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.
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.
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