All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so we played hooky from unpacking one beautiful day in February to drive northwest from Portland to Sebago Lake, the city's reservoir. The lake is HUGE, provides a large resort area, and is completely frozen over in winter. Here's a view from a parking area. While most of the lake is snow-covered, some snowplow and monster truck traffic was evident, allowing people to get to their fish houses, we suppose.
I read recently that all Maine fish houses have to meet a set of standards, including clearly ID-ing owner names and contact info, and being easy to move. I thought this one looked pretty fancy.
A weekend day's explore took us to Bradbury State Park, pretty much due north of Portland. An easy hike takes one to a 500-foot high "mountaintop" overlook from where you can see both the sea to the east and mountains to the west.
Trails were beautifully groomed for X-country skiing; we were among the few (of the surprisingly many) people there who weren't on skis snowshoes, or snowmobiles.
Coniferous woods in snow is about my favorite place to be on a sunny day.
Loved this gregarious group. You could tell the dogs were just. plain. happy. to be outside and running free.
Portland has an annual flower show in early March. This was one of the winning displays.
The show is pretty small by mid-Atlantic standards, but people came out in droves (you can't tell here, tho) because everyone is just hungry for any sign of spring by March.
Mostly vendors, alas.
My favorite thing about the flower show is this small world story. One of my favorite souvenirs of a summer vacation in Maine approx 13 yrs ago was the book "She Took to the Woods," a biography about Louise Dickinson Rich (cousin of Emily Dickinson), a wilderness writer who lived simply and quietly in the western Maine woods during the last century. When I checked in as a volunteer at the Portland Flower Show, I started talking with the gal who checked me in and who gave me a wonderful warm welcome when I said I'd just moved to Maine. Turns out we're neighbors and agreed to meet for coffee sometime. I googled her when I got home that night...she's the author of She Took to the Woods.
We still haven't met, but I expect that will change later this week.
Because we're subscribers to the local paper (a good read, I would add), we enter contests with them that offer tickets to various local events. We won tickets to a closed session of the Portland Red Claws, the Boston Celtics D (development) team. We were treated to lunch, got to meet the team president (the tall guy, a former Globetrotter), and watch practice.
We also got pegged by the team's marketing guy as potential season ticket holders, so he gave us tix to the next night's game against the Iowa Energy. We really enjoyed the great seats!
Just this week we visited Bug Light and its surrounding park and trails in South Portland, a quick ride over the Casco Bay bridge from our neighborhood.
The view of Portland proper from here is wonderful, and the park is a popular summer event and family hang-out, no surprise.
The lighthouse used to extend far into the bay in its own jetty. The area was filled in during WWII and a major defense ship-building facility took over this area for the duration of the war. The park now features, within this life-size replica framework, a terrific year-round outdoor exhibit about the ships (including about the demise of many of them during the war) and the locals who built them.
And one more thing we're learning about is that there are great trails and bike paths all over the area. For instance, there's a lovely trail all the way around Back Cove, a five-minute drive from our home. We walked it on a recent Sunday; in spite of the chill wind, there were lots of families biking and walking the path. And on Sundays from May to October, an adjacent wide roadway is closed to autos so folks can use the area more effectively.
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