Enough Election—Let’s Go to Maine

A working Maine Farm, with barn attached to house, selling pumpkins.

I write tonight while most everyone else is likely watching election returns. After the votes are counted, let’s break away and go to Maine.

Barbara, my wife, and I visited Maine a couple of weeks ago, and now we have some photos to share.

Vacations jolt us away from distortions in daily life—like the distortions surrounding our election. Charges and countercharges, exaggerations and evasions, promises and projections. It’s an important election, but still, I can’t help concluding that the constant attention and hyperbole of television coverage has puffed the thing beyond reason.

Other parts of life are like that too. A problem at work or home can grow inside our minds until it dominates our lives. Retirement offers little escape because we all take our minds with us to retirement.

For a few minutes today, let’s pretend we traveled to Maine together to spend some peaceful days by the sea.

The view from our rental cottage on Long Cove, Deer Isle, Maine, at low tide.

The view from our rental cottage—at high tide. The tides varied about 13 to 14 feet during our visit.

Stonington, Maine, a working lobstering community at the south end of Deer Isle.

Lobster traps at Deer Isle, Maine.

An old cemetery at Deer Isle, Maine needs some attention.

The Margaret Todd, 151 feet, built in St Augustine, Florida and launched in 1998. Owned by her captain, Steven Pageas, she takes tourists on sails around Frenchman’s Bay and the coast of Maine.

The main island of Acadia National Park from the Schoodic Peninsula.

Fall colors come later at Acadia Park than inland. The leaves in northern Vermont and New Hampshire had already fallen when I took this picture near the coast.

Facing a fierce wind on top of Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park.

Along the coast at Acadia National Park.

Northeast Harbor, Maine

A working fishing boat heading into harbor.

A spectacular place to read or think.

A graceful approach.

Humans can wonder how such immense beauty registers in so small a brain—do the birds live in wonder?

Surf and sun.

Even on an ordinary day, the surf pounds the rocky coast.

Rocks and water, wave after wave after wave.

Winter Harbor Lighthouse, on Mark Island (about four acres), off the coast of the Schoodic Peninsula.

Prospect Harbor Lighthouse, off the coast of the Schoodic Peninsula. Built in 1850.

Lighthouse at Pumpkin Island, near Deer Isle, Maine. Built in 1854.

A lighthouse at Castine, Maine, not far from the Maine Maritime Academy. The city owns the property and rents it to a couple who live in the adjoining house and look after the property.

Downeast Maine, which is the upper coastal region, is a quiet, beautiful place in the autumn. Families are back home from summer vacations and children are in school. It is an excellent time and place for retirees to forget life’s turmoil for a few days and experience the rhythms of the waves and tides.