Last week we headed up the Maine coast to Chebeague Island in Casco Bay to meet my parents, Chris and his family, the Troys, Barons and a bunch of other faces throughout the week. It's a beautiful area and the house we rented was right on the Atlantic Ocean. It probably has one of the best views on the east coast. It's surrounded by the other islands, the mid-coast of Maine, the Atlantic, lobster buoys and boats of all kinds. There are 3 or 4 lighthouses that you can see from the yard, a typical rocky Maine beach at the bottom of the bluff and a handful of sandy beaches within a few minutes walk or drive. It was a great place to spend a week. Probably just about the right amount of time too, since a week on a 3 x 1.5 island lets you see and do most of what there is to see and do. I suppose with the right people and good weather you can spend time anywhere and enjoy it, but as far as the island itself goes any longer than a week and you'd start doing the same stuff over and over and maybe going a little stir crazy. It sure was a great spot to spend a week in the summer though.
We spent our time there beach combing, suntanning, swimming, riding bikes, hiking, playing games in the yard and finished up with a lobster bake and a fire on the beach. For flat out relaxing it doesn't get much better than that place. No TV, no Internet and only occasional phone service. We were only a few miles from Maine's largest city but may as well have been in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do but relax and get away from everyday life. Since it's where I spent many summer vacations as a kid I was excited to go back with my own family and see what had, or in most cases hadn't changed. Everything I used to do as a kid we got to do with our own kids and Chris's kids which was pretty cool.
Finally, since it's what I like to do, I spent a lot of time, way too much if you ask Jen, taking pictures. Not knowing when I'll ever get back I wanted to capture everything to look back at down the road so there are a lot of pictures. I've narrowed down the 2000 or so I took to a few hundred of my favorites and I broke those down into a few smaller groups so you can see as many or as few as you want. I also played around with a few dozen and turned them into HDR images. Some came out good and some don't look much different from the original photo. Since people usually look sun burnt in HDR they are mostly scenic photos. To see whatever you might be interested in just click on the pictures below. If anyone sees any pictures they like and would like to print up let me know (
drf77@aol.com) and I'll either have them printed for you or e-mail you the original file because they don't come out great when you download them from the blog/Picasa.
Next week it's off to Lake Winnipesaukee for another relaxing week by the water and hopefully some golf and a hike or two. If Jen doesn't divorce me or throw my camera in the lake there should be a bunch of new pictures up soon from that so check back in a bit if you're interested. That's all for now.
