Headin' North to Maine

It was our last day at Samoset and at least the fog had rolled back so we could see the sea as we were packing up this morning. Sad face. :( I am totally bummed. I carried binoculars around all week hoping to see a moose and never did. The closest I got to seeing a moose was the 12pk of Moosehead in our condo fridge. (And I got ONE Dietrich, ONE). Nor did we spot the other elusive Maine beast, the mysterious Maine Coon Cat. No matter. I placed one call to my cat connection in Jersey and hooked up a new cat. It shouldn't be that difficult but after all these animal protection laws, getting a new cat in Jersey is like trying to buy crack. Scoring crack may be easier then scoring a cat. Not that I do. So meet Margo the Maine Coon, coming to a Woodbury house near you in one week. The other cats will be pissed, but really, I don't care. So soon we were off to Cape Cod. Along the way we stopped for a mini Preston convention at Lynnfield, MA. Couldn't stay lo...

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday as we were too busy! Yesterday was our 4th anniversary (although Dietrich is telling everyone that it is our 5th as he just wants it to be). We slept in, something we never do at home. Got up and I made avocado toast, and scrambled eggs with carmelized onions, mushrooms, and horseradish cheese. Perfect. I also put some cut up strawberries on his plate so they looked like 2 hearts, awww how sappy! Haha Dietrtich is such a sweetie. He surprised me with having a dozen roses delivered to the room. I *love* this picture, it looks like he is a tiny gift Dietrich popping out of the roses! LOL And guess what! It was FOGGY! Fog Day #3. I'm glad we had good weather earlier in the week otherwise we'd never know we were in Maine. We decided to go exploring so we drove up the coast to Belfast. Hoped to see lighthouses but that wasn't going to happen! The fog is cool in it's own way, slippery and misty and spooky. The fog wo...

We slept in a little later this morning and woke to rain and heavy fog. You couldn't see the ocean, or anything beyond the porch. The weather stayed this way through the entire day, with an occassional foghorn sounding in the distance. Deek had plans to make it a special day as tomorrow is our anniversary, but I learned this morning that my good friend and former employee Bob Hager passed over. This was quite sudden. Bob and his wife Linda often came to our house for Halloween and New Years Eve parties. Not sure what happened yet. He will be missed. They have been on my mind all day. It is also my son's birthday today, so as a surprise we ordered over $100 of vegetarian Nepalese take out food and had it delivered to him and his husband in Colorado Springs. He was very surprised and got a kick out of it. So Dietrich took me out to the town of Camden today to look at antiques. He had something special in mind that he wanted to get me as an anniversary present and he finally...

We both woke up at 5:30am to see the sun rise over the ocean. As a storm was rolling in, there were clouds which turned the sky and sea a brilliant orangey red. Since the forecast called for rain today and tomorrow, we decided to make this an indoor activity day. The Seafaring Museum in town doesn't open until Thursday, so we went to Owl's Head to visit the Transportation Museum. It is full of old cool cars and early motorbikes.  Afterwards we stopped at the Rockland Pub for a beer. Two locale Maine types (aka wearing wooly caps) were getting their day drinking on and one kept watching me. Awkward. So we moved on to the used book store where I picked up a copy of Ghosts on the Coast of Maine and some locale cookbooks, and Deitrich got one on what else - the Civil War. He is still jazzed about it and laying on the couch with it as I type. I think I just saw him KISS it. Came back to the resort, and hit the pool and the hot tub. The rain has held off so far but the ...

I have yet to see any Maine Coon cats in Maine. I'd have thought they would be falling out of the trees here. I wanted to saddle one and ride it home.

..singing the Accountancy shanty.....OH, hello there. Well you find me again this evening lounging about on the porch of the condo, listening to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, and the tree peepers! Yes tree peepers, something that I haven't heard for 20+ years in Jersey. Today was our sailing day and a chance to visit an island and go whale watching all at the same time. It was Dietrich's idea, although I will admit that I was leery about it. I'm just leery about most of Dietrich's ideas, naturally. The plan was to catch the car ferry in Rockport and travel 15 miles across the Atlantic to Vinalhaven Island (population 1,000+), spend 5 hours there and then sail back. When we got to the ferry station for our tickets, this sign started to confirm my fears. Check out the third rule from the bottom. Does this happen? Yikes. The sea was calm today so overall the voyage out to the island was pretty good. No whales were detected. Vinalhaven isn't much ...

The amazing sunrise over the ocean woke me up at 5:30am. There is a photo on my canon but the connector wifi app is not working on my tablet, so those photos will have to be inserted later. Imagine a ginormous orange sun reflecting across the ocean. That is beautiful. And goregous. And bright. And wakes you up at 5:30am on vacation. Went to the grocery store and basically wasted time until noon when we had reservations for the all you can eat brunch at the resort restaurant. Normally $29pp, they gave us a coupon for $19. each. Well worth it. Complimentary champagne, lamb, sirloin, canadian bacon, eggs benedict, pizzas, lobster bisque, salmon, chicken. Fantastic. The bisque stole the show. And the dessert table! I've never seen anything like it. I had the german chocolate cake and didn't care who knew it. Num Num Num. View from the restaurant, overlooks the ocean. Had to work off bunch so since it was a goregous day with a bright blue sky we decided to check out th...

The six hour drive from Tarrytown to Samoset in Rockport, ME went by pretty quickly.  BTW The Tarrytown Estate reception desk said that no one had reported a dead body, yet. I rode the entire way today with binoculars on my lap incase of a moose sighting. No such luck. I also proposed that we visit Derry, ME. Muhahahaha. Ask a Stephen King fan about that. It was raining when we arrived but we were blown away by the view from our condo. The condo sits right on the ocean. There is a large picture window and the bedroom has a sliding glass door that faces the ocean, and opens onto a balcony that runs the length of the unit. If it were warm enough (which it won't be) someone could sleep on the lounge chairs on the patio. These are the timeshare condos as seen from the golf course in the mist and rain. I think this would be a good night to watch the movie The Fog.  After unpacking we decided to hit the indoor pool and hot tub. Pretty sweet since it is in th...

For such a lovely place, this has been an interesting stay. I must completely change everything I was about to write as a clearly drunken male just ran down the hallway yelling "He's dead! He's dead!". Huh? Is this a cheap flop house by a truck stop? No, it's a 100+ year old lovely victorian estate on 24 acres sitting on the Hudson River. Big money. Old money. (hint hint Edwinna, Hudson RIVER). This sprawling property was built by a wealthy family in the day and has since been converted to a resort complex. There is lovely architecture and old photos on the walls. There are landscaped gardens with statues of Greek gods and goddesses, and a large balcony with a firepit overlooking the river. We had a late dinner reservation at the wine cellar restaurant and although it was way overpriced, the food was done to perfection. I had a Biddy Royale to drink (cucumbers, mint, and champagne) and Deek had a martini. Came back to the room though at 9:45pm and found that nei...

Bags are packed, litter boxes cleaned, trash is out, and the Aerogarden tanks are filled. Just have to set out the cat and rabbit food and pick up the rental, and then we are off to the Samoset Resort in Rockport, Me. We planned this trip a year ago for our Anniversary and thought Maine would be a good idea. But after looking at the weather, they are a month behind us and it is in the 30s at night and gray and chilly. Well we'll make the best of it. Two weeks ago it was still snowing up there. Dietrich is being stubborn and says he doesn't need a winter coat but he'll be sorrrryy. This is Maine and the temperatures are like our late February. The first leg of the journey is a two hour jaunt to Tarrytown, NY, where we will be staying at the Tarrytown estate on the Hudson. Looks like a nice place but we'll only be there for the night. We have dinner reservations for 8:30. Tomorrow morning we'll be up bright and early for the second half of the drive. ...