The view out the front window in the morning.
There isn't much narrative to present - it was the usual Pine Point vacation: walking on sand bars in the morning, supervising the tide in the afternoon, and convening the family and friends for a communal dinner in the evening. Even the pictures are repetitious! Everyone free to do their own thing. It was wonderful!
Some nomenclature - 81JCD refers to the "Little House" that Cindy and I bought in 2010 at 81 Jones Creek Drive. The "King Cottage" or just "the cottage" refers to the shack that my great-great-grandfather Cyrus Shaw King bought in the 1880s. The cottage is across the street at 82 Jones Creek Drive. The "Big House" would refer to the house now owned by my cousin Sally that was purchased by my grandfather Howard King Sr some time back in the 1950s (I'm guessing).
We drove again, rather than fly and rent a car (which was going to be prohibatively expensive). Like last year, we stopped in Erie PA on the way out, and Toledo OH on the way back. I love my EZPass! We arrived in time for dinner on Thursday the 13th.
On Friday, Cindy dropped us off at the Amtrak station in Old Orchard Beach where we caught the DownEaster to Boston. We attended the 80th birthday party for our friend Robert Kent, whom Jonathan has known for nearly 60 years. We spent the night in Boston before returning on the DownEaster on Saturday.
The view out the front window in the morning.
Clam diggers were out early.
Cocktail hour was mandatory.
Things to do.
This guy seems to be combining multiple forms of relaxation.
We were using the cocktail hour's clock dial to represent the earth to explain why the shadow of the eclipse moves from west to east, even as the sun moves east to west.
Morning on the Scarborough River/Jones Creek (iPhone image).
Morning.
A freight train into Portland.
Sunrise reflection off a lobster boat.
Ubiquitous.
Monday July 17th
Palace Playland and Old Orchard Beach Pier seen from the sand bars.
Click on the images for a larger view and narrative.
The resident chipmunk - apparently made its quarters among the stones of the breakwater.
Devlin and the Prouts Neck pine tree.
Devlin and I walked to the tip of the sandbar opposite Prouts Neck where Devlin ventured further into the water. Notice the Indiana sweatshirt? Ask her about IU.
Fisherman in the marsh grass on a foggy morn.
This tern was working Jones Creek.
A wing tip to the water.
Devlin.
Cindy's flower garden in front of the Little House uses a palette of yellow and white.
The oyster midden - the oyster shells from all our orders from the Bait Shed are dropped here.
A kitchen still life.
Another colorful sunset.
More sunset.
Sunrise over Jones Creek/Scarborough River.
Sunrise over Jones Creek/Scarborough River zoomed.
Sunrise as seen from the sandbars: 'red sky at morning sailor take warning'.
Pointing towards Prouts Neck.
My one sand dollar find of the year.
Sea gulls.
In flight.
Gull gang - just see them loitering with cigarettes dangling from the corner of their lips . . . if sea gulls had lips.
Rainy afternoon and a very high tide (very little marsh grass visible) - 'red sky at morning sailor take warning'
Looking out (south) along the sand bars.
A gull with a meal.
Snail in shallow water.
I'd never seen the fat tired bicycles on the beach. You do see them around Saint Paul in the wintertime.
Looking in (north) along the river.
This snowy egret spent a fair amount of time within range of my telephoto lens, so I took advantage of it.
Snowy egret.
The yellow feet distinguish the snowy egret from a great egret.
A seagull causes a delay in the action.
Going for lunch.
One last shot.
Equal time for the terns.
And cormorants.
Exquisite lunch - clam chowder from Salty Bay, fresh fruit salad, and iced green tea.
A drive-up customer at the Bait Shed…
…which was doing a pretty good lunch business.
The cocktail flag on standby.
Sunset reflecting off the pier of the Bait Shed…
…and petunias.
Sunrise was colorful again.
Sunrise.
The water was glasslike with no wind, reflecting the clouds.
More cloud reflections.
Lobster boats in the river.
The Little House.
A long view of the Prouts Neck pine from the pathway to the beach at the end of Avenue Five.
Probably my best shot of a tern.
Sea gull.
Jonathan walking the sand bar.
Sunset.
Jonathan reading on the King Cottage porch.
More sunset.
Trio of boats.
One of the shortest trains I've seen, but not the shortest. That one had a locomative and a single car.
Sun and shadow across the marsh grass.
The weathervane at the Kerr Cottage next door silhouetted against clouds and sky.
More sunset.
More sunset zoomed.
Fire in the fire pit - my sister calls me (with some accuracy) a pyro.
The background on the webpages for this trip is a shot of the oyster midden behind 81JCD where we dump the oyster shells from the raw oysters ordered and consumed from the Bait Shed. I've altered the color, but not the pattern, to match the color scheme of this site.
The images on the site, unless otherwise noted, were taken using an Olympus Stylus 1 (3968×2976 pixel RAW file, ~13 MB). I occasionally had a telephoto supplemental lens attached to the Stylus 1, especially for the wildlife shots.
I've whittled the image size down to two sizes - a thumbnail I use on the page for the day, and a 1280x960 pixel (or 960x1280 pixel, assuming I haven't cropped or altered the size) image that I've saved optimized for web usage.
A lot of the images I doctored using Photoshop Elements, a trimmed down version of Adobe Photoshop. My most frequent adjustments were: "Crop", "Adjust Light & Shadows" to cope with the extremes of light and dark, "Auto Contrast" and "Auto Levels". I’ve also occasionally run the image through an app called Noiseless which degranulates the images I’ve had to really lean on to bring out. I've also used SnapHeal Pro to tweak some images to remove components that detract from the aesthetics.