Moms across Maine are celebrating:

It is Back To School Week!!!!!!!!!!!

Every year I take a picture on back-to-school day.   They are getting less and less cooperative each year.  Here is the older one, this morning–looks thrilled, eh?

And the younger one, who started yesterday (he cooperated a bit after stern words from his dad):

And this morning they couldn’t even stand on the rock next to each other for a nanosecond…this is all I got (notice the death-glare from the teenager LOL!):

I waved goodbye, wished them a wonderful day, and punched my fist into the air in elation as I entered the garage…WOOOT!   I am taking the WHOLE DAY off (after I finish this blogpost and one for the next post) and sewing! WOOT WOOT WOOOOOOT! Normalcy (well, what passes for it in this house) returns!

Have I said recently how much I love living in Camden, Maine?    It is a lovely, friendly town, and the locals know the back way from here to there (and where to find parking during peak tourist season).   That means we know about the back doors of some of the shops, like Rockport Blueprint, and the footbridge over the river.  There is a new ice cream stand in very bright colors near the bridge–I love walking on the bridge and over by RiverHouse hotel because the owner loves his gardens:

One of the picnic tables comes with a water dish for thirsty doggies who happen to be in town:

To get from the parking lot behind French and Brawn to the Library or the the front side of the shops on  Main Street, you can go over the footbridge or in the back door of Rockport Blueprint (our wonderful local art supply store), then out the front to Main Street.  Here is the sign next to the lime green ice cream stand:

This is the back entrance…definitely a workroom, receiving area for shipments, etc.:

And here is what you frequently find in between the sign and the door,  at the bottom of the steps (which also runs around the side of Rockport Blueprint to the back door/kitchen entrance to Boynton McKay (deli, coffee shop, great salads, breakfast, sweet treats, coffee, homemade buttermilk donuts…..wonderful place!):  DUCKS.  The river runs under some of the buildings out to the falls and into the harbor, and the ducks like to hang out here because the tourists crossing the footbridge have a propensity to FEED the ducks.

And the view from the deck/walkway to the river:

When the weather is warm, Rockport Blueprint likes to keep the back door open for the breezes (almost no place here has air conditioning…all but a few days a year we don’t need it!).  Here’s the solution to the duckies (in case you can’t read it in the photo, the paper says “Duck Gate”):

When you’re walking on Main Street, across from the park honoring the fallen of the Civil War, the Library and the grassy  park/hill overooking the harbor, this is the view up the river toward the footbridge–the tall chimney is from the now-offices-former-Knox Mill complex:

Yes, I love Camden!  Dog bowls and ducks…yeah!

You know summer is here (at least in spirit, and some years in the weather….other years not….) when Memorial Day weekend arrives.  Hubby’s birthday is late May, and we start the season with a Sea Dogs game.  The Portland Sea Dogs are the minor league team associated with the Boston Red Sox (Go Red Sox Nation!).  Now I’m not really much of a baseball fan, but I do love going to the Sea Dogs games.  This is baseball the way it OUGHT to be…. where you can actually see the players’ faces without binoculars (or taking out a second mortgage to buy tickets).  Our usual seats are $7 each (ayuh…about as much as the movies!), and this time we had a treat and got “box” seats, a whopping $9 each…second row on the first base line, directly behind home plate.   The team obliged by hitting MANY (eight!) runs, including a homer (the arrow points to the lighthouse that pops up and honks when a Sea Dogs player hits a home run) that brought in three runs:

I don’t know that I’ll ever do a baseball quilt, but I always take “reference” photos anyway… I may just use these for practicing drawing the human figure:

It was warmer than predicted, so we had a lovely low 70s, sunny Sunday afternoon.  Here is the happy couple (the row in front of us had four generations in one family including a delightful-cookie-smeared toddler, who arrived and departed at various points in the game…this was late, when they’d all called it a day):

And of course, I am always on the lookout for interesting patterns, repetition and whatnot:

Hubby’s b-day is about this time of year, too, so I made the pilgrimage to Market Basket to order his favorite:  a cheesecake!  I’ve made them, but they are a ton or work and cost almost as much to make (and my results are not as predictable as ordering), so here is the birthday boy’s treat:

OK, so in the last post I showed you the outbound journey from Owl’s Head (a Head, by the way, is a peninsula) airport. It’s always fun to see the Camden Hills rise up in the distance…you know you’re almost home:

First, you can spot the runway as you approach.  This is what it looks like when you come home in not-winter (otherwise it would be pitch dark), as viewed down the short “aisle” and through the cockpit window:

Next you see all the buildings that make up the airport including the private aviation side.  I learned upon our return that sigh, sob, our ticky tacky little building will go the way of the Dodo bird this fall.  They are building a new “terminal;”  I will be sad to see our homely little old place gone, but I expect the folks who work there will be mighty glad to work in a building designed to BE an airport!

Then you spot the baggage return….this is from the runway side.  Please notice that corrugated tin roof to the immediate left of the white building.

You exit the plane, and walk into the “terminal,” go out the front door and down the splintery wooden stairs (the ramp is currently out of service due to rot, at least it was being worked on when I got home) and turn left to access the baggage claim area.

Yes, that opening in the chain link fence is the spot.  There is a locking gate on the back side to prevent deer, racoons, wandering pets, and other threats to national security from wandering onto the runway and getting access to one’s baggage. Here’s what it looks like from the front side–note the arrow on the right.

That arrow points to my favorite thing ever…our Baggage Claim sign:

Have I said recently, I LOVE MAINE!!!!!!!!  Here is the loaded up baggage claim “carousel”:

Next, to the Long Term Parking.  Short term parking are the 20 or so spots next to the double-wide.  It costs a bit more… all of $4 per day (charged by how many nights you are there).  You walk through the short term lot to the long term lot (which holds maybe 30 cars/trucks).  The only hazard is stepping into a pothole in the dark.  Cost:  $3 a night.  To pay, you go to your car and look at the windshield:

Yes, that card is your ticket to pay.  They mark the day you arrive.

You have ten days to mail your check in for the correct amount.  They actually neglected to put the card on my car for a week, so I paid them the extra 7 days anyway…   The major drawback to this system is winter.  The cards FREEZE to your windshield, and tend to disintegrate when you try to get them off.  Many times, you can’t, so you go home in the snow with the wipers on, and with every pass they scrape and rub off another layer of the card.  We make it work anyway.  It’s nice to be from a small town!

And one last bit of beauty…can you see why I love coming home to here?

This is, in fact, the view from the last seat of the Cape Air flight from Owl’s Head Airport (officially it is the Knox County Airport in Rockland, Maine, but everyone call’s it Owl’s Head after the nearby little peninsula and light house) to Boston.

In the past, I’ve had some fairly hilarious conversations about traveling out of and in to Maine.  Two years ago, I had the great good fortune to teach at the Lowell Quilt Show, in Massachusetts, and ate dinner several nights in a row with a great bunch of teachers (lots of laughing, lobster, and some wine!).  One of the teachers said “well, I travel out of a very small airport, we have only ten gates.”  I just looked at her and blurted out “that’s nine more than we have!”  We all laughed out loud…then I added that our airport is actually an old double-wide manufactured (mobile) home:

Yes, that white and gray building is the airport.  All of it.  It leaks.  It is creaky.  The carbuncle / bumpout on the back is the extra waiting room added where you sit after you go through the TSA screening.  The only bathroom is on the outside of the screening, so if the urge hits, you leave everything inside the bumpout, run to the bathroom in your socks, and then pass through the detectors again.

Maine is a neighborly place.  Once, I got fogged out of my early flight and had to wait four hours for the next puddle-jumper to Boston.  One of the other passengers had forgotten her laptop power cord, so the desk agent said “You live on my way to the grocery store; I’m going to pick up some things before the next flight, want me to drop you at home on the way?” and off they went!  Anyway, speaking of puddle jumpers, here’s a picture of the 8-passenger seat (sometimes a passenger also sits in the co-pilot seat) plane, at Logan in Boston:

The baggage goes in the nose, the tail, and carry-ons go in the wings.  There is no on-board storage.  Even a large purse goes into the wing compartment!

And this is a view out the window at Knox County, Maine, where I live:

And here’s a typical aerial view of the Maine coastline at near-dawn (I always take the 6-am-ish flight out so I can connect to whatever else it is I need to get where I’m going):

THIS congested view is what it looks like near Boston (i.e. the gateway to the rest of the world)–too many people!

Next…I’ll show you my favorite thing…coming home, the baggage return, and the “long term”  parking lot.  Stay tuned <GRIN>!