8/31/06 (Friday): Time is sure flying by--only about a month left on the Maine leg of our great adventure! It's been getting cooler up here. We've had the heat on every night and the highs during the day have only been in the upper 60's or lower 70's. The days are also getting shorter.

On Wednesday we went to the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. The museum is actually a part of town dating to the 19th century where all of the buildings have become a part of the museum. There's a library full of geneology records and maritime records, several houses, a church and vestry, a couple of barns, a boat house, and town hall. This is the Captain Jeremiah Merithew House. It had exhibits of 19th century coastal industries and life and some beautiful art. The seafaring families of this era collected beautiful things from all over the world.

At the boat house, we watced some craftsmen building a birchbark canoe. The settlers in New England borrowed the technology from the Native Americans. The boat looked so fragile, but we were told that they were used to haul large numbers of people and heavy cargo all along the rivers and coastal bays.

These little boats are called pea pods because they are pointed on both ends. They were sturdy, easy to maneuver and could go in shallow water as well as out to sea in rough weather. They were invented by a local Searsport builder and became popular all the way down the New England Coast.

You can read for yourself about the "Down Easter," a type of sailboat that worked the whole East Coast.

















The demise of the "Down Easters" caused great economic hardship all over New England.















It was a gorgeous day. It felt like early autumn, and we even saw a tiny bit of color on a couple of the maples. We took the long way home, including a lengthy piece of dirt road that will make a gorgeous leaf peeping ride when Julie and John arrive. Many of the farms along the way were mowing their hay.

On Thursday we hiked the Oyster River Bog trail. We were hoping to get close enough to the bog to see some wildlife, maybe even a moose. But the trail stuck to the slightly higher ground and we didn't see any wildlife.

It wasn't as spectacular as some of our other recent hikes, but it was pretty.

There were lots of moisture loving plants--ferns and fungus.









Some of it quite unusual, like this orange fungus.










Can you spot the tiny toad in this picture?










That's it for this time. On our next 3 days off we'll be headed to Baxter State Park in the north woods.