"Spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter's here..."

And it's time to go south again!  Just a couple of busy weeks left, preparing the RV for our winter trip, and we'll be heading to warmer climates.  House sitter is arranged and we've just about recovered from Christmas.

Let's see - what have you missed since we got back from Maine ----

We came home to discover that the RV had been the victim of a vehicular hit and run in the lot where it's kept.  Not significant damage, but a miserable discovery.  Our insurance company came through wonderfully and with time and effort, she's back together again.  It took a few weeks.

Smoke could not be happier - home, sweet recliner.  This is the blissful sleep of a happy cat.

Heather and boyfriend Pete came up for a visit.  We drove to the Peaks of Otter - beautiful year round, but especially so in the early fall.

It's a rather harrowing bus ride to almost the top of the peaks.  Not for the faint of heart... Once you've departed the bus, there is still the last 1500 feet of a rocky, rugged strenuous hike to the top. 

OK, maybe  not for the 40-somethings, but I was sure glad to get to the top!

Thanksgiving was spent at Phyllis and Peter's home in NC.  I can't believe we didn't get any pictures of the festivities.  But, of course, we did get one of Smoke sleeping on their antique, handmade bed.

While in NC, we spent a couple of days with Bonnie and Pete.  The big adventure was going to the small town of Aurora, home of the Aurora Fossil Museum.  The world's largest phosphate mining and chemical plant is located here.  Deep - about 100 feet - below the surface are the deposits of a 15 million year old sea.  As the company digs up phosphate, they also dig up something else - fossils.  Mostly shark teeth fossils.  About every 2 weeks, the mine takes a huge load of the sandy rock that they have been digging into over to 2 large "sandboxes" in Aurora.  The boxes are free for digging  about in, looking for shark teeth and other fossils.  We collected a ziplock bag full of them - some teeth just sitting on the surface, others found using a sifter.  We are all standing in less than 1/4 of the sandbox.

This particular fossilized tooth is a from an extinct Tiger Shark.

Next, a trip in the other direction, Pittsburgh.  Luke spent a lot of his growing up years, plus collage, in Pittsburgh, so it's always nice to go back and visit.  Boating friends Wendy and Warwick live there.  We went with them to the Carnegie Mellow Natural History Museum.  Dinosaurs!  Over 115,000 sq feet large, the museum gained prominence in 1899. Today the dinosaur collection includes the worlds largest collection of Jurassic dinosaurs and the third largest collection of mounted, displayed dinosaurs in the US, including the worlds first specimen of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.    

We visited the church where Luke's dad was the organist for many years.

And down to The Strip, for a fish lunch at Wholeys seafood market and grocery. Founded in 1912, it's a "must-do".

And joy, oh joy, we came home to snow.  Light snow, but still the first snow of the season for us.

Smokey indulges herself in one of her favorite pastimes - helping me knit.  Of course, she'd like it a lot better if I didn't actually have knitting in my lap.

Early December, and it's tree time.  We use a small artificial tree, but Smokey doesn't care.  She's a cat... At least she doesn't try to climb up it!

And it's Christmas day and Christmas cheer!

Both of my daughters have taken up quilting this year.  Both have made several.  One of Heather's quilt tops, ready for finishing.

Nikki surprised Heather with a quilt for Christmas - again, just the topper, but ready for finishing!

A Christmas present for me came from an unlikely source....I did a couple of days of cat care for a neighbor.  The good kitties "gifted" me this when I went over to feed them....thank goodness it was well dead and licked completely slick by the time they brought it to me....I love living in the woods...

So now begins the preparing for winter in FL.  We look forward to going.  Friends from last year will be there again, plus there are several planned visits from our local friends.  It'll all be worth it once we get the RV packed and ready to go!

End of our 2017 Maine adventure

All good things must come to an end - or at least a pause.  Back in Rockland, Latitudes was hauled out of the water at the boatyard.

We began the arduous task of unpacking the boat and backing the car for home.  It's always hard - what do we take, what do we leave, what have we forgotten.  You can see the pillows in a ziploc bag on the sofa.  Taking all precautions against mildew next spring!  Bottles and bottles of antifreeze line the foot of the sofa.  We used over 30 gallons to winterize Latitudes.  That's the tail end of one of the sails peeking out from under the table.

Smokey was her usual helpful cat self.

To help you appreciate the unpacking joy, take a look at the picture of Latitudes on the hard.  We use the 6 part pulley hoist (that we use to lower the dinghy motor) to lower the heaviest bags down initially. Then we haul out the rest of the bags from the interior of the boat and put them in the cockpit, where the yellow cover is over the instruments.  From there, we move them to the outside back of the boat.  Then down the boat steps.  Then down the ladder,  Then into the car.  Endlessly, it seems.

With last spring's mildew problem being still fresh, we did everything possible to cut that down this winter.  Linens, etc, in sealing bags, 4 huge tubs of "damp rid" inside the boat, 3 bottles of lestoil concentrate in bins in the sinks, and 3 jars of VERY expensive gel that is "guaranteed' to keep down mold and mildew" (and highly recommended by friends).  We have asked that larger ventilation vents be cut in the shrink wrap when it is done.  Fingers crossed!

Car packed with bags and an unhappy cat, we left for home, 1000 miles south.  Luke had a great suggestion - to stop in Wiscasset for one last Maine lobster roll.  Red's Eats had a line of at least 30 people, so we stopped across the street for an equally good and not quite as expensive roll, at Spragues.

We stopped at a pet friendly hotel for the night, had a nice dinner at Friendly's, and settled in.  Smokey is never really happy in strange hotels, but this was worse for some reason,  By 4:40 a.m. she began crying, caterwauling, and pacing.  We got a very early start to our final push home....

And we are home!  Smokey is happy, Luke is happy, and I am certainly happy.  Vacation is fun but there is truly no place like home.

Castine and Holbrook Island

Our last port of this season was to the town of Castine, anchoring in the neighboring Holbrook Harbor.

Castine is the home of the Maine Maritime Academy and a beautiful little town.  The Academy has acquired the schooner Bowdoin, the first sailing ship to successfully navigate the dangerous Arctic waters.  She was built in 1921 specifically for that purpose to do exploration and scientific studies of the Arctic.  A wonderful, short article about her is here  https://www.bowdoin.edu/arctic-museum/biographies/bowdoin.shtml
Here is a picture of her in the Arctic

And now.

She is the official ship of Maine and also the training sailboat for the Academy.  It is awesome to stand beside this schooner and know her past!

Castine also has ancient elms.  These magnificent trees were saved from blight in the 1930's and now each is tagged with it's own number.  Many are as old a 150 years! Think of what they've seen...

Back to Holbrook Harbor, we decided to take a walk along the paths on Holbrook Island.  The island was left as a public trust by the last living resident of it.  An old barn starts the walk.

Some paths meander along the shore side.

Others are long and straight - straight through the pine forest!  I don't believe they needed the red blazes on the trees to mark the path; there is no way to wonder about where the trail is!  I have never seen a forest so dense and so lacking in under growth.

We left early the next morning and sailed to Rockland in preparation for having Latitudes pulled for the winter here.  Almost in Rockland, we passed the beautiful schooner Heritage, full sails billowing in the light breeze. We were impressed that for several miles we we were able to sail apace with this much larger and more heavily canvassed ship.

We had some sail work to do, too.  Both the jib and the main had to come down before we are pulled out of the water. Getting 'm down is easy - gravity helps a lot. However, folding them in an organized pleat so they can be rolled up is a lot of work, especially on the relatively limited open deck space that we have. We also needed very light winds to keep the sails under control. Our forecasts had a lull in the wind at noon, and we jumped at the opportunity.

Don't be fooled by that beautiful blue sky.  This morning broke gray, 55 degrees, with the promise of rain and wind in the early afternoon.  Boy, did it come.  The wind is howling, rain is coming in waves, and Latitudes is bouncing and swaying at her anchor.  But she is well anchored.  We check on a regular basis and we are secure.  The forecast is for a change in wind direction and velocity at midnight.  It should be much calmer and tomorrow should be a nice sunny day.  Luke and I are ready for the calm - Smokey couldn't care in the least!

Acadia and places as we head back to Rockland

We’ve again been without reliable (or any) cellular or wifi for about a week.  The antennas aren’t allowed in national parks, so getting wifi around Acadia is hit or miss.  So far, we’ve mostly missed!  But today we are in Vinal Haven, back in the Penobscot Bay! Wifi is still available only through the ferry terminal when open or the library.  We can get the ferry terminal wifi while we're on the boat, but it's slow.  I'm giving that a try.

It was nice to be in Acadia again.  We rented bikes and rode on some of the 57miles of carriage roads built for guests of the Rockefellers and islanders between 1913 and 1957. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. financed the project.  Horse drawn buggies mostly used them then – now it’s a mixture of walkers and bikers.  So, these 2 bikers set off.

One of these two bikers thought she was going to die after walking her bike up long, long hills.  I could ride DOWN the hills :-)  but the long inclines were too hard for me. I told the bike rental place that I should get half my money back as I only rode the bike half the time!

Luke was a good hubby and rode slowly beside me or followed to make sure I would make it.

The views were beautiful.  The Bubbles and Jordan Pond.

A view of Bubble Pond.

The view from the rock where we stopped for our lunch.

The pond at the starting point of our bike ride.  Acadia National Park offers not only buses around the entire park, but also special buses to take riders and their bikes back and forth to the pond.  All for free, subsidized by the LL Bean Foundation.

To reward ourselves, we had the famous popovers at the Jordan Pond restaurant.  YUM!

A different day, I went to West Marine at SW Harbor to pick up some boat parts while Luke hiked a trail that I didn’t want to do (this would be the day after the bike ride/walk...).  The Echo trail starts at the quiet Echo Lake beach.

It climbs to a nice overview of the lake. 

Glad I didn’t go – here is part of the trail…. Note the ladders!  Too steep for steps! The first picture actually shows 2 sets of ladders to get up that section. Luke was clever enough to do the steep part on the way down!

There is a nice shore walk along the western side of Mt. Desert Island.  We took a short hike along it, maybe 2-3 miles, to see the rugged shoreline.

We also met up with friends we met last year, Mary and Dick.

They live nearby and have a CAR.  That meant a nice ride up to the top of Cadaliac Mountain instead of either hiking it (did it once…) or paying $52 for the privilege of taking a private bus to the top for a 15 minute stay.  You can see some of the many islands.

After a week at Somes Sound, we spent a night at the deserted Pond Island.  A narrow creek runs into the island.

And just as named, a pond!

Next, one of our favorite islands to hike, Buckle.  Dinghy on shore, waiting to float out at high tide and wait for us (she’s anchored)

This smaller island is where we picked muscles last year.

Fall is fast approaching in Maine.  Red leaves are already starting to drift down.

One the best parts of the walk around the island is the green door!  Right in the middle of the trail, it sits with the current message “will the last one out please turn off the light”.

Luke was the last one out!

Yesterday, at Carvers Harbor, we picked up a few groceries, had  haddock and fries baskets for lunch, and did a bit of walking around.  Planning to leave soon to go to Holbrook Harbor, near Castine, for a few days before our last run to Rockland to leave Latitudes for the winter.