Seattle, plus Jane and Maya Tuesday August 25 In mid-afternoon Jane and Maya arrived from Corvallis. Knowing that there were no rooms the Mayflower Hotel they booked on Hotwire and luckily ended up at the Seattle Westin a three-minute walk away. We decided that for today’s activity we would take the monorail to the Seattle Center. This is a major park and activity complex, site of the 1962 World’s Fair Space Needle and now home to Paul Allen’s “EMP” Experience Music Project and “SFM” Science Fiction Museum. Wanting to enjoy dinner at the Space Needle’s rotating restaurant we had made reservations the day before. From the third floor of the Westlake Mall we boarded the monorail and enjoyed the ride over traffic to the park. Our first stop was the modern, spectacular looking EMP and SFM, ... read more

Maine visit Odds & Ends The Bagaduce Lunch, Penobscot Narrows Observatory, and the Thomaston Café. No good vacation can happen without a few pictures, and odds & ends that needed a final mention. We finally left Deer Isle in the early afternoon and began our trip south towards home. Driving past the town of Penobscot on Route 175 we crossed the Bagaduce River Bridge and saw a scenic river crossing and the Bagaduce Lunch. For only the second time during the trip we were able to convince Karen to turn around and stop for lunch. What a great place for lunch! The Bagaduce Lunch serves great food at reasonable prices. I had a very large order of haddock “Fish and Chips” for $8.75 and all of our meals were equally outstanding. But that wasn’t the great ... read more

Ellsworth Maine, Woodlawn Museum On Thursday, we hit the road again and this time we headed east to Ellsworth on the northern edge of the peninsula. Yesterday, during our visit to the Wilson Museum in Castine, the Woodlawn was recommended to us by one of their staff as an excellent example of a Maine country estate, so today we decided to give it a try. The Woodlawn is a 180-acre historic estate that was the residence for three generations of the Black family. The exterior of the main house was going through a total restoration at this time and is complete covered with staging, so I got no pictures. The grounds have many interesting features such as barns, gardens and a six-court competitive croquet lawn. The interior of this historical mansion contains a well-maintained extremely intact ... read more

Brooklin Tuesday, we crossed the Deer Isle Bridge and headed northwest on route 175 to Brooklin and the Wooden Boat School. Along the way, we passed through the town of Sedgewick. This is the town where Kurt’s sail loft is located. He gave us the grand tour and showed us his work. He’s currently in the process of making a mizzen sail for a Herreshoff A boat. Back on the road we blinked and drove right through the center of Brooklin. The center of town is so small, we didn’t realize we’d past it until all we saw along the road were trees again. There isn’t even a cross road, but only a T. We backtracked to the dozen buildings that make up town center. By now all our appetites were active and we wanted some ... read more

Stonington, The end of the road. August 10, 2009 When you drive east on the Deer Isle peninsula down the winding roads, over the many bridges and causeways, the road comes to an end in the village of Stonington. Stonington is a vibrant community that survives on a combination of fishing, art studios, tourists and a granite quarry. We’ve ended up here numerous times during our week on the peninsula. We’ve walked the town, visited the shops, eaten in the restaurants, had ice cream on the pier and taken the mail boat to Isle au Haut. Fishing certainly dominates the economy and fishing boats, piers and docks dominate the vista. Across the harbor is Crotch Island, an active granite quarry that produced the granite for the JFK Memorial. One of the storefronts in the center of ... read more