Castine, ME

Castine Me

We are docked in the harbor here. This afternoon
we'll be sailing back to Bangor. I am very tired enough
so that I opted to stay on board this morning instead of
taking the launch over to Castine.

Yesterday we spent the morning in Camden. Another
harbor anchor so that we had to take the launch into
town. We took a guided tour to Mount Battie and
then the Conway house. The Conway house was
situated on a farm complete with barn and other
out buildings. One family had lived in the house
from mid-1800 through 1921. All their furnishings
were still in the house which made it really interesting to
see the upgrades from the mid nineteenth century to
the early 20th. The barn was much like ours and full
of good stuff, ie junk.

In the afternoon we took we docked in Belfast Maine and
took bus to the Penobscot Marine Museum. I found some
of the museum very interesting, but doing two hours of it
was enough.

Today I am very stiff and sore and just plain tired.

Tomorrow we leave the boat at 7:30 AM and retrieve
our car in Bangor and head down the coast. We plan
to get a motel somewhere along the way, but I have
alerted Sue that if we cannot find one with room for us
we'll end up at the farm in the late evening.

Rockland, ME

We arrived here yesterday evening. I skipped
the evening lecture again so that I could listen
to Hillary's speech.

Today we went to the Farnsworth Museum and watched
a video about Andy Wyeth and Christin's house. The
museum is spectacular. Lucy Farnsworth was the last
of the Farnsworts and she left her fortune to the
town to have the museum built. She also left
them her house which she had made no changes to
after her father died in the late 1800s. It
stands as it did then, fully furnished and beautifully
taken care of. It is full!

We also went to a Lighthouse museum which had more
about lighthouses than we wanted to know.

We came back for lunch where I had Boulabaise and
then a platter of steamers, both were appetizers,
but I ordered the clams instead of lunch. So..
they doubled the order since it was lunch.

We are about to go back to town and return to
the Farnsworth.

Bar Harbor, ME

Yesterday we took a tour through Acadia National Park. It was
a pleasant ride and beautiful scenery. Our guide was a non-stop
talker which got a bit old, but aside from that it was very
pleasant. We stopped at several sights along the way so had
a chance to get out and stretch our legs. The final stop was
at Ford's (I think) Pond where there is a tea house. We had
popovers and tea. The popovers were piping ot and really
light with lots of blueberry or strawberry jam to top them.

In the evening we skipped the lecture to watch the convention.
Michelle Obama was impressive and Ted Kennedy left no eyes
dry.

The food on this cruise is fabulous. We are eating too much,
but it is hard not to. Lobster is served in some form at
almost every meal, not including breakfast. Today oysters
are on the menu.

Robert and I soon are going walking in the town of Bar
Harbor. It looks like a very typical tourist town, but
it'll be fun to get out and walk.

E-mail from Martha. Their bike race for diabetes was
on the 23rd. Carl rode the 100 mile race, Martha the
64 mile race. She was interviewed by the Longmont
newspaper. She didn't say how things went for either
of them. More later, I hope.

Day two

Yesterday our computer died..sigh. I am using
the computer belonging to the ship set up for
passenger use. It is very slow and very public
so I probably won't write as often as I might
otherwise.

Yesterday we went to Fort Knox at Bucksport, ME.
The volunteer at the Fort was wonderful, very
knowledgable and enthusiastic. She was really
fantastic and made the history come alive.

Today we are due to dock at Bar Harbor. We
are still on board and rolling a little at this
point

As usual we are being fed way to well! I suppose
we'll gain another ten pounds, but lobsters I am
going to have three times today in one for or
another.

Day one of our cruise

On the cruise ship American Glory.

Our last few days were spent with
Joy and Walt in Newtown, CT. As
usual they wined and dined us with
great food and conversation. They
are such enjoyable people to be
around we always look forward to
our time with them. This time it
was much too short. It is amazing
that it takes us a week to get to
the east where it used to take
us two days. Well, so be it. At
least we can still do it.

We spent last night at the Best
Western here in Bangor, not the
greatest but OK. We had heard there
was a Folk Festival in Bangor and that
the streets would be close in the
morning making it difficult to get
to the ship unless we got there early.
I had asked if we could board early and
been told no, not until 9 AM.

We drove to town and looked over the place
but could not get close to the dock nor
the parking garage because of the festival.
There were many, many people in town. A
real mob scene. We stopped at a Chinese
restaurant on our way back to our motel and
had a very good dinner.

This morning we were up at 6 AM, had breakfast
and headed for the dock. No problem getting
there this morning and as we approached the
dock a gentleman who looked like a ship's
officer was waiting on the curb. We pulled
over and he asked if we were going on the
cruise. When we said we were he told us
to pull forward and someone would take our
luggage and then we could go park our car.
We had an offer to be lead over to the garage
and given a ride back, but Robert declined.
Later he wished he hadn't because it wasn't
clear whether we were parking in the correct
area of the garage. They have hourly, daily
and monthly parking. We later confirmed we
were in the right place. We walked back to
the boat (1/2 mile) and signed in. We were
given an option for a free upgrade which we
happily accepted. We now have a room with
a balcony which is very nice. It is a bit
larger than the one we had reserved, too.

We have done a partial tour of the boat,
returned once to the parking garage to
get the computer when we discovered the
boat had hot spots and we could get online
from almost anywhere on the ship including
our cabin.

We're headed for top deck to see what is
up there, haven't been there yet.

Bangor,Maine

Traffic yesterday until we were a good way inti
Maine was bad. It was a long day.

We had a delightful two days with Joy and Walt,
and hated to leave so soon.

A folk festival is in full swing in Bangor.
We tried to check out where we were to park
our car for the trip and found there was
no way we could get to the wharf. The
roads were all blocked and their were a
million people milling around. Much noise
and confusion, but it looked like everyone
except us was having a good time.

We'll try early this morning and hope
we can get there before the roads are
closed, if indeed they are even open??

All for now...