Category Archives: vacation

10.01.19
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Gloucester, Mass…Glawster

The oldest seaport in the United States…Gloucester shares the land point with Rockport. We are at that point of the vacation where we are ready to head home….still enjoying the sites but less zealous…..

We stayed overnight in an out of the way hotel…the Sea Lion. It was quiet and outdated and comfortably simple.

My main agenda was visiting the fisherman’s Memorial but then we were intrigued with the the rest of it.

There is just a different feel in a village like this in comparison with the Midwest. We especially loved the city hall and the ship cupola on the top of the weather vane.

During this trip to the east/northeast, I’ve been very aware of the melting pot of different cultures, different accents and languages! I was especially aware of a different drummer that Mainers dance to as opposed to the Midwest. #gratitude for the experience and gratitude for the “living in the moment” lessons I’ve been practicing and used during the complications during the first part of the trip.

We are vegging now in a beautiful suite in a burb outside of Boston, Gotta love Orbitz rewards…

09.30.19
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Northeast Harbor and Producer Dick Wolf

The trip to Pemaquid lighthouse was my favorite day until we made the Northeast Harbor our 2 day home. Northeast Harbor is on Desert Island which is also home to Acadia and Bar Harbor. We drove through Bar Harbor…it was beautiful…packed with tourists from two cruise ships in the harbor. It was unbelievably busy. Just north of Bar Harbor proper is the main entrance to Acadia.

And our view of the harbor

We took a 3 hour cruise around the islands…set foot on working lobster island…cranberry. Learned a lot about lobster catching….fascinating!

Lots of “famous” aka stinkin’ wealthy people have summer homes in the area..Martha Stewart, the Sears family, the Godiva Chocolate family, Lands End….and Tv producer, Dick Wolf and his 3 boats

Shockingly this $40 million dollar house was among the cottages along the water

Here’s some random scenery pictures….

And I swear this dude looked familiar

09.29.19
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What the Maine coast looks like…granite

We took a day trip away from the hustle and bustle of Boothbay Harbor…over to Pemaquid Lighthouse…

The travel time consuming aspect of the Maine Coast is driving down into each peninsula or Island to see things shore related. But also these little side trips south give you the opportunity to slow down and relax as you drive through little villages. The speed limit is often 20-35.

The lighthouse and maritime museum was enjoyable. I could not go clear to the top of this one, (which obviously wasn’t very high) as I got to the place of stepping from the iron ladder into the tiny room with 6 other people I couldn’t do it. But, as I started wandering outside I was enveloped by this.

It was one of those places I could have stayed all day! Breathtaking! The granite lines the walls along the highways and lines the coasts and cliffs. Similar but so different from the rock formations in Missouri and other places we have visited.

Maine is the Pine Tree State. There are those too!

09.28.19
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….for a few minutes I lost trust in humanity

After the whale watching expedition….(picture) I was just content knowing I was going to be off the boat in a few minutes, we went to a restaurant nearby…see my across body purse there….Apparently I took it off in the restaurant when I dug out my “no interest for a year”discover card and left it in the booth. I didn’t miss it until the afternoon of the next day. Only thing missing was my wallet, $40, drivers license and my bone conductive ear phones. But my total disappointment was in humanity…the next customer..or the next didn’t take what they wanted and give it to the restaurant or waitress…more likely they hiked it in the trash can. That fact is what was the most horrible detail for me…the inhumanity!

The second picture is a lighthouse way out there..we also saw the little red house that the Wizard of Oz’ Wicked Witch of the west summered in on the peninsula…according to the guide, her family still owns it.

And the last picture I took because were I ever to go back to Boothbay Harbor…I would try to stay in this B&B. Boothbay was a little too busy for us…it was beautiful but the village contained way too many tourist shops. It was a beautiful introduction to Maine!

09.25.19
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21 miles out in the Maine harbor aka the Atlantic

Many years ago during a trip to Hawaii he wanted to take a sailboat ride…I told him to have a blast but no way in hell was I doing it with him!!

Fast forward to this morning when he asked if I wanted to take a tour boat out to do whale watching. A …. NO! I suggested once again that he should feel free to do it. No…he said, I don’t want to do that, I want to share it with someone.

I pouted the first hour and a half…put my jacket hood up and silently vowed never again! 21 miles out we saw a whale. But we couldn’t leave it at that we had to sit and wait for it to surface two more times before we could head an hour and a half back to land.

I’m not against whale watching in general….it’s probably a once in a lifetime thing for most people. But for me I could not stand the fact that we were in his home, running our loud motor messing up his sonar and then goIng into high gear to the next siting of him/her. Is that fair?

Someday I’ll share with you what I think about zoos and mammoth aquariums!

Until next time…..

09.25.19
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She suggested I ask my guides for one more sign

Cats fed yesterday morning around 7…suitcases in our car…He started the car and the low tire pressure light was on. UGH…so we decided to take the loner car to the airport for our trip to Maine. I didn’t really want to drive it and leave it in economy parking for the week…I seriously have no idea why that concerned me. Traffic generally sucked at 7AM so we kind of traveled across country rather than taking interstate highways for our hour long commute. We got to Independence and the tire pressure light went on in the loaner car! WHAT.!?! Sure enough, he had to change the tire because of a sidewall blowout…WHAT?!?!

You know those stories about people missing a plane and the plane later crashed? I was totally freaked out knowing that I needed to listen to my intuition which seemed to be screaming STOP. I called my daughter and she told me to ask my spirit guides for one more sign….I did!

Since we were driving on a donut, we decided to leave the car at some friends house and use Uber to take us the rest of the way. He and I decided that if an Uber wasn’t available that would be our sign. A great guy named Richard in a red car answered our UBER call.

WHEW Ok.

……..and then there is TSA. As a back story…. I’ve packed Norwex powder laundry detergent on every trip I’ve taken including at least two international flights and it has never been an issue…no one has even asked me about it. Until TSA in Kansas City working the Delta airline. They held my luggage….they needed to go through it because of half a small bag of laundry detergent. I had a full pat down…then they had to use their super squirrel sheets to find contaminants in my backpack and my suitcase…she told me if they found a contaminant (otherwise known as laundry detergent) they would need to have the explosives unit come in to investigate. WHAT?!?! Well, of course it was laundry detergent and it wasn’t in my bags nor my shoes nor my cellphone after the second scan!

We didn’t listen to the third warning. We are in Maine.

Until next time…..

09.01.18
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Notably

Minnesota is a large state. While sitting in an AmericInn lobby this morning drinking my coffee and eating an English muffin, I found out that while Minnesota is large by area it only ranks 12th out off 50….and the state cannot brag about water area either (see last column in screen shot). so that land of lakes is probably notable for the amount of lakes within its boarders not the actual area or volume for that matter.

The AmericInn runs Fox News on their lobby TV 24/7. While I’m not sure right now if this is staff or Corp policy. It does make a difference to me….and while they have every right to have their TV turned to any channel they support…this has an impact on me and my choices where I spend my money when I require lodging.

Saw this in a bookstore.

Wish I had written it. Would like to spend more time on the North Shore to perhaps collect facts in order to write a book about it….or at least spend a lot of time at the North Shore collecting facts and then make a decision.

Today is our 39th anniversary! In order to stay married this long, you have to embrace the fact that marriage can be damn hard and overcoming the bad times is what makes it work for 39 years! I received a piece of advice early on…most successful marriages work because of the commitment portion..commitment is what makes you work through the tough times because inevitably you don’t like each other 100 percent of the time and the trick is to not dislike each other at the same time. Happy Anniversary to Him!

Until next time….

08.31.18
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Sometime between 2000 and 2007

We visited the North Shore…we’ve narrowed it down to those years…because we ate at the current Betty’s Pie Shop which moved to its present location in 2000….and I started blogging in 2007 and I can’t find record of it.

No picture of the Pie because who has time to take pictures of Pie!

We left Grand Marais with a final look around…we may pull the camper and do the campground next time.

After Grand Marais, our first stop was Cascade River State Park. Beautiful…easy trail…a few steps but very doable for this…

Tettegouch State Park is huge with lots of hiking possibilities…we did the Shovel Point hike which is 200 feet above Lake Superior. 300 steps and inclines up but OMG. When we arrived on top there were already rock climbers on top and beginning their descent.

We decided to leave the other hikes to our next visit. We headed back to Two Harbors because we knew Betty’s Pies was waiting…had a nice visit with our friend Sue at her house and got to see more of the north shore off the beaten path.

The north shore is a must visit at least once in your life!

08.29.18
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Grand Marais, MN

For the most part this will be a picture blog because pictures tell the story about this beautiful place.

While he did this after breakfast…

I did this

He didn’t fall into the drink and we were reunited

Lots of shops line the streets…not your typical souvenir stores but higher quality merchandise….art stores, jewelers, etc… I fell in love with an amethyst ring which is now mine. Our 39th Anniversary is Saturday so perfect timing!

It was a tough decision…the ring vs jewelry created from this stone

We are going to slowly meander south tomorrow and visit some state parks and waterfalls on the way. Not quite sure how far we will get….perhaps back to Two Harbors. There are not a lot of regular hotels between here and there.

Until next time…..