Sunday, November 19, 2006
Maine Trip Report
Elizabeth had an Authentic Movement conference in Yarmouth, Maine, so I tagged along. This left me free to wander about nearby Portland and then meet up with her in the evening. We had a great motel in Yarmouth with a fine large screen television. We hooked up our DVD player and watched Hitchcock movies whenever we were too tired to explore.
We started this trip by spending a day at the University of New Hampshire with our niece Nora who is a Freshman there. Nora gave us a fine tour of the campus and her rooms, introduced us to her roommates, led us shopping, and in general delighted us with her stories and wit. It was hard to leave her.
Here we are shopping where we ran into a stringed instrument player and had our photo taken with him. The women shopped at a quirky jewelry store and bought earrings together. I decided not to get an earring so I was left out of the earring photograph.
I spent the first day wandering around Portland. I had done no pre-planning, but as I entered the city there was a fine Visitor’s Center and people to plan for me, highlighting maps. While they recommended that I pay to park right in the downtown, they tipped me off to the area where I might find free parking, so I saved $14 the first day.
Almost everything in Portland presents a fishing theme. So I was delighted.
I wandered around the harbor area walking out on the long piers to see the lobster fishing boats and the recreational yachts. It was deserted and wonderful.
Restaurant mural section
Peter and Jen had visited Portland on their honeymoon and stopped at $3 Dewey's tavern. As Peter explained it, the place was once a bordello and the prices were:
$1 Lookee
$2 touchee
$3 Dewey
We did not end of eating there, but we did tour the place and snap some photos:
With my dollar off coupon from the Visitor Center, I headed for the art museum and found it loaded with art that represented fishing and fisherman. It was a huge place! A special exhibit of Children in 19th-century was absolutely my favorite art exhibit in recent times. Using Winslow Homer’s “Snap the Whip” as central to the theme, the museum had assembled a wonderful collection of boys and girls in the late 1800’s. I was reminded over and over of my grandfather who was born in 1861. When I was very little I would crawl into his lap and ask him to tell me about when he was little. I wished that we could have toured this exhibit together.
I have no training in art appreciation. I like realism or art that approaches it, and I love art that is narrative. I especially love kids with fishing poles and here they were.
Much of the rest of museum was filled with paintings that were realistic and narrative. There was very little abstract stuff based on “found objects.” I find most of this sort of art ugly or silly. Perhaps this is more the fault of my own ignorance; however, I don’t think I lack aesthetic sense. I enjoy shapes and love to hunt for them with my camera in the details of forests or beaches. I just don’t want them in the museum. One such piece was a huge, ugly black wall with shelves on which piles of newspaper had been burned so that the middle was newspaper and the outside was black ash. It had something to do with the Holocaust. I was not moved.
But 90% of the art here I would visit again. I miss it as I write. I want to go back soon. Winslow Homer was all around. NC Wyeth was there. “Cross by the Sea” by Georgia O’Keefe was fun.
A painting believed to be another DiVinci Mona Lisa painting was a fascinating puzzle.
I could photograph some pieces without flash, but not others. Nothing in the 19th Century exhibit was allowed to be photographed. Here are a few I loved:
There were a few old books on display as well as paintings. Here was a first edition of Huckleberry Finn open to the woodcut on the first page of Huck fishing. It was awesome for me to see this. Twain has been very important to me, and teaching Twain one of my favorite memories of Livingston. I realized that the exhibit of 19th Century art around the theme of children also reflected my favorite genre, adolescent fiction. I just finished Walter Mosley’s Fortunate Son and enjoyed that strange coming of age story.
Here are two quotes in other books that reflected children’s themes that I loved:
“John Thomkins went a fishing
With a pole of birch.
He tried to catch a salmon,
But he only caught a perch.”
1850 “the Little Folk’s First Steps on the Ladder of Knowledge.”
This reinforced the prejudice against small panfish that existed so long ago and was taught to children.
“It is impossible to keep a hat neat if you use it to catch bumblebees and whisk ‘em, to bail the water from a leaky boat, to catch minnows, or to transport pebbles.”
Charles Dudley Warner
Being a Boy 1877
******************************
Elizabeth and I took a ferry to Peak’s Island. We were the only tourists on the ride. $3.25 round trip. It was fine to be out on the water at sunset. I love a good boatride and I love it to be with the locals and a good price.
Elizabeth and I went to a famous lighthouse and walked along the rocky coast watching the waves crash against the rocky walls and trying to identify the bobbing birds.
href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4387/1895/1600/dewey%20looking%20at%20water.jpg">
We have no photos of LL Bean. I bought a couple small packages of tiny black twister tails to put on my bluegill jigs in the spring. I really want purple, but balck is second best and I am out of the tiny purple tails. I'll probably find some in Vegas at the Pro Bass shop at Silverton. Here at LL Bean Elizabeth found new boots, some snow shoes, and some shoes. She loved the place. I loved sitting and watching trout in an indoor pond while she shopped. They were wonderfully attentive. It was like going back in time to when shoppers were treated like high rollers in Vegas. Also, if anything breaks, we send it back. 100% guarantee.
I had a spurt of what I guess now is arthritis in my right hand, but I feared it was gout so I stopped eating lobster and oysters and fish. But I still found a fine special in the local paper for Elizabeth. DiMillo’s offered a twin lobster dinner for $19.95. It is usually $34. What a deal!! I had a fine marinated chicken, but I was very jealous of Elizabeth and bib and cracking tools and melted butter. The restaurant is a floating restaurant and marina at the end of long Wharf. While we ate, we watched the bobbing of boats tied to the pier along side the restaurant. It was a fine ending to a great trip.
We will go again. And we will go off season. It was uncrowded and cheap.
We started this trip by spending a day at the University of New Hampshire with our niece Nora who is a Freshman there. Nora gave us a fine tour of the campus and her rooms, introduced us to her roommates, led us shopping, and in general delighted us with her stories and wit. It was hard to leave her.
Here we are shopping where we ran into a stringed instrument player and had our photo taken with him. The women shopped at a quirky jewelry store and bought earrings together. I decided not to get an earring so I was left out of the earring photograph.
(click to enlarge enough to see earrings)
I spent the first day wandering around Portland. I had done no pre-planning, but as I entered the city there was a fine Visitor’s Center and people to plan for me, highlighting maps. While they recommended that I pay to park right in the downtown, they tipped me off to the area where I might find free parking, so I saved $14 the first day.
Almost everything in Portland presents a fishing theme. So I was delighted.
I wandered around the harbor area walking out on the long piers to see the lobster fishing boats and the recreational yachts. It was deserted and wonderful.
One pub along the wharves
Antique Boat Carpenter's tools
Restaurant mural section
Peter and Jen had visited Portland on their honeymoon and stopped at $3 Dewey's tavern. As Peter explained it, the place was once a bordello and the prices were:
$1 Lookee
$2 touchee
$3 Dewey
We did not end of eating there, but we did tour the place and snap some photos:
With my dollar off coupon from the Visitor Center, I headed for the art museum and found it loaded with art that represented fishing and fisherman. It was a huge place! A special exhibit of Children in 19th-century was absolutely my favorite art exhibit in recent times. Using Winslow Homer’s “Snap the Whip” as central to the theme, the museum had assembled a wonderful collection of boys and girls in the late 1800’s. I was reminded over and over of my grandfather who was born in 1861. When I was very little I would crawl into his lap and ask him to tell me about when he was little. I wished that we could have toured this exhibit together.
I have no training in art appreciation. I like realism or art that approaches it, and I love art that is narrative. I especially love kids with fishing poles and here they were.
Much of the rest of museum was filled with paintings that were realistic and narrative. There was very little abstract stuff based on “found objects.” I find most of this sort of art ugly or silly. Perhaps this is more the fault of my own ignorance; however, I don’t think I lack aesthetic sense. I enjoy shapes and love to hunt for them with my camera in the details of forests or beaches. I just don’t want them in the museum. One such piece was a huge, ugly black wall with shelves on which piles of newspaper had been burned so that the middle was newspaper and the outside was black ash. It had something to do with the Holocaust. I was not moved.
But 90% of the art here I would visit again. I miss it as I write. I want to go back soon. Winslow Homer was all around. NC Wyeth was there. “Cross by the Sea” by Georgia O’Keefe was fun.
A painting believed to be another DiVinci Mona Lisa painting was a fascinating puzzle.
I could photograph some pieces without flash, but not others. Nothing in the 19th Century exhibit was allowed to be photographed. Here are a few I loved:
There were a few old books on display as well as paintings. Here was a first edition of Huckleberry Finn open to the woodcut on the first page of Huck fishing. It was awesome for me to see this. Twain has been very important to me, and teaching Twain one of my favorite memories of Livingston. I realized that the exhibit of 19th Century art around the theme of children also reflected my favorite genre, adolescent fiction. I just finished Walter Mosley’s Fortunate Son and enjoyed that strange coming of age story.
Here are two quotes in other books that reflected children’s themes that I loved:
“John Thomkins went a fishing
With a pole of birch.
He tried to catch a salmon,
But he only caught a perch.”
1850 “the Little Folk’s First Steps on the Ladder of Knowledge.”
This reinforced the prejudice against small panfish that existed so long ago and was taught to children.
“It is impossible to keep a hat neat if you use it to catch bumblebees and whisk ‘em, to bail the water from a leaky boat, to catch minnows, or to transport pebbles.”
Charles Dudley Warner
Being a Boy 1877
******************************
Elizabeth and I took a ferry to Peak’s Island. We were the only tourists on the ride. $3.25 round trip. It was fine to be out on the water at sunset. I love a good boatride and I love it to be with the locals and a good price.
Elizabeth and I went to a famous lighthouse and walked along the rocky coast watching the waves crash against the rocky walls and trying to identify the bobbing birds.
href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4387/1895/1600/dewey%20looking%20at%20water.jpg">
We have no photos of LL Bean. I bought a couple small packages of tiny black twister tails to put on my bluegill jigs in the spring. I really want purple, but balck is second best and I am out of the tiny purple tails. I'll probably find some in Vegas at the Pro Bass shop at Silverton. Here at LL Bean Elizabeth found new boots, some snow shoes, and some shoes. She loved the place. I loved sitting and watching trout in an indoor pond while she shopped. They were wonderfully attentive. It was like going back in time to when shoppers were treated like high rollers in Vegas. Also, if anything breaks, we send it back. 100% guarantee.
I had a spurt of what I guess now is arthritis in my right hand, but I feared it was gout so I stopped eating lobster and oysters and fish. But I still found a fine special in the local paper for Elizabeth. DiMillo’s offered a twin lobster dinner for $19.95. It is usually $34. What a deal!! I had a fine marinated chicken, but I was very jealous of Elizabeth and bib and cracking tools and melted butter. The restaurant is a floating restaurant and marina at the end of long Wharf. While we ate, we watched the bobbing of boats tied to the pier along side the restaurant. It was a fine ending to a great trip.
We will go again. And we will go off season. It was uncrowded and cheap.
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