Maine/Grad School

So my sister talked my Mom into flying out to see me last weekend.  She's been talking about doing this for a while, since Mom wanted to know how to deal with flying if there was ever an emergency.
Well, this time we decided we were going to go to Maine -- a good pick, since I think it ended up being about 15 degrees cooler up there, and cloudy.

We visited two beaches, Two Lights State Park and the Wells Estuarine Research Reserve.

Two Lights is a rocky, somewhat scary beach, but absolutely beautiful.  I'm getting old, because it was somewhat difficult for me to get down the cliff face, but incredibly easy to get back up.  I think I just don't want to fall on my face.

I got the chance to see tidal pools for the first time.  If you can see past the reflection, there are mussels and snails in there.  Other things, probably, too.

Two Lights also had some really pleasant wooded trails.  And frogs.  And ducks.

I don't have too many great shots of the Wells Reserve, as it go cloudy, but it's kind of a watery Dawes.  There's a salt marsh, and of course the estuary.  The water was cold.

Probably the neatest thing we saw there were the piping plovers.  They're an endangered bird, and they're awfully cute little things.  They also look just like the sand and rocks, so there wasn't a chance on earth of getting a recognizable photo out of them with a phone camera.  You'll have to settle for the Wikipedia entry.

Oh, and we got noshed on by mosquitoes.  Maine mosquitoes are about a foot long and sound like a helicopter landing.

...

OK, maybe not, but they sure leave big welts.

After visiting the beaches we went for what we really came to Maine for.

Lobster.

There's a place in Wells called Lord's that prides itself on local and homemade everything.  So we headed there.

And my sister talked me into ordering a lobster.  Yeah, the big red thing that looks like it crawled out of a horror movie.

Of course before ordering I never realized that she didn't know how to eat said lobster.  Naturally the internet knows everything, so we weren't completely unprepared, but let's just say that a large mess was made.  But it was awfully fun, and they'd parked us in a corner, so we weren't much of a danger to anyone but ourselves.  So far as taste went, I much preferred the steamed clams we had as a starter, but the claw meat was plenty tasty, and it was an experience.

Next morning we were both worn out and on a bit of a schedule with the return flight, so we made a leisurely loop of Harvard square, spent a half hour at the pool, and ate lunch at Bluefin.  The highlight of the morning was "brunch" at Burdick's.  I'd had Burdick's chocolate home before, but this gave everyone a shot at the pastries and hot chocolate -- and yes, the hot chocolate was well received, even as the thermometer approached 90.

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As a last little aside for anyone who missed it elsewhere, I did make it into the Extension School masters program.  Now things get real.

I'm on a Boat/Kalmus Beach

So t'boss invited us out to his place in Hull for an office retreat on Friday.  He drives, but he gave us a pass for the ferry.  The weather was rotten, but the trip was still awesome.  The downside was that I really was only able to get two pictures from the boat that were worth sharing, and they aren't even that great.

 

The boat back had a full-service bar.  All in all not a bad way to commute.

Then  here's the view from t'boss' back porch.

Yeah, seriously wish I had some money.  Of course if I lived somewhere like this you wouldn't be able to pry me away to go to work.

Then yesterday was supposed to be rainy as well, but just about as I was finishing up laundry, the sun came out.  I checked the radar, checked maps, threw a box of granola bars and some water in the car and headed to Hyannis to look for shells thrown up by the remnants of the first tropical storm of the season.

Holy cow, Kalmus beach was full of shells.

Now I can't say that I've been where I could go shell hunting all that often, but I have a rep for finding the good ones (it's the same skill that means I trip over four-leaf  clovers and makes me good as jigsaw puzzles).  When you've got piles like this, anybody can find good shells, though, so I just got picky and looked for the ones with the best markings.  I turned up four conch-types, though they were in pretty bad shape, so I only brought back one tiny one.  The scallops and slipper shells are absolutely beautifully marked.  I need to get some mineral oil to bring out the colors in what I brought back:

I've seen scallop shells in Myrtle Beach, but I've never seen them so big, or in such a variety of colors.  And I didn't bring back any quahogs -- I know where to get ones of those so big you can use them as plates, and that's the city beach, believe it or not!

Some photos of the beach itself:

I pretty much had the place to myself; I think the storm predictions and the fact that it cleared up late pretty much kept everyone but the locals home.  It's also a little early yet for tourist season.

The ocean was wonderfully warm, and I walked the tideline with my shoes off while I was searching.  I also got incredibly sandblasted because the wind was very high; I don't know if that's typical there or if it was just the day.