When I said that Maine seemed to have a thing about Rhododendrons, I wasn’t kidding. This was an entire garden dedicated to them.

Asticou Azalea Garden

This is actually a common wild Rhododendron, which I had never seen before.

This counts as a tree frog, right?

Although I uploaded a ton of pictures to iNaturalist, trying ID the various flowers, trees, and shrubs, I also saw a variety of more mobile creatures. (And also uploaded them to iNaturalist)

I mean, look how adorable!!!!

Long-claw Hermit Crab Pagurus longicarpus

Common Eider Somateria mollissima

Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle

Harbor Seal Phoca vitulina

Common Loon Gavia immer (with chicks!)

Green Frog Lithobates clamitans (hiding in a tamarack)

American Bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus

Once again I was desperately wishing for a good zoom lens when I was trying t get good pictures of these creatures whose details I couldn’t make out with the naked eye. But I don’t think I did too bad with what I had.

These were taken at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens at the end of May.

I’ve not seen a red bleeding heart around here!

Rhododendron was surprisingly popular in Maine.

They had a fairy garden section, which was cute.

But mostly I just liked the rocks.

Since we were in Maine for several days, we managed to visit some places we might not have otherwise.

One was Lamoine State Park. It seemed to be mostly a boat launch, but it was late evening and overcast, so it was perfect for a walk along the beach.

Where I got to look at more rocks.

The tide was out, and I eventually discovered what was crunching under my feet.

At which point I moved up from the water line and mostly hopped from rock to rock where I could see there were no snails.

Which is fine because that’s where the fascinating rocks were.

I mean.

OK, yeah, I also enjoyed looking out across the water. That was fine.

Since we were in the area for several days, we had lots of time to explore Acadia, which was nice, since it let us explore instead of having to hit all the highlights before we ran out of time.

Were the places I wanted to hike we didn’t? Definitely. But that’s true for just about every place except Coopers Rock SF.

The first thing we did was (of course) take a scenic drive of the area. I got one of the driving guide books at the visitor center, and we used that to guide us.

We also did a short-ish hike on the Gorham Mountain trail.

We also accidentally hiked up to Bubble Rock.

How do you accidentally hike up to a ridge line? Failing to look at the map and a stubborn refusal to turn around are the answer.

Of course I best liked (wait for it!) the rocky shores.

The next day we did the drive up Cadillac Mountain.

The view was amazing, but there was very little shade, so it was not my favorite spot of the visit.

The drive on Schoodic Point was gorgeous.

We also did some walking on the Carriage roads, which were fascinating in and of themselves, nevermind the scenery

And I was delighted to get to see new wildlife.

Our second stop in Maine (the first was the Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens) was Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park.

I spent a lot of time walking on and scrambling around the rocky shore. (I may or may not have been singing Birdhouse in your Soul while doing so.)

Yeah, that’s a nice view and all.

BUT THESE ROCKS ARE AMAZING!

SUCH AMAZING ROCKS!

Also, I listened to the ocean a bit.

But really, it was mostly the rocks.

There’s a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores
And kept the beaches shipwreck-free
Though I respect that a lot
I’d be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off
And countless screaming Argonauts

I read an surprisingly wide variety of genres this week. And it was 2019 the last time I read so few books in a single month. But I did a fair amount of hiking and traveling in May, so I’m going to chalk it up to that (even if it isn’t that).

I’d also like to note THREE new release reads this month! And they were all enjoyable! (That’s actually not unexpected.) And only TWO rereads! (one of which was an audio book, and I can rarely listen to books I haven’t read before.)

I’m also slowly going through Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen series–mostly borrowing from the library, because they’re nice, but they’re not fantastic.

Non Fiction

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Identity, and the Meaning of Sex (2020) Angela Chen 8/10
Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine (2021) Olivia Campbell

Historical Mystery

A Perilous Perspective (2022) Anna Lee Huber (Lady Darby Mystery) 8/10

Cozy Mystery

The Vanishing Type (2022) Ellery Adams (Secret, Book, & Scone Society) 7.5/10
Hannah Swensen series by Joanne Fluke
Strawberry Shortcake Murder (2001); 7/10; Blueberry Muffin Murder (2002); Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (2003)

Science Fiction

All Systems Red (2017) Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries) 10/10

Romance

Wrong Number, Right Woman (2020) Jae 7/10

Audio Book

Dark Queen, Audio Edition (2018) Faith Hunter narrated by Khristine Hvam (Jane Yellowrock) 8/10

Supernatural Fantasy

Amongst Our Weapons (2022) Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) 8/10

One of my goals for this trip was to check three more states off my “visited” list: Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Also, I don’t much care for interstates, so we took primarily back roads on our drive to Maine. And two of my proposals were to drive through the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

We spent so long at the Botanical Garden we visited in New York we didn’t get any stops in the Green Mountains of Vermont, but had a scenic drive the next day through the White Mountains.

I have to say that aside from our stop, New Hampshire was kind of disappointing and I’d rather have spent more time in Vermont.

But that stop me made?

Excellent.

At the start of the White Mountain Scenic Route is Flume Gorge State Park. It was a pretty hefty admission fee to get in, but since it was vacation, we splurged.

It was worth it.

It starts out somewhat slow, and you walk up to a cascade down a hill of rock.

Pretty, but I’ve hiked places like that in West Virginia–and could go out on the rocks.

Then you come to a boardwalk that runs alongside the Flume Brook.

Then, up ahead, you can see the walls starting to narrow and the creek getting louder.

The gorge narrows and is stunning.

Then you come to the waterfall.

But that’s not the end. You walk gravel trails (some steep) to high point where you can look into the valley.

Through some more forest and finally across a bridge above the Pemigewasset River.

There is more of a walk through the forest, on a very well maintained path, some large trees, lots of wild flowers, and glacier boulders.

So, despite how expensive it was, I very much enjoyed the walk.

But I’d still like to go back to Vermont to hike in the Green Mountains.

Hard to believe, but we actually left the house for an extended period of time.

It was weird.

I’m still not ok being indoors unmasked (and I’m never ok with crowded places). Luckily, we spent the majority of our time outdoors.

We drove to Maine with my mother, and our first stop was a place we visited a decade ago: Hickory Run State Park.

The main draw is the boulder field.

I can hear you being unimpressed, so… do you see the people in the above picture?

Does that help? Do you see the person in the red jacket? And all the people past them?

This picture of Michael? There are at least twelve people behind him to the left, and at least one behind him to the right.

This boulder field is more than 20,000 years old. It’s a giant lake of boulders stretching 400 feet by 1,800 feet, and as deep as 12 feet in places.

It’s very hard to walk on (I wished I’d had two hiking sticks and not just one) but very much worth it to go out even a few feet and to see just how stunning the boulder field truly is.

Just don’t look down too closely.

So very many giant spiders.

There are other things to do in the park, and we did manage a brief hike.

We would have taken a longer hike, but when it rained on us, we headed back.

I did get this short clip of Sand Spring Run along the trail.

Flower pr0n from far places.

Mountain Top Arboretum (Tannersville, NY)

Larch!

Paper birch

Water lilies

(Not a flower)

Marsh