Coastal Maine...the beautiful

We spent our last day in Millinocket with a couple of Pierres old classmates..wonderful people! Later they drove us all over to look for more moose, but they would not come out and play! I figured after having seen the mum moose and her baby, the stink of desperation was gone from me and Moose would be knocking down my door...but alas no... she and her baby were my only moose sighting. 

Paul and his lovely wife Lynn gave us some moose meat..so I'm going to have to try it! 

I wish we had had more time to get to know his friends better...they were super nice!

When we left Millinocket, we drove over to Lubec Maine, it was settled by the French people who came from Nova Scotia and it is the easternmost town in the contiguous United States. Located on a peninsula Lubec Maine overlooks Cobscook Bay in the Bay of Fundy and it  has a large lovely harbor, super deep water for the larger vessels, is never obstructed by ice, and it is well protected from rough seas by points and islands. Harbor seals frolic in the strong heavy current, playing and feeding. 

We stayed in a wonderful RV park, it overlooked Johnson Bay! It was small and the people were so friendly. We drove to downtown Lubec and went into a pub that overlooked the water, the harbor seals were feeding and I could not resist going down to the water to watch. 

From my vantage point, I could hear them just making quite a racket...it was super cute! But as I stood there listening to them and watching them, the tide began to change, so fast for example, that just looking down at my feet, I could see the water receded...fast. There are only two tides here, and they are huge, up to 20 ft...yep that's right!....most of them are upward of 17 to 18 ft. As I watched,  the seals all began to leave and more and more land began to appear, and as I walked out further and further into the bay, I looked down and low and behold...sea glass..lots and lots of sea glass everywhere! What a treat, of course I had to fill all my pockets with beautiful colored sea glass! 

The next day we took a drive along the coast and visited some of the cutest quaint villages I have ever seen! 

Most of Maines coast line is quite rocky and littered with large and small Islands. It is quite the sight! We went to Castine Maine, home of Maine Maritime Academy, this is Pierre's Alma Mater, he graduated in 1974, quite some time ago, but everyone treated him with the utmost respect! They gave use a tour of the school ship and they let me pilot a ship through New York Harbor! Ha ha...of course it was a simulator, but I did wonderful... no running us aground nor did I hit any other vessel... the coast guard came along beside us for awhile! It was a great simulator, it made you feel as if you were really on a ship rolling waves and all! as we were leaving the building we came across a model ship that was on display, it was the Lyra Lykes! that was a ship that Pierre was Captain on when he worked for Lykes Lines! i
It was nice to put a face to all the tings I have only heard about!

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I spy a Moose

Ever since Pierre and I have been married, I have heard story's of his life in Millinocket Maine, and hiking and camping in Baxter State Park, located on Mount Katahdin. At 5,267ft Mount Katahdin is the highest mountain in the state of Maine, it was named by the Penobscot Indians and it means "The Grestest Mountain." Mount Katahdin is also the end for the Appalachian Trail, that last trail hikers have to hike is known as the "Hundred Mile Wilderness."

Baxter State Park’s total size to is 209,644 acres and this park was conceived as a park for those who love nature and are willing to walk and make an effort to get close to nature. Unlike some parks which are designed to display the area via auto access, with groomed viewpoints along the road and convenient travel by car, the features and diversity of Baxter State Park are best seen on foot. 

So...I really wanted to see a moose and boy did we see the Park on foot, miles and miles of it...but...on our next to the last day, we hiked to Elbow lake, Darcy Lake and a couple more lakes..but no moose!  Now...When we first entered the park that morning we had wanted to hike up Mount Turner and then hike to Sandy Stream Pond, that is where most moose sighting are... but we were turned away..there were already too many people on the mountain, the ranger remembered me from yesterday and told us to come back later and he would try to give us a 3 hour moose pass. 

By the time we had hiked to all the lakes we thought moose might be it was getting late and didn't make it back to the rangers station till 4pm, but he gave us the pass..and an extra 20 minutes! 

The hike to Sandy Stream Pond was beautiful, most people had gone for the day and by the time we got there there was only a handful of people, so I perched myself on a large boulder at the edge of the Lake and told Pierre "I'm going to sit here till I see a moose!"

We sat back to back so we could see the whole lake, after about an hour everyone else had left and silence settled over the area....the birds began to fly about and the small animals scampered back out and it was so beautiful!

I had been looking at a spot on the far end of the lake and I thought..if I was a moose that is were I would be.. 

After about 15 more minutes I looked back at that spot and out walked a very large moose..and she stepped aside and a baby moose came up beside her...my breath stopped...it seemed that time stopped.. I was so thrilled.. I was poking Pierre..but he had seen her too! 

We stayed so very quiet and she couldn't see us up on the rock, so she brought out the little one and they walked along the edge of the lake and then she started to swim out in the lake, the little one cried a bit on the shore, but he soon jumped in and began to follow her..Now... moose dive down in the water and eat the grass under the water because their diet consists of both terrestrial and aquatic vegetation, moose lack upper front teeth, but they do have eight sharp incisors on the lower jaw for eating. They also have a tough tongue, lips and gums, which also aid in the eating of vegetation and a moose's upper lip is very sensitive, to help distinguish between fresh shoots and harder twigs, and their upper lip is prehensile, for grasping their food.

She stood in the water and began to eat and soon the little one got tired and swam to shore. 

We had to leave right after that, because our 3 hours were coming to a close and we still had to hike out and drive back...but I was a HAPPY hiker!