12 Oakdale

Acadia stuck me as a mirror to the Everglades: one has to find the majesty in subtly. Nothing particularly took my breath away, yet there was much to enjoy at a micro level. We did get up early enough to see the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, albeit not from the top. Rather than parking in the west lot and hoofing it up to the summit, we opted to retreat a little down and used a pullout all to ourselves. We sat on boulders, having the truck as a wind barrier. It was our second time up the mountain, so we weren’t concerned about walking around on the paths at the top. We took a carriage ride with Mike as our guide and his granddaughter Sally driving most of the time. Horses Charlie and Charmer did the work, pulling the wagon on roads built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., beginning, I believe, in 1904, continuing until the start of World War II. Mike claimed his operation of 26 horses puts $100,000+ each year into the Mount Desert economy, hiring locals to work in the barns and drive the ...

From our original ten tour travelers, we have lost 5: 3 tested positive for Covid, 1 sprained her ankle badly enough to have to quit, fortunately after seeing puffins, her main reason for coming, and 1 had a sister die, not unexpectedly, but he needed to leave before we got too far from Portland and its airport. We remaining five are determined to keep healthy. We parked our truck at the Courtyard Inn near Portland’s airport and caught a shuttle over to meet everyone else at the airport. We had lunched at a Sea Dog Ale House. The others went to Subway for a sandwich. I liked our plan much better. After a couple hours of birding, we drove up to quaint Camden and stayed at the River House Inn to be ready for an 8:00 AM boat trip out to Seal Island.  Two doses of Bonine and lots of warm clothes made the 1 1/2 boat ride aboard the Periwinkle mostly bearable. Captain Dominick was a great boat driver; the seas were almost calm. But just sitting on a wooden bench, bouncing away, is boring...

I don’t know how everyone feels, but in our circle of friends and among the late night TV hosts, there is a huge drop in tension now that Joe Biden has not only been elected President, but also has lived to be inaugurated today. No Covid, no crazy shooter. I don’t believe we’ve moved into nirvana like a couple of my UU friends do, but just to have some normality sounds pretty good. We were spared the 24/7 ramp up to the ceremony because we were at Myakka River State Park for our annual Cabin Camping with two other couples. One man is a news junkie and has Verizon cell phone service, so using his hot spot, we were able to watch some on my iPad, including the amazing poet Amanda Gordon, the oaths of office by Kamala Harris and Biden, and his speech calling for unity. After that, I wandered off to do more birding. YouTube will have all the rest. I did watch Lady Gaga sing our national anthem when I got home. It was chilling when she sang, “that our flag was still there.” Seemed a little i...