What I Did on My Summer Vacation

On my summer vacation I went to Maine to visit friends. Maine is the last state on the East Coast that I hadn't visited. I always thought I would like Maine; something about its ruggedness and rocky coastline and independent character appealed to me the same way Vermont did even before I moved there. And I wasn't disappointed: I loved Maine.

The first few days we stayed at my friends' cottage very near the water. These cottages are right around the corner from my friends'.

J grew up going to this cottage every summer. She and D (her partner) have done a lot of fixing up, and it's really cute. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of it.

We went to the beach, where the Kid discovered that he really does like the ocean--after telling me all summer that he didn't. (How pathetic for a kid born in Florida and living where we now live!) D's 7 year old niece, J-c, was visiting from London and she and the Kid had a great time together--somewhat of a new experience for both of them since the Kid has no younger siblings, and J-c only has a step brother who doesn't live with her full time.
















































At a different beach we looked for shells for J-c's craft project--a shell covered bird house.













After the first few days in the cottage we stayed at D and J's house, just about a mile away. It has a great deck for relaxing and watching the birds.





























We went to a cove near the house with some great driftwood.



The doggies like to swim here, too.


























One highlight of the trip was leaarning to play golf. Well, the Kid learned, and he's pretty good, and I putzed around--I'm really bad, but it was still fun. The golf course there is older and not at all fancy and chichi, which suits me just fine. Unfortunately, the golf pictures are on J's computer, so you'll just have to use your imagination for that!

J-c and D polished up their Frisby skills with the Kid.






D and J have two really great dogs (these are the dogs we took care of for a couple of weeks).

Reuben was waiting for his mom to come back. Isn't he the cutest?


















Diamond is a great lady, and she knows she's the queen of the household!






One day we saw a "llama parade" and invited the llamas to graze in the front yard for a bit. There are five llamas who live with a family down the road from my friends' house, and they are far friendlier and tamer than I would've imagined.










One of the llamas was a bit lazy and like to sit down to eat.



















Llamas have very interesting hooves and they only have bottom teeth.





As usual, I took some pictures of flowers.
































On a shopping trip D and I saw a chocolate castle--36 pounds of chocolate!



It was, simply put, a wonderful vacation.