Beauty as Well as Bread...

We spent most of last week visiting the Coast of Maine, staying at Goose Rocks Beach near Kennebunkport. What a refreshing time! The weather was perfect, the air so fresh, and the views spectacular. Two mornings we drove to Ogunquit to walk the mile-long Marginal Way. The view above is of Ogunquit River and the Atlantic taken from the foot path.

There are overlook benches and markers along the Marginal Way, and I was taken by the above placque with this quote from naturalist and preservationist John Muir. "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." How true! And this is certainly one place that checks all the boxes on that list.

At the end of the Marginal Way is the small fishing and shopping area known as Perkins Cove. Here's the view from the footbridge that crosses the waterway. Passersby sometimes have to raise and lower the bridge for a boat to travel through. Jack was called on to render this service on our visit. He's done it in the past, too, and we like to entertain ourselves with fake newspaper headlines like "Tourist Causes Traffic Jam for Perkins Cove Boaters" or "Florida Man Falls from Footbridge While Operating Lift". We are easily amused.

Our rental cottage had a picnic table in the backyard which overlooked this marsh, part of the Wildlife Refuge. We saw lots of bird activity, and welcomed the peacefulness, while we also enjoyed our lobster dinners.

One of our favorite places to eat is the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound which serves the best lobster rolls on the open-air deck.

And every night we drove into Kennebunkport to stroll around, shop, have some ice cream, and admire the beautiful flowers and inviting courtyard gardens.

One evening some rain fell, but we were rewarded with a rainbow at the end of the brief shower. Of course we visited the local quilt shop, Knight's Quilt Shop in the Cape Neddick area. That's the day we also visited the iconic Nubble Lighthouse near York Beach. We returned to Florida a day earlier than originally planned, but we packed a lot in the time we had. Lovely, lovely! And good to be home.

Just before our trip I listened to the recorded book titled "Maine", currently on some bestseller lists. I enjoyed the narrator's New England accent, the storyline of family dynamics, plus the mentions of the many landmarks we've become familiar with over the years of vacationing in the area.

One Man's Art is Another Man's... Aggravation?

The Marginal Way in Ogunquit, Maine, is a beautiful mile-long path along the rocky edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Ogunquit was known as "beautiful place by the sea" by the Abenaki tribe. This year when we walked along the path, we noticed many interesting cairns, or stacks of rocks, artfully arranged. As I stopped and took some photos, a few others were also standing in the area looking at the rocks. One man came along and began asking a woman in the group if she knew who was responsible for the piles. Were they made as part of a children's project, he asked? When he learned that one man arranges the rocks in this manner, he wanted to know if the man had taken it upon himself to alter the landscape. He seemed to be irritated and upset by the effort. I was surprised that he took such exception to the cairns, but it was a good lesson in remembering that people have differing points of view and perspectives. I considered the stones to be artistic and thought the man who arranged them probably found it a meditative practice. But I could understand that the other observer clearly felt the display disrupted his natural view of the rocks. What are your thoughts?




Having just read the article titled "Guerilla Art Is..." in Cloth Paper Scissors magazine, this stone-piling seemed to fit with the concept of unsanctioned public exhibits.




PS- I also learned that cairns like these are sometimes used as trail markers

Color Inspiration...

My camera was at the ready to capture colorful images like these while we visited Maine. The flowers are extra beautiful there, blooming brightly and abundantly in the sun and ocean air. Even the lobster bouys make an appealing and colorful display as seen on the side of a restaurant at Cape Porpoise. And Jack found a stylishly dressed bear to have a friendly chat with. I think the birdhouses in the garden would make a great thread-painted quilt project. That will go on my to-do list. Of course that list is miles long, so it may be awhile!

Refreshing Travel to Maine...

Clear blue skies, a profusion of flowers, and color all around! We spent a week in Maine and these are a few of the photos from the trip. The one above is Perkins Cove in Southern Maine. The fresh air with just a hint of coolness in it was a refreshing change from the Florida summer heat. Of course the tantalizing lobsters Maine is known for were sweet and tender. We enjoyed them on a picnic table overlooking a marshy bird refuge.






Our cottage at Goose Rocks Beach was a great home-away-from-home, quiet and peaceful. That's husband Jack on the deck. And our neighbors are shown in the small picture below. Can you even spot them?