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.

May 22, 2012

UP BY THE DEAD RIVER

... today roger and i motorcycled up through the valley of the sandy river ... we took our first break at smalls falls ... this was one of the places that my daughters learned to swim, jump, dive, deal with hypothermia, and master the art of applying first aid tape and gauze pads well enough that they could continue their fun until the "you can swim until you turn blue like the berries" rule had to be enforced ...


NIKON D200-NIKKOR 18-135@38MM-F22-1/20th-ISO100

... above the falls, at the river's source, the upper sandy pond, in the space of about a thousand feet we left the drainage basin of the kennebec river and entered that of the androscoggin ... two cups of water, poured to the ground within sight of one another, one will flow west, then south, then east ... the other cup of water will flow in the opposite direction, then south ... at times over a hundred miles apart in their separate journeys through two different states, they will end up mixing together at merrymeeting bay before entering the sea ...

... we stopped in rangely for lunch, then followed the course of the dead river's south branch until we crossed back into civilization in stratton ... from there we wandered down to north new portland ...


NIKON D200-SIGMA 10-20@10MM-F11-1/125th-ISO100

... as always still echoing the laughter of my little girls, the sandy beach beneath the wire bridge is of my most favorite places in the entire world ...

... when we stopped to take a break in stratton, a man in the general store asked, "where're you from" ... i answered, "waterville" ...

... "oh, well, where're you headed" ...

... "waterville" ...

... he smiled, 'cause it made perfect sense to him, too ...