in this ballet that ballets are set up all wrong. This is the second ballet I've gone to in recent memory where I've slept through a good part of the second act and have felt that the third act is gratuitous. The dancing is always very good in the third act, but it seems tacked on, and has little to do with the actual plot or action of the story. I would put the third act of ballets where the second act is, and move the second act last. That way those of us who nap during these epic events can miss little of the plot and can wake up to an act with more meaning. I wouldn't change the ambiance of the theaters, though. The Boston Opera House, where the Boston Ballet now performs, is incredibly designed.

3. We have been doing a lot of housework. We raked up all of our leaves (over several weekends) and produced a massive amount of leaf bags, yet again. Here's one of this year's batches: And then we waterproofed our back steps. We were supposed to have done this a long time ago, back when the back steps were redone in June, but we never did. The waterproofing solution was made for application in temperatures between 50 and 90 degrees F, and we applied our weatherproofer on a 51 degree day. Hmmm. Maybe that's why the steps look like they do. And maybe that's why Doug's so sad. Because that white film that you see? It hasn't really gone away yet. It fades, but then if the weather is damp or humid or rainy the steps turn bright white again. And slick. Guess that means we successfully weatherproofed them, but it also means that we now have white-washed back steps. Don't let our mason see that.

Wow. Okay. There's a lot more to write about. A lot. Like the changing of our phone/cable/internet service, our trip to Sturbridge Village, Doug's activism in the fight for men's health issues, our massive redecorating project, and, of course, the story of my employment. But all of that has to wait. I'm tired. And I am going to go cook dinner. Because it's 6pm and I'm hungry and Doug will be home soon and because I don't want to eat too late. Because I don't have to eat late tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or any night for the next week and a half. Because I'm on vacation (because of that employment thing I should tell you about). And when I'm on vacation I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do, and I don't want to blog anymore. My eyes hurt from staring at the computer screen. Man is it easy to get used to not using this thing! It's only been four days but already I feel a sense of freedom. A sense of disconnected-ness. I love it.

Nothing like leaving you hanging.

(Last time I wrote anything here it was September. Now it's October. The world just keeps turning, now doesn't it. I know for a fact that it does, because next to me right now is my stack of monthly bills. Do I really have to pay them again so soon?)

What is it about fall that makes everything seem so much more... fresh and clean? This past summer was rough, and I'm not just talking about the weather. Sure, it was hot and dry but also so humid at times (the rain would just never come, though), and every time you walked outside you wished that you lived in a nudist colony because no matter how few clothes you were wearing you were still just a little too hot. But the summer was rough in other ways, too. Emotionally very difficult. We lost Wyatt, I lost my great-aunt Madeline, and my father brought out into the open some ghosts that I thought (and maybe we all thought) were hidden away from sight forever. And there was the same-old same-old about pursuing passions (or even having passions), the meaning of life, lamenting over the fact that there is not enough time in the day, and that even though you spend a huge amount of your time with your husband you still don't feel like you're really connecting with him because there is a large part of you that just does not have the energy to put into all the things that you're supposed to have the energy for, and something inevitably suffers, and sometimes that's your relationship with your significant other (does that happen to you, too?). In true Rosanne fashion, I didn't feel the real impact of all of this until well into August, and basically broke down halfway through. I became my friend the Zoloft egg. Classic depression. Sad, weighed down, lack of interest, fatigue, loneliness. All of it. Somehow, though, I got myself back on track, slowly but surely. Doug helped. Meg and Sasha helped. Homeopathy helped. Our therapist helped. Right now I'm doing much better. Much, much better, but am weary of another visit from the Zoloft egg. I bet I won't get a visit until late January, when I'm tired of winter and am ready to see some green grass and some daffodils. So I'll enjoy each of these bright days while I have them.

I guess it's appropriate, then, that, as I leave the sadness behind for a while, Doug and I take a little trip to regroup and refresh. We headed out to Cooperstown this past weekend for a nice weekend away. There's nothing to do there in Cooperstown, unless you count going to the one small art museum, the small-scale Sturbridge Village, and the Baseball Hall of Fame as things to do. Which I do, wholeheartedly, and these were the reasons why we went there (those and Ommegang), but so many people said to us, "You're going to Cooperstown? Why?", that we allowed ourselves to think that maybe we would be bored. But who can be bored when you have this around you? We drove through hills and valleys that rivaled those we saw in Ireland, they were that beautiful. The land is just so green there, so alive and so vibrant. (I sound like Tom Cruise in Far and Away when he's yelling at Nicole Kidman about land - land!) Naturally, Doug was thinking to himself, "Wouldn't Cooperstown be a great place to live!", and decided to search the local paper (while sitting inside the only coffee shop for, oh, I don't know, 25 miles) for employment opportunities. Unfortunately, we found none. But, we did find Brewery Ommegang (and were on their first tour and tasting of the day at noon on Monday. Nothing says breakfast like strong Belgian beer.) and also the Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmer's Museum. We were so happy to have made it to The Farmer's Museum, where Doug's family have their old homestead on display, that we had to do a little dance. Because it was a beautiful day in a wonderfully historic working museum in dairy country New York. What more could we have asked for? A milkshake, a cheeseburger about four-inches thick, and seeing the house where Doug's grandmother grew up? Check, check, and check. This trip was just what the doctor ordered. And when we go back, maybe we'll actually check out the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Maine, Chapter Two.

Before you read Chapter Two in our Maine vacation memoirs, perhaps you should revisit chapter one (parts one, two, and three). Chapter one gives you the background, the everything you need to know about Liberty and our little house so I won't have to go too much into detail. And that's good, because I can get caught up in the detail.

What I will do in this chapter is give you more of a highlights post, because there's just too much detail to recount in one post (and who needs a three-parter again?). And I'll start with kayaking. Doug and I have become huge fans of kayaking, and we got to do a fair bit of it this vacation. We did some group kayaking and some night kayaking and we even kayaked with some of our favorite waterfowl, the geese. (Note Doug's binoculars. We got them on Craigslist right before we left for our trip, and I have to say that they were a great acquisition. Birding here we come!)

We got some fishing in, too, although I only cast out a few times myself and caught nothing. Doug caught a couple of fish (two small bass), none of them while doing this lazy-man's version of fishing, by the way, so we can't recommend this style for the serious fisherman. Chris was more of a serious fisherman, going out to a secret spot in the lake and catching quite a few, including this one, caught on our last night at the lake. Nice one!

And then there were our excursions, our time spent away from the lake and the house. We made it to Isle au Haut. The boat ride there is worth the whole trip (we saw an island of sun-bathing seals on our way out there, in addition to numerous sea birds) but the island itself was pretty cool. There's nothing much to do there but hike, and thanks to the National Parks Service and Acadia National Park there's plenty of that to be done. Very early on in our trip I fell into a huge section of quick sand, and while I managed to get myself unstuck I spent the rest of the day sloshing around in wet, muddy shoes and socks. Thankfully I did not let the unpleasantness in my shoes distract me from the beauty of the island. I highly, highly recommend a trip out there (and I'll happily go back with you, this time with a spare pair of socks!).

We also spent some time in Belfast again, walking around Liberty and soaking in the local sites, and hiking in Camden Hills State Park. Camden Hills is a really nice park, offering some pretty challenging hiking. The challenges were worth it for us, though - look at the view from Oceanview Trail! You can see all of Camden and Penobscot Bay from up there. I'd do that trail again in a heartbeat, too.

Finally, there's our food. Our lovely, lovely vacation food. I eat well on vacation. Doug and I eat poorly during our normal lives (by poorly I mean sporadically), but on vacation we have a chance to be healthy. So, in addition to our walking and treking about, we also crammed a lot of great stuff into our bellies, like this pie (we had Moody's pie two times during our vacation week! That was such a treat.). Starting each day off with a beautiful breakfast like this, and eating a lunch or dinner like the one showcased here (and note the baby in the background! She was such a wonderful mealtime companion) made each day worth living, that's for sure. And lest you think that we spent a week in Maine but did not have lobster, think again. On our way back home we stopped off at The Lobster Dock for one of the state's most iconic specialties. We got one and shared it. Our verdict? Interesting. The flavor was fine - really almost non-existent - but the texture would definitely take some getting used to. When you bite into the roll there is a crunch to the meat, but then it's so chewy. Not rubbery, but it does take a lot more chews to break it down then you would think. We plan to try another next year, so it was good enough to try again, but we're okay waiting to try again until Maine, Chapter Three.

But how terrible is it that Maine, Chapter Three will be a year away! We have so much fun there. The scenery is just breathtaking, the weather is divine, and the company we keep could not be better. Do we really have to wait another year to take another of these on the steps of our vacation abode? Too bad we couldn't make this a bi-annual trip. I'd see Maine in the winter. I'd actually love to see Maine in the winter. I'd love to ski, snowshoe, even just drive around and see what it looks like covered under snow. Maine's really making itself quite comfortable in our hearts and our minds. We feel relaxed there, peaceful, rested, and alive. We really are beginning to love Maine.