I appreciate your patience as I revise this site. Comments, thoughts, or just a friendly chat, use the response box below or email me at patrickgroleau@gmail.com.

February 17, 2014

DOWNEAST WANDERABOUT

... i filled the thermos bottles, one with normal cream and sugar, the other with enough brown sugar to guarantee the last cup would be half-syrup, and then waited downstairs for john ... today he was in charge of the "where" while i enjoyed riding shotgun ...

... our first stop was a field in—well, since my role riding in the shotgun seat was to watch out for bandits and robbers, i can only tell you that this field is somewhere in the thirty-five miles of hills and valleys between waterville and the atlantic ocean ...


... we hiked up to the top of a mountain from which the vista included monhegan island to the south and caddilac mountain to the north ... all the instruction books will tell you, "mid-day is the worst time to take pictures" ... i didn't write any of those books, of course ... more experimentation with my new camera, marveling at its capability to capture a scene which contains a range from bright sunlight reflecting off the snow to the deep shadows beneath the snowdrift's overhang ...


... the lighthouse at port clyde was a study in extremely extreme contrast ... still, with the d7000 i was able to enjoy picture taking ... the temperature in the lee of the buildings wasn't all that bad, the still air was maybe 20-25°f, but along the rocks exposed to the strong wind coming off the sea conditions were brutal ...


... this part of the coastline is a place i tend to avoid during the summer, what with the flatlanders tromping around, and, in recent years, the steadily increasing tour bus traffic, so it was quite exciting to once again climb the stairs to a porch i'd last visited ages ago ... while it may be true that "nothing ever stays the same," it's nice to be reminded that some things change very, very little ...


... john treated me to a great lunch in camden, where nowadays it seems nobody can be heard gossiping about "the movie," then he drove us down to owl's head light for the sunset ...


... i could make excuses, but the simple truth is i didn't get any good shots of the light ... odd, listening to the strong wind howl through the line of tall pines below the ridge to the north of the lighthouse somehow i lost my eyes for a few minutes, as if in that time my ears took over as they tried to make an audio snapshot of the duet land's end and the darkening sky performed for me ...

... on the walk out we met a very nice woman who lived in a house perched on the little cove behind the point ... she told me how the other cove, the one on the south side of the peninsula, was called "deadhorse bay" (or something like that, the cold had made me have to pee so bad that part of my brain wasn't working right) because a long time ago a boat loaded with horses had sunk just offshore and all the animals had drowned ... (i think i'll swim someplace else, thank you very much) ... i saw this tree and discovered that even in the low light i could play with it ...



... couldn't decide which i like best, so i let you decide for yourself ...



... a nice day, seeing ...