Trip to Maine 2009
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 16 Aug 2009
This trip was mainly about Maine but our first stop was in Portsmouth which was pleasant, though it would have been nicer if it wasn't so hot, a problem that was to continue most of the week and was quite unexpected.
Our camera had problems before we left but I thought I'd fixed it by cleaning the battery terminals. It died almost immediately so all but a half-dozen pictures were taken with my mobile phone which had no zoom. Sorry.
Boston is at the bottom left to help you get your bearings. We stopped at:
- Portsmouth
- Acadia National Park
- Campobello Island
- Lubec
- Machias
- (same as C) Acadia NP
- Bucksport
- Belfast
- Camden
- Rockport
- Rockland
- Bath
- Wiscasset
- Portland
- Kennebunkport
Prescott Park in front of the Strawberry Banke Historical District.
What the photo doesn't convey is how hot and steamy it is! I brought a map with a suggested walking tour but it was just too uncomfortable for that.
Sitting on this park bench doesn't seem to be the point.
I had the impression that the park was once covered by dockside buildings such as this.
I wish I had asked her to stand next to Lan for a photo as she spoke so enthusiastically about gardening, the town and the work she was doing. Given that it was Sunday, I thought she might have been a volunteer but she is employed by the local government to maintain the grounds.
Note the wall of flowers is actually a channel of dirt held in place between two chainlink fences with the flowers bursting between the wires.
Relying mainly on the incoming tide to take goods upstream, or the outgoing tide to bring them to the ship or dock, the gundalow was able to take heavy cargo into tidal regions that ships could not reach. If the wind was in the right direction, a sail would be raised too; note that the mast can be lowered so that the boat could pass under low bridges. Although once common on New England waterways, they have all gone now—this one, the Captain Edward H. Adams, is a reconstruction.
At this point we were defeated by the heat and went in search of a nice breakfast before heading into Maine.