Saturday, August 11, 2007

Vacation News

I hope you all have the patience to let these pictures load.

I went on a great vacation to the wonderful state of Maine. My mom is originally from a tiny little fishing town called Eastport. This area is absolutely beautiful. But first we stopped north of Boston to visit relatives of MS. The kids got to do some swimming, and burn off some energy. THANK GOD!


This is Eastport as seen from the back of our fishing boat.


The primary reason for this trip was to see family. My mom's siblings have been coming to Eastport every summer for decades, so having a family reunion to them might seem like a small deal, but they do it up right. This year was a bit more special. More people came this year than have come since the early 70s.

We rented cabins at two adjacent campgrounds. I wish I would have taken a picture of our cabin, but I failed miserably. Here's what our campground looked like as seen from the other campground. Seems like a silly picture to take, but the views were amazing.


Fishing was fun, but we didn't catch anything worth keeping.











We had a big lobster feed early in the week. I have never tried fresh lobster. The last time I came to Main I was about 10, and the thought of having to rip my food out of its shell didn't appeal to me. I have matured a bit since then.

I became very good at eating a lobster on this trip. But I don't take anything out of the main body cavity. No thanks! That's too much work.

Kevin wanted a lobster, so he got his own and enjoyed it. Erik didn't want one. We cooked up some burgers and dogs for the ones that didn't want lobster. But when Erik saw how much we were enjoying it he decided to try one. He loved it and ate almost a whole one AFTER eating a hamburger and a hotdog. Amazing!

Back in 2001 Eastport was the host of a semi-reality show called Murder in Small Town X. Fox Television built this statue to put in town for the show. The "winner of the show was a firefighter from New York City. He was killed on 9/11 just a week after the final episode of the show aired. The production crew had left the statue behind for the city of Eastport, but in 2005 the city re-dedicated the statue to Angel.

The town did really well as a result of the show. All the bed and breakfasts were booked solid. The stores and restaurants had record business. The show gave the city a kick in the butt. They've started all kinds of rejuvenation projects.

I've kind of taken over some of the genealogy work for the family. I found a book about the beginnings of the area, which my ancestors where involved in, but so far no mention in the book about our family. The book did point out that there is a lot of records in a museum in town that I was trying to go see, but unfortunately the museum was closed.

We also went whale watching one day. That was fun, but it got damn cold out on that boat. I was not prepared, but I managed without whining (until now). We saw some seals, porpoise, and fin whales. The fin whale seemed small to me, but in reality it is quite big. It's just that it doesn't show much when it breaches the water.



We went on hike in Lubec that was initially supposed to be only a couple miles, but unfortunately we missed a turn. The scenery was amazing. I'll close out with a bunch of pictures taken during the hike.





Wednesday, August 08, 2007

I'm Back

I am back from my vacation and have been at work all week. I don't have time to post pictures right now, but will soon.