6-23-06 (Friday): Wiley finally caught some fish yesterday morning! One of them was very strange looking. Someone told him it was called a wolf fish—it has very sharp looking teeth.

We’ve had some showers yesterday and today, which is not exactly what we wanted for our days off, but we made the best of it. Yesterday we took a drive south of here. We went to the Maine State Prison Store, which had a lot of really beautiful woodwork—furniture and toys, etc. I guess the prisoners have lots of time to devote to hand finishing! We drove part of the Georges River Scenic road, and it really was pretty—very hilly, lots of deep woods, and no development to speak of. We’ve been surprised at how sparsely settled this whole area is. We haven’t seen a single housing development and very little commercial development—no offices, shopping centers, etc. Most of the businesses are small and family owned. There are old fashioned general stores, hardware stores, auto repair shops, drug stores and farm supply stores. There are also lots of nurseries and garden centers. It doesn’t seem to be a depressed area, but with no large cities, we’ve wondered what on earth people do for a living! We know there’s lots of lobstering, and we’ve heard about lumbering and granite and limestone quarries, and of course there’s a strong tourist economy, but it makes you wonder! We’ve covered 20 miles in every direction from the campground (at least), and only seen one McDonald’s and one Walmart!

We also drove up Mt. Battie at Camden Hills State Park again—the view is worth seeing more than once. Then we went over to the ocean side of the park, which was closed the first time we went there. We had a nice walk on the seashore trail. The sea was very calm and there were lots of wild flowers in bloom. We had the place to ourselves (the advantage of having weekdays off). There was a lobster boat off in the distance pulling in the traps. The evergreen trees in this part of the world are very large and dark—almost forbidding. A variety of ferns cover the ground in their shade. It has a storybook quality, like something out of a fairy tale.

We finished our drive by circling through Waldoboro and Friendship. We found a secluded beach where most of the large boulders had mica all through them—they sparkled in the sunlight! Very different from most of the rocky boulders on the beaches we’ve been to.

Today we drove due west to Augusta, the capitol of Maine. Then we looped back east by another route, stopping in Lincoln at an antique tool store we’d heard about. It was more like a junk store with class! It had every kind of tool (antique and modern) you could imagine, interspersed with books, records, art, rugs, antique trunks, comic books, 1950’s kitchen implements, dressmaker dummies and ratty furniture. You could spend hours picking through the stuff—and it was priced quite reasonably! Wiley got a filet knife for 75 cents and a tool of some sort for $4.

Across the street was a tee shirt store that prides itself on using water-based inks, which are environmentally safe. I bought a tee shirt that proclaims: “Black Flies: Defenders of the Wilderness”! That gave me quite a chuckle. I’m still scratching the bites on my legs and arm!

I’ve noticed a preponderance of towns in this area named for the virtues:

Freedom, Friendship, Hope, Industry, Liberty, Union and Unity

They’re all tiny, old villages with their own unique personalities. I think those are much better names than the typical subdivision names in Florida (which tend to proclaim nonexistent hills or even mountains, forests that have been mown down, brooks that have been dammed and polluted or other pretentious nonsense like fakey English town names or superfluous “e’s” on the end of words like “Brooke.” Anyhow. I like the simplicity and straightforward honesty of the people and towns around here.

Back to work tomorrow—morning shift this week.