Other Than Puffins

Well - we actually did a lot more on our trip last week than take a puffin cruise.  Here are a few pics for those who are interested.

We spent the first night at the home of my old college roommate, Brenda, and family.  I hadn't seen her in 30 years.  They have a large and comfortable apartment above the church where her husband is a pastor, and we had a very nice 18 hours with them.

Border crossing into Canada.  So everything seems to be going fine - and then the officer in the cubicle announces that we have been randomly selected for a search.  Only 2-3% of people get chosen for that.  Of course we would be one of the small percentage.  We had to wait inside while an officer with gloves on went through everything in the car, including luggage, very carefully and thoroughly.

This is apparently the resident pheasant at the Inn at Whale Cove on Grand Manan Island.  We saw him several times, and saw a female with a chick also.  We were walking out of the dining room our first night there, and heard a huge commotion and rustling of feathers - he had been in the weedy area close by, when apparently we startled him!  Hadn't seen a pheasant in 30 years.

Mike got this beautiful picture of our view, early one morning.  At the time, my view was of the top side of a pillow.

This was like the "icing on the cake," seeing this beautiful bird while waiting on the ferry to leave Grand Manan.  This was taken with my new camera - the eagle is actually quite some distance away.  I've got to practice taking zoom photos, because holding the camera steady for distance shots is not easy to do.

Leaving the harbor at Grand Manan.  Not sure what those poles in the water are - we saw them in several places.

We had to take photos here, at the easternmost point of the U.S.  True confession time: we didn't go on into the town, just took our pictures and then turned around.  :-)

View from the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel balcony at our room.

This was quite the experience.  The Big Chicken Barn was a huge, huge building - this picture only shows about 3/5 of the length.  The entire first floor is antique stalls, and the entire second floor is books, magazines, and prints.  I wanted to stop.  Mike grudgingly said he'd go in also, but he knew he'd be ready to go before I was.  Which one of us do you think spent the most time awaiting the other one?

Looking straight ahead, as far as possible, is one-half of the books floor.

And the same is true for the antiques floor.

Not really sure when Mike took this picture, but we saw so much water, and so many boats, in Maine that it could be just about anywhere.

I could move to Maine!!  (I've been informed that we should visit in the winter sometime before making that "blanket" {pun intended} statement.)