High Tide Inn Camden

... into Maine in early afternoon and had the most wonderful sense of euphoria at being back inside our wonderful United States of America again. It's very hard to describe and even harder to figure out. But it feels good to be in the Homeland!

We ignored our itinerary which called for us to bunk tonight near Bangor and followed Hwy 1A down the west side of the Penobscot River and finally along ...

What a beautiful sunny day in Maine! I had a great conversation with the owner of Hearth Cottage Inn about the weather...his business...and things to do in Maine. We certainly lucked out with the weather as July was rain, rain, rain! Of course, the hurricane could pose a problem, but we're keeping our fingers crossed and watching the news as we head towards Boston.

We tried to journey to the ...

... we were getting out of the car, a young woman approached us. She "helps Richard" around the studio and as he wasn't in, she would show us the gallery. Okay. So she led us upstairs to a stuffy hot gallery and showed us his work. She and her husband (shocking in itself as she looked to be about 18 or 19 years old) live there as kind of apprentices to the potter. They had hitch-hiked from Texas to San Francisco a couple of ...

... If you're looking for a really special gift for someone, we highly recommend Rackliffe Pottery http://www.rackliffepottery.com.

The drive down was really nice. It felt more leisurely than the drive up for some reason...could have been that we've been on vacation a week longer now or it could have been the cold medicine. Whatever it was, it was a nice drive...

We had lunch and dinner at the ...

... place exceeds all superlatives and yet virtually none are cast in their direction. We had some great drinks in the bar -- I had a blueberry martini made with a blueberry vodka that is distilled near Freeport. Local blueberry vodka and a small hand full of blueberries...why wouldn't that be a great drink?!

We had a salad and then we both had a divine grilled cod served with a blueberry and chipotle chile ...

... mail two times a day back and forth between Stonington and Isle au Haut -- a small island with about 35 full time residents, Isle au Haut is the southernmost part of Acadia National Park.

You can really see why this was a place that the buccaneers liked to sneak up to when things got too hot for them down on the Spanish Main! No pirates today, just a plethora of lobstermen and a growing population of artists and crafters of all sorts.

The ...

... American. We've had that feeling in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England but it feels especially strong in Maine. I think that's because it is so relaxed and natural here...a little less contrived for the most part. Blue Hill, for example, has American flags hanging from every light post in the town. We see that at home but only when it is the 4th of July or some other patriotic holiday. And it's not they're 'flag-waving zealots ...

... see what looks like a very light chop and not much else, zoom in. There's a seal head in there somewhere. It was like a game of whack-a-mole out there - you never really knew when or where they would pop up (relax my vegan peeps, I didn't try to whack them with the paddle). Look at the center of the shot below for some views of the seals sunning themselves on a rock. Or just ...

... ve got to remember, I just spent 25 years with a Dad that talked nonstop about the healing properties of herbs and herbal remedies. The last thing I wanted to do was go to an herbal garden and apothecary, even if it was run entirely by women. Boy was I wrong. The moment I touched the first plant in the aromatic, colorful, growing, garden of herbal healing, my emotional dam burst. I cried the deep, heaving sobs of a daughter who had just lost her father. I know that Dad had left in ...