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| The Scarborough River at high tide, seen from the Cottage deck, on our first day |
August 2012, Family Fun Unlimited
Scheduling in Pasadena gave us only two weeks in Maine this year, even though I for one would have been happier with a longer stay. The schedule was to leave via LAX on a red-eye Tuesday night, 31 July, and return late in the day Tuesday, 14 August.
We thought that we were leaving for LAX with plenty of time to spare, but when we got to the main United check-in place, the scene was the most crowded that I have ever seen it. The lines snaked in and out, and were not moving. At all. Fortunately Mark had the initiative to ask an attendant whether we, as Elite travelers, could go somewhere else to get to an agent who would tag our checked luggage. This we did, and even there, where there were fewer than a dozen folks waiting to check in, it seemed to me that it took rather longer than usual to get to the agent and relinquish our bags.
Our arrival at Portland International was nice and early in the morning, but because of various messes elsewhere in the United system the night before, we had the wonderful experience of arriving well before Mark’s main suitcase, the one with his tootbrush and underwear. It did get delivered later that afternoon, fortunately.
In general, I didn’t take very many pictures this August. Far fewer than in either of the previous to years at Pine Point, anyway. So from that first day, I have only a few snaps, and pretty much the same thing is true of the second day, Thursday 2 August. But I did record the family meal that we had that evening in the four pictures that are arrayed here. Clockwise around the table, starting from Cindy, are Howard, Thelma, Mike, Robert, Adrienne, Madison, Devlin, Harris, and Mark. (Top left picture: big image, smaller; bottom left: big image, smaller; top right: big image, smaller; and bottom right: big image, smaller.)
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Storm clouds in the distance on 3 August. In front you see a
cumulus cloud (click on
the yellow words) and behind that is a big cumulonimbus, a real storm cloud, while there’s a cap even above that, of the kind called pileus. I learned about all these from a great little book, The Cloud Collector’s Handbook, which is put out by, get this, The Cloud Appreciation Society, and which I bought at Vroman’s. |
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| Yet more clouds, this time on 6 August. You can also see a rather larger or a much larger version. |
Later on the sixth, folks went out on the water: Mason and Harris in the rowboat, dinghy if you wish, while Madison and Devlin went out in two of the new kayaks that the Moorman-Kings had bought. I tried taking pictures of Mason and Harris, but they were too far away for any worthwhile images.
While I was taking untold numbers of pictures of people far across the water, I also amused myself with finding nice shots of the opposite shore and boats in the water. In the block to the right: upper left (big image, small); upper right (big image, small); lower left (big image, small); and a nice shot I got of Madison in her kayak (big image, small), though Mark’s similar picture of Madison is much better.
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Devlin in kayak. I had to enlarge it enough to show the water
dripping off her paddle. You can also see an even bigger version. |
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The eighth of August, a lovely day in the
afternoon. ( Larger version, much larger version. ) |
Later that day, the eighth, I stopped around the back of the house, where there's a pair of Adirondack chairs and a table, where Devlin had been working on her nails. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the totality of these, all jumbled up as they were. Later in the evening, Madison arranged them all in spectral order, ROYGBIV, and Mark took a picture of the row, again much more impressive than what you see here. By my count, there are thirty-seven little bottles, what do you call them in that case?, not quite enough to do a different two-tone job on each of her twenty nails without repeating any shade. But I am glad that she has aimed high.
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The next morning, the ninth, we had a wonderful thick fog, which
naturally didn’t stay more than a few hours: weather was getting warm again. I like the way the pole bisects the picture, and the spider-webs of lines coming off it. That’s the Cottage on the left, the New Little House on the right. |
From then on, I didn’t take any more pictures. It was nothing but relax, relax, relax. We did some shopping, I did a little of the cooking, we managed a very little home improvement, ate with Mark’s old boss from Seragen and her husband, and simply enjoyed ourselves. But I have nothing photographic to show for it, and so I close this account with a word of appreciation to all who made it so pleasant. Walter and the Greene Gals, the Elder Kings and the Younger Kings, our wonderful eternal neighbor Nancy Rose who favored us with a few days’ presence, and especially Mike and Cindy and Mason. Thanks to all!