Maine touring

For the last few days we have been taking little trips here and there. There is so much to see!

We drove into Portland and to the area known as Cape Elizabeth. There we found the Portland Head Light. This lighthouse sits at the South entrance to Portland Harbor. From this viewpoint, it is said that as many as 6 other lighthouses are visible on a clear day. I don't think we saw that many , but we did see a few others in the distance.

We made a visit to the town of Brunswick, home of Bowdoin College. This school is a liberal arts college founded over 200 years ago. Jim was particularly interested in seeing Joshua Chamberlain's former home on campus. He was a Civil War General who fought at Gettysburg and later was President of the College as well as Governor of Maine. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne are also famous alumni of the school. Longfellow also had lived in this house. The campus was beautiful, too.

Today we took a drive to the tiny village of Five Islands. The Maine coast is dotted with hundreds of coves,bays and islands. Some of them are huge and others very tiny. Just drive down a road towards the ocean and one can see them. We drove through Bath (a major ship-building town) and headed down one of those roads. At the end of the road is a wharf. Many of these wharves (including this one) have a lobster shack (order at the window, eat on picnic tables) on them. We had yet another fresh lobster lunch--can one ever have too much lobster?? We enjoyed the view of the harbor and watched the fishing boat unloading lobster. Oh yeah, it's called Five Islands because you can see 5 islands from the wharf. There was a film crew there interviewing the lobster company owner for a documentary on tasty food. They picked a good place!

We went in to look around at LL Bean--headquartered here in Freeport. It's a huge store selling everything they have in the catalog. The strange thing is, they are open 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year! Boy, are they busy! We found a few things to purchase. They hold adventure schools where one can learn and or practice a few outdoor sports using their equipment. Jim attended their clay target shooting class this morning. He said he really enjoyed it and was especially impressed with the $3000 gun they let him use. Of course, it was for sale--and still is in the store!