A Wonderful Weekend in Maine

It's truly amazing (ok, maybe not amazing but you get my drift) to me that having lived in Texas all of my life, that you can actually leave a state within half an hour. That you can actually pass through several states in that same time. Compared to the fact it takes almost an entire day to get out of the state of Texas.

We left Rhode Island for Maine around 1pm. Within just a few hours, we had passed through Massachusetts, a little bit of New Hampshire, and arrived in Portland, Maine before dinner. BEFORE DINNER!!! We settled into our hotel and went about finding dinner. I tweeted about it all, complete with Lillie's breakdown and photos. Dinner was delicious. Becky's in Portland, Maine is THE place to eat. Ask Carol, our waitress. She told us about all of the celebs that eat there when they're in town.

The following day we drove into town and proceeded to walk the entire town. Yes, we know where the YMCA and the Teen Center are (and you know they are not usually located in the *sweet* parts of town!).

We came upon this newspaper bin. I think we were the only ones standing there laughing our butts off seeing how Spock had marked his territory.

Being so visual, I couldn't help taking photos of everything with colors. Portland is a beautifully colorful place. These watering cans were lined up in front of a storefront. I was on my knees getting these shots as Lillie ran ahead of me in hot pursuit of her notebook she had left at the smoothie store. Her impatience showed as she called over her shoulder for me to "come on Mom." in full 8 year old exasperation.

We walked the entire town, stopped in just about every shop, got in the truck and headed to Bath. We were worn out and welcomed a relaxing dinner on the bay.

This guy was our dinner companion. He was relentless in guarding his territory while remaining incredibly handsome and debonaire. He loved bits of bread and french fries, but wouldn't go near the steamed broccoli. Brent told me efforts were being made to teach gulls how to eat fish (their original diet) again since they've become scavengers and eat almost anything.

Up the next morning and off to Boothbay. While not as big as Portland, I still studied the map in order to form the perfect route to hit as many shops as our time allowed. That plan was put to rest when we encountered whale watching trips on the Pink Lady. Brent found out that the tours were 3-3 1/2 hours long (Gilligan's Island theme song anyone?) and we all weighed the thought, waffled about going, and after the coin landed tails up, meaning no whale watching trip, Brent bought tickets and we climbed on board the Pink Lady.

The homes on the bay were beautiful and the boats were picturesque. The ride out was windy, bumpy, cool and wet. Lillie and found our spot on the upper deck at the rear of the boat. We could still see everything and the winds were blocked by people.


As we neared 22 miles out from the bay, our guide told us to watch for the spout of the whale. The spout is formed when a whale breaks the water to get a breath of air and as they exhale, the warmth of their breath looks like steam. It can also reach up to 16 feet in the air. Sure enough, we saw our first spout.


After the spot, the whale broke water and our guide told us that we were looking at a Fin whale. We were so excited! Out guide told us that they will break the water three or four times then can dive and stay under for 7 minutes or so and sometimes longer.

We saw 6 whales--or the same one 6 times. We took a lot of photos and we have tons of memories.

We left Boothbay reluctantly.

Thank you Maine for the most exciting and beautiful weekend! We will be back!