Fog in Maine.
When we went to Maine in October 2005, we had fog almost every single day. At first, I was rather pleased about it — fog is one kind of weather we hardly ever get here in Arizona. But after four or five days of it, even I started getting a bit sick of it.
But it didn’t stop us from getting out and around.
One day, we went with John and Lorna to Acadia National Park. Mike and I had been there years before — maybe as long ago as 20 years? — and didn’t remember it very well. It didn’t matter anyway. It was foggy and we couldn’t see much of it.
What we could see, however, were haunting images of the coastline veiled with fog. Like this one, which I snapped at Otter Cove. I like this photo so much it’s currently the desktop picture on my laptop.
We did have a few clear moments. We stopped at Jordan Pond House in the park for baked apples [actually, they were popovers according to Lorna] and it cleared out for a while as we sat outside in the sun. We climbed Cadillac Mountain (in the truck, of course) and passed through the clouds. Up top, on the rocky surface, the wind was blowing hard and clouds flew by overhead and below us. At one point, the clouds cleared just enough to give us a breathtaking view of Bar Harbor, with a cruise ship waiting off the coast. The the clouds moved in again and we were back in our isolated world above the world.
Anyone can visit Acadia on a nice day. How often do you get to visit when the clouds are doing their magic?
There’s no place in the world that looks as much like New England as some of these New England coastal towns. It’s the harbors, I think, filled with all kinds of boats, and the typical New England style architecture all around. And the colors, too.
One of the great things about digital cameras is that you can snap as many stupid pictures as you like. You can then just delete them all without any money or film or paper wasted. But once in a while, one of those stupid pictures is a keeper. That’s what I think about this photo I took while Mike was driving us across the Whitestone Bridge, from the Bronx to Queens, the day after Thanksgiving, 2005.
We had a rim-view room that overlooked some of the most beautiful rock formations Sedona has to offer. We spent the late afternoon on the room’s back patio, sipping wine and watching the setting sun change the shadows on formations like the Coffee Pot shown here.
The ride ends at Perkinsville, where the canyon opens up to a broader valley. There’s a ranch there and the train stops literally in front of the ranch house. The place appeared occupied — there were horses and cattle there — but there wasn’t a person in sight. The conductor guy told us the story. Years and years ago, when the railroad was built, the land at the ranch was needed as a station to take on water and fuel for the steam engines. The railroad had offered the land owners a lump sum or a royalty for the use of the land. The Perkins family had taken the lump sum, giving up their control of the right of way. Today, under new ownership, the tour train had control of the land. The people who live in the house make themselves scarce when the train stops there on every run.
Why does the train stop at all? Well, this is the place the engines are moved from the front of the train to the back for the return ride. There’s a siding there and while we’re waiting, enjoying the scenery and feeling kind of bad for the people who have to deal with 130 tourists a day looking into their windows, the engineer takes the two engines and moves them. The task takes about 20 minutes and they sell ice cream sandwiches to us while we wait. Then we’re on our way back to Clarkdale at a slightly faster speed, leaving Perkinsville behind.