A Few Favorite Pics from Maine

Sally and I went to Maine last week on vacation. Now that I've finally had a chance to comb through all the pictures we took, here are some of my favorites.

Thoughts on Turning 50

Well friends, I’m now fifty years old. 

I’m trying not to let it get to me. Lots of my friends are already fifty, after all, and my wife is actually fifty-five. None of it means much on balance. 

I shouldn’t let it bug me.

Blog Shots: St. Thomas & Water Island (2022)

Sally and I took the kids to St. Thomas for a quick family vacation last week. Needless to say, we took a LOT of pictures. This first set is from the area in and around Water Island.

Blog Shots: Pics from Block Island

Sally and I took a trip to Block Island earlier this month, located just off the coast of Narragansett, Rhode Island.  The weather wasn't great for much of the trip, so I wound up spending a goodly amount of my time practicing photography.  

Some of those pics are presented below.

Blog Shots: Remembering St. Thomas

Poor Sally woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Her alarm didn't go off, meaning she scrambled out the door in a whirl of frustrated anxiety.  No coffee, but thankfully, she also wasn't overly late, either.

My new project is to give all the little on this blog one of these little header images. 
The one I used yesterday helped drive traffic from Twitter quite effectively. 

I sent her this little photo series by way of cheering her up.  These pics are culled from our trip to St. Thomas two years ago.  Alas, the pandemic has kept us from going back, and now we're stuck in dreary Connecticut in the middle of March.  Not only was Sally late, but it's ugly and raining outside.

Let's remember St. Thomas, yeah?

Pics from St. Sauveur & Acadia Mountain

 Sally and I hiked St. Sauveur and the Acadia Mountain Trail while we were up in Maine last week.  As the title of this post suggests, these are our pictures.

The hike wasn't too bad save for the climb up Acadia Mountain itself. The mountain is not quite seven hundred feet high, but the way is extremely steep.  We also got turned around a bit at one of the trail junctions.  I blame myself, but we were trying to follow the signs instead of looking at our map, which was an obvious error in retrospect.

I should note, too, that we took our dog but left our kids at the campsite.  This would've been a little much for them.  For better or worse, this just isn't their thing.

Our route, via AllTrails.com. 
As you can see, it's steep towards Acadia's peak.

More pics after the jump. 

Sunrise at Cadillac Mountain

We went to Maine last week.  I don't think that's a secret.  While we were there, Sally and I trekked to the top of Cadillac Mountain to watch the sun rise.  Given that this was at 4:00 am on Wednesday, we decided to drive. 

We weren't the only ones.

These are my pics.  Enjoy!

Frenchman's Bay and the Porcupine Islands at first light

More Pics from Water Island, USVI

Finally got a chance to pull the pictures from our trip to St. Thomas and Water Island, USVI, off of Sally's digital camera.  There were nearly 360 photos on there.  These are just some of my favorites.

On the ferry to water island right after our plane landed.

Reliving Water Island

We’re back from the Virgin Islands, and it’s a Monday.  I’m dealing with it, but man, this time yesterday I was waking up in an entirely different world.

Sally and I flew out of JFK.  With that we got a cheaper flight that went direct, but I have to be honest and say that the airport itself was a pain in the ass.  Considering the number of people and planes they process on a day-to-day basis, they do a decent job, but there’s still no getting around the fact that 8.5M people live in New York City and maybe 25M live in the greater NYC metropolitan area, and that’s a lot of folks.  Add in tourist traffic, and yeah y’know, it was a whole deal.  We must’ve walked a mile and a half from security to our gate and from the gate back out to the street when we got back. 

Sally at JFK waiting for our flight.

That airport is amazing.

Battery Park, NYC

Battery Park is a large, open access green space and public park located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan.  It's a common tourist destination and the site of may of New York's modern day war memorials.  Sally, the girls, and I visited Battery Park as part of our recent two-day vacation to New York City.

Sally and the girls in Battery Park.

The High Line

The High Line is a nearly one-and-a-half-mile park built on an old section of a disused elevated railroad spur on the Lower West Side of Manhattan.  Visitors to the City tend to think of New York as an unremitting Hellscape of urban concrete, glass, and steel, but the City has plenty of public green spaces, many in cleverly hidden nooks a bit off the beaten path.  The High Line is an arch example of this.

Background from the High Line's Official Twitter account.

Hampton Beach, New Hampshire (Part 2)

We got up late yesterday, walked down to the Secret Spot for breakfast burritos, and then sat on the seawall to eat.  Then we walked down the beach collecting cool-looking rocks.  It was all very reminiscent of my days in San Diego.

We headed to Water County water park in the afternoon.  This was totally awesome, but I didn't take many picture.

A Wedding in New Hampshire

We're on vacation this week.  Alas, we're not in Maine this year, but we drove up to the New Hampshire coast for Sally's cousin's wedding.  It was a glorious beachside ceremony, followed by a very enjoyable reception down at a local yacht club.

But hey, you came for the pictures, no?

Odds & Ends: Last Day Before Vacation

Today marks my last work day before we start next week’s vacation, and I am super excited.  We don’t have much in the way of specific plans, and for once, we’re not going away.  Nonetheless, I can’t wait for a little time off.

Don’t get me wrong.  2016 has been a pretty good year.  We joined the Housatonic Boat Club, the oldest yacht club in the state of Connecticut, and got our kids enrolled in sailing and ballet and ever more gymnastics.  They both also did very well in school.  All that stuff is great.  But it keeps us hopping, and for as much as I enjoy the club, reality all summer has kept us away more often than we’d have liked.  It’s been hot these last few weeks as well, and we’ve had a bit more excitement at times around my office than I’d prefer.  

Bottom line, I can use the break.

D&D: Zeke's Mine

I’ve written several little adventures for this blog, mostly as a way to introduce my other writing to a larger audience.  This piece is a little different.  We were on vacation last week in Maine, and that gave me time, for once, to read.  The first thing I did was read through the new Dungeon Master’s Guide again, especially Part 3: “Master of Rules”.  I loved it.  It was not news to me that the 5th edition DMG is a quality product, but this was the first time I’d had a chance to go through it simply to enjoy how awesome it is.  Part 3 in particular struck me as truly excellent.

Views from Pemetic Mountain

Our last hike of vacation was up Acadia's Pemetic Mountain to perhaps the most spectacular views we saw all week.  It was a fairly steep climb, especially in the tree line before we broke out onto the ridge trail, but we all made it, and everyone had a good time.

Pemetic Trail starts down by Jordan Pond.

Random Pics from Staycation

I've been off since Wednesday night.  We went places and did stuff, and occasionally I took pictures.  Some of my favorites are below.

One of the first things we did was go to Lake Quassy Amusement Park on
Thursday night.  This ride shocked us all, not least because it's right next to the
carousel, in the kiddie section of the park.

5 Things on a Friday: Football is Coming!

Happy Friday, folks.  By the time you read this, I'll have been on a mini-staycation for a couple of days!  Yay me!  

Let's get to it.

***

1. ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper, 1954-2015 (Grantland)

Roddy Piper was never the biggest WWF star, but he was irreplaceable because he grounded all the good-versus-evil theatrics. He made it OK to root for a heel, not because he was transcendent or postmodern but because he was honest. He was human. It’s why casting him in They Live was such an inspired choice — [George] Nada was an average drifter suddenly burdened with world-altering power. He was a nobody who had to give up his life to destroy the alien menace, but not before he flipped them off. He was quite possibly wrestling’s most relatable heel: We could see ourselves in him even though he was provoking our heroes. Piper battled cancer in the 2000s and beat it.

Piper wasn’t a superhero — not when he was staring down Hogan and certainly not when he was a “good guy.” There was nothing nice about that guy, no. But unlike Piper himself, the rest of us could never look away when he was onscreen.

Pictures from Gettysburg

Our trip to Gettysburg was terrific.  It was great to see old friends, walk through history, and visit Hershey Park afterwards.  We went with some old friends that I hadn't seen in years, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  So did my girls.

We're Home

If there's an upside to being back at home, it's that we have TV in the house.  I watched part of the Giants pre-season game last night while flipping back and forth to try and catch Johnny Manziel's debut for the Browns.  Sadly, the Browns put Manziel in too late, so that by the time he was in, Sally and I were already watching Suits.

I keep wanting to tell myself that it's good to be back, but I miss my beautiful lake view in the morning and the call of the loons.  I slept so well up there, but last night I was restless from the drive and--as often happens--couldn't stop thinking about the million-and-five things that I need to get back to now that we're home.

Heck, even our dog seems to miss Maine, but she's re-adjusting better than Sally and I are.