And to make the week complete (???), or at least a lot more fun, on Saturday evening, visitor 20,000 surfed in!

If you were on this site on Saturday evening, about 9:25 East coast time, from Berea (Berea College I think, on alltel.net), Kentucky, drop me a note via the reply feature (or through the comment page on my website) with your e-mail address. You’ve won a free pattern from my pattern page! I’ll write to you at your e-mail, and if you’ll share your snail mail address, I’ll send you the pattern of your choice.

This is a HUGE thanks to everyone who takes their time to surf in and visit my little blog. I cannot tell you how much joy I get looking at my sitemeter, seeing where folks are from, and how connected I can be with folks all over the world, most of whom I’ve never met except here in the ether.

Just for fun: here is where the 20 visitors just before and after the 20,000th visit have surfed in from:
Hahira, Georgia (the one in the US)
Cross River, NY
Berea, Kentucky
Melbourne, Victoria
Vendersheim, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Newport Corner, Nova Scotia, Canada
Winkler, Manitoba, Canada
Victoria, British Colombia, Canada
The Colony, Texas
Rockland, Maine
Somewhere in the USA
Cambridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
Lisbon, Portugal
Friday Harbor, Washington
Irving, Texas
Rockland, Maine
(note…I think anyone who lives anywhere near me is logged as Rockland, instead of by town)
Another Rockland, Maine
Spanish Fork, Utah
Bruceton Mils, West Virginia
Brunswick, Maine

And in the next 80 (my sitemeter logs the most recent 100 visitors) folks from India, Egypt, France, the US, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Sweden have visited…now how cool is that? REALLY COOL! Thanks!!!!!! Here:

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{blog-readers}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} that’s a cyber hug and thanks from me to you!

OK….before you all get ready to toss me in the cyber-wastebasket, I’ll share a few (ok…it got to be more than a few….) more photos from the ride, then switch back to something quilty, I think….. Here is a blue heron walking behind a beaver lodge!

We went down to the shore near the tent again and Paul and the boys found many, many starfish like this one (on Paul’s hand):

And Eli found the itty-bittiest starfish (or, to be more PC, “Seastar”) I’ve ever seen….yes, that little bitty thing on the tip of his not-so-very-big 8 year old fingertip is a seastar:

On the way to the tent I took a picture of this calcified kelp on top of a rock. No, I have no idea why I love the way it looks, I just do:

And no Maine series of pictures is good without rocks…I love the jaggedness combined with regularity in this heap pushing up out of the earth:

Sunset was spectacular again:

and then there was this cloud hovering over the horizon to the south that looked like a pteranosaur (for those who don’t have young sons into dinosaurs, those were the huge flying dinosaurs):

We had our last fire that night and used the last bit of wood we had with us…next time I’ll bring the tripod!

On Monday, before heading home to meet the chimney cleaners, we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain. It is not only the highest point on Mount Desert Island, but apparently the highest point on the Eastern seaboard. Here is a shot looking towards the mainland:

And here I LOVE the grooves left by the moving glaciers that carved out the rivers, peninsulas and bays of coastal Maine:

And a final, quintessentially Maine shot….of the lichen on the rocks, the berries waiting for winter, and the “barrens” of the high hills.

Now for the best photos of the weekend….the first coastal shot is from the Loop Road. Then we

parked near Eagle Lake and took a ride to Witch Pond….talk about glorious!

We stopped at the halfway point near something called (I think) Frenchman’s Bay…an overlook:

And rode by this pond on the way back to the car…all in all it was a 6.6 mile ride. It was pretty easy for everyone, except for Eli who was tired. He has ridden 10-11 miles (he’s 8 1/2) before, but was tired … probably because the nearly full moon was so bright that it kept waking us all up!

Near the 4 mile mark was a 3-arch bridge. The shapes were wonderful, and so were the photo ops!

Here’s one with a reflection of the bridge,

and a photo of leaves in a pool that remind me of something Andy Goldsworthy might begin to play with:

This is as many photos as I can get into apost (it’s a Blogger thing), so will add the last ones tomorrow.

First thing on Sunday, Eli wanted me to take him down to the beach next to our campsite, so I did. To link this back to art and quilting, I can see the different world views she talked about in the last quotation I posted… the “wide angle”,

“arms’ length,”

and “close-up” views in these photos….

Then, we drove to Acadia, stopping in Bar Harbor for breakfast (it was rather nippy at the campsite, and cereal with cold milk wasn’t so appealing…hot food and hot beverages were!). It was a surprise to see a Maine license plate…there were cars from Texas, Florida, California and just about everywhere in between. Can you say “JAM-packed” with tourists, us included? ICK! We learned at breakfast that it is the busiest weekend of the year, and in 2 weeks places will be closed up for the season! First, we drove around the “Loop” road, about 27 miles, most of it one-way, through some of the most beautiful rugged coastalscape you’ll ever see:

And then we went for a bike ride (and for some benighted reason I didn’t think to take a picture of the others actually riding their bikes…sigh….dolt is me….). We stopped here and there, and I took lots of photos, including this one of a glorious tree–but I’ll save the next batch of photos for the next post (aren’t I wicked?):

This weekend was a first of sorts…we went camping on Mount Desert Island (spelled like the dry place, pronounced like the one that is fun to eat), which is home to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. Paul ordered the jumbo sized tent (and a good thing) from LL Bean, complete with “screened porch.” Even on our first try, it went up as easy as could be!

Our campsite was one away from the water’s edge (a KOA campground), with tidal pools and “beach” (Maine style…mostly rocks) literally a stone’s throw away. At sunset, I headed down to the water:

After I cleared the trees, I spotted a blue heron at some rocks poking up from the low tide:

Considering that the photos were hand-held at very slow shutter speed, I’m amazed that even a few of them turned out! I deleted a bunch, but actually have some good ones!

Our first evening was the chilliest…about 40 degrees Farenheit (that’s maybe 6-8 C? Freezing is 32 F, so warmer than 0 C!). We had a fire, and even though I took a bazillion photos, obviously I needed a tripod. Since I now have one, I’ll have to take it the next time…

And tomorrow I’ll share more pics from our bike ride on the famous “carriage road” network in Acadia. I got to take lots of what I call “reference” photos…the ones I’ll save (bless digital instead of film…I can now afford to take lots!) to use in future quilts….