Naturalist/guide on our boat cruise: “You often see these V formations with one side longer than the other. You know why that is? More birds on that side.” 🙂
We got a little wet and a lot chilly on our ride around the Desert Island Narrows, but saw 4 more lighthouses (I’ve spared you the photos), some seals, some harbor porpoises, lots of birds and some beautiful clouds. The overcast skies made for some nice photo-friendly lighting. Something for everyone!
Kathy & I made a last minute choice to book a coastal cruise with Capt. Fish out of Boothbay Harbor. The cruise took us past 3 lighthouses, including this one on Pemaquid Point. It is another one of the many iconic lighthouses along the Maine coast. I think today we’re going to drive there and see the other side of it!
Another early morning, another pretty sunrise. And more boats. We’ve been in Maine less than 24 hours and it is already as beautiful as I expected.
Another state in the books! Beautiful country along Cape Cod, more exploring to do tomorrow.
My plans to get out and photograph on our first evening in Mystic were foiled by a chance meeting with a fellow retired banker – albeit from Florida – and her sister who lives in a condo near our hotel. We had a lovely conversation over drinks and, while I did manage to grab a few photos within close proximity to my chair on the deck, the camaraderie was more compelling than the photography! 😉
I’ll try again in the morning!
I’m caught up with my postcards but don’t expect to stay that way. We start the “New England” part of our journey today and have a lot we want to see. The good part is that we will be staying multiple nights in each location from here out, so hopefully there will be some time for processing.
The Narragansett Towers, built in 1883, are the only remaining part of the original Narragansett Pier Casino. One of the most recognizable landmarks in Narragansett, The Towers currently hosts weddings, dances, dinners, plays, and fashion shows. Its location, adjacent to Narragansett town beach, makes it an ideal venue for social events.
I’m skipping a few stops but this one was too good to wait on. Kathy & I visited Big Bend National Park today. What a spectacular place – we had no idea! This is just one photo that hardly represents the entirety of the place, only just one part. But since (for us) the point was getting to the Rio Grande, it represents that goal. I’ll post more once we get home, but it has been a busy trip so far!
The travel bug, that is. 😉
Over this past weekend I was telling our oldest son Scott about our plans for an upcoming road trip. He asked “why?” Meanwhile, our youngest son Kevin is at the beach for two weeks.
If you don’t experience or understand the desire to travel, you just don’t have the travel bug. Scott is a homebody and father, and chooses to stay home. Kevin is an avid traveler and cruise fan like me & Kathy. Nobody is cruising these days, so Kevin followed our lead and went to the beach for a change of scenery. In his job he has a bunch of vacation time that he needs to use by the end of the year, and the clock was ticking!
Our plans are to head to the Pacific Northwest shortly, although in addition to all the Covid stuff we are now looking at the spread of wildfires all over the west. Fortunately our plans are very flexible, and once our Subie is loaded up with a full tank of gas we can go just about anywhere!
The travel bug doesn’t wait – the clock is still ticking and we have 18 states to go to get to 50. With a little luck and a lot of driving we’ll pick up another 5.
From Wikipedia: “Tilting at windmills is an English idiom that means attacking imaginary enemies. The expression is derived from Don Quixote, and the word “tilt” in this context comes from jousting.
The phrase is sometimes used to describe either confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded, and vain effort against adversaries real or imagined.”
Here in the east we don’t have many, if any, opportunities to see wind turbines in the huge farms like they have out west. There are a few in eastern North Carolina and I’m sure more in other locations, but I haven’t come across them in the numbers that we encountered out west. I had seen photos of wind farms in the west, but seeing them in person made an even greater impression.
Wind turbines are not without controversy, certainly, but I find them to have a graceful beauty, spinning like a dancer in slow motion. I don’t profess to be an expert on wind turbines or any other methods of producing electricity. But as someone living within 20 miles (technically 20.5 miles) of two nuclear plants, two coal plants and a few other types, I think I would rather see a few dozen (or hundred) wind mills on my horizon than the steam plumes from the cooling towers of nuclear plants. They may not work here or make sense for an area as densely populated as Charlotte, but I see turbines as a viable alternative for producing electricity, particularly in rural areas such as Nebraska, the Dakotas and Wyoming where constant wind is a fact of life.
We were fortunate enough to come across a few sites at times when it was conducive to making photographs, and I hope I’ve done a reasonable job of presenting them.
Our original plan was to stop at the visitor center at for a stamp in Kathy’s Passport book, take a few photos and move on. But even though the weather was iffy when we got there, the scenery was so captivating that we decided to stick around until dark. And we’re glad we did!
The visitor center is situated at a rest stop along I-94 and is one of the few interstate rest areas where you can actually see bison. We didn’t see any at the rest stop, but did see a lot of them in the park, both up close and from a distance. The best way to see the park is to drive the loop road, which is what we ended up doing.
A portion of the loop road through the park was closed due to some aerial spraying being done, but the road was open enough to get some good views from within the park. “Prairie Dog Town” was a lot of fun, with hundreds of the cute little critters popping their heads out of their holes to peek at us. We got a little “up close and personal” to some bison that wandered through a parking area right behind our car. I was very glad to be in the car and not out wandering around with my camera!
Our visit could have been longer had we gotten there earlier or if the weather had been better, but it was longer than we intended, and that is a testament to being open to change and flexible in our plans. It was a worthwhile detour, for sure!