Category Archives: Hiking

Funky Foam

 

I’ve seen birds, I’ve seen squirrels, I’ve seen deer, and I’ve seen seals and dolphins out at sea. I’ve seen some interesting, awesome, and even odd things while out hiking but recently I stumbled across something I’d never seen before, sitting on the side of a trail.

 

A weird orange foam tower.

 

No joke, look…

 

 

 

Funky Foam Tower

 

 

 

This was sitting beside a trail that runs along a small stretch of rocky beach. Obviously this foam thingy washed in from the sea, but what I want to know is where it came from and what purpose it served before it ended up by the trail I was hiking.

 

Keep an eye out not only for wildlife, but also for odd things like this. You never know when you’ll stumble across something strange out there.

 

Until next time…

 

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A.M.

Autumn is Awesome

 

I think I may have mentioned this before but October is my favorite month.  For three main reasons.  One, it’s the month of my birth (yay!).  Two, Samhain, my favorite holiday is in October (or Halloween for the non-pagan folks who buy into the commercialized holidays).  And three, it’s autumn.

Autumn is by far my favorite season.  I just wish it was the longest season instead of the shortest.  The crisp air, the weather that’s not too hot nor too cold, the brightly colored foliage….

Each autumn I try my best to get at least one or two really good foliage pictures.  It may be a single brightly colored tree here, or a group there, but from the first day of autumn, the hunt for the best foliage picture of the year is on.

This year, like previous years, wasn’t that great here in Maine where the foliage was concerned.  The trees turned early (those that turned at all, that is), went by pretty fast, or the wind took the leaves off the trees before they had a chance to turn.

That being said, I did manage to snap a few decent pictures when I went hiking a while ago at Screw Auger Falls (funny name, I know) and Moose Cave.

Screw Auger Falls Park Bench

 

Fall Colors at Screw Auger Falls

 

Moose Cave Stairway

 

Moose Cave Path

 

Yay, autumn colors!

Until next time…

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~A.M.

Epic Wildlife Sighting!

For the past few weekends, I’ve been doing what I call “Weekend Technology Hiatuses”. More accurately though, they’re internet hiatuses. I log off on Thursday evening or Friday afternoon and don’t log back on until Monday.

 

These hiatuses (this is going on a month now) have been pretty beneficial. One, they’ve helped me decompress and distance myself from my overuse of the internet. Two, I’ve made major progress with my novel (I’m all done the final round of editing!). And three, I’ve spent more time doing other things I love such as hiking, photography, and making jewelry.

 

This past weekend I went hiking (shocking, I know!), and I’m glad I did because I saw some wildlife I’ve never seen in the flesh with my own eyes before. Gather round for the tale, kids!

 

I went to my trusted hiking standby (as I’m once again out of new places to discover…for now), Quoddy Head State Park. While hiking there, I stopped at my usual spot for lunch at Green Point. Those of you that follow my blog religiously, all two of you, will remember me mentioning this park and this spot many times.

 

Anyway, after I finished photographing all the epic rock stacks that were there (and there were a lot this time), I settled in and had my lunch. When I was packing up to head back to the trails, I noticed something moving in the water. Instinctively, I went for my camera. When I lifted my camera, the thing I saw was gone. I was disappointed, thinking it was a seal that dove under (and those bad boys can swim for quite a while without resurfacing), but just as I was about to forget it and head out, I saw it break the surface again not far from where it had gone under. At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at until I took the picture and reviewed it on the spot. There was a fin. So it wasn’t a seal.

 

It was a dolphin. A freaking dolphin! But even better than that, it wasn’t just one. There were at least five, maybe six!

 

Now, my shots didn’t come out as good as I hoped where the dolphins were out past the range of my camera’s zoom (not to mention I was shaking where I was excited to finally see these awesome creatures first hand instead of in books, movies, or television). But, I managed to get a shot of one of them surfacing!

 

Dolphin 1 (Quoddy)

Dolphin 2 (Quoddy)

 

My day was made in that moment! Big time! How could it not have been!!

 

Oh, and the rest of the hike was nice too (plus, I ended my day with a little blueberry picking). [-_^]

 

 

Until next time…


d_[^_^]

~A.M.

New Trail…Fail…Again…

 

This past weekend, there was finally some decent weather. No rain and not too humid. So, I decided to get out and try to locate another new trail I read about.

 

I found the road but unfortunately couldn’t access the trail itself because the access road was so overgrown with brush and downed trees.

 

Fail.

 

So, as a backup, I decided to head over to the Hamilton Cove Preserve to check out the Benny’s Mountain trail I hadn’t hiked the last time I was there.

 

Fail number two as that trail was also overgrown so much it was completely impassable.

 

On to my second backup and trusted standby of Quoddy Head State Park. There I managed to salvage the day with a decent hike (hiking is always decent there) and some pictures of several interesting rock stacks out at Green Point.

 

Transformer Rock Face

 

 

Now, is it just me, or does this kind of look like the face of a Transformer? [o_O]

 

 

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Hell, try as many times as you need to!

 

 

Until next time….

 

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~A.M.

New Trail…Meh…

This past week I hiked yet another new trail.   I have mixed reactions about this one.

It was called the Ridge Trail in the Bog Brook Cove Preserve along the Cutler coast.  An 1100ft handicapped accessible “trail” takes you from the parking lot out to a little ocean overlook (there’s also a small trail from this point that can take you down to the beach which was awesome).

Off to the left, before reaching the beach was the Ridge Trail.  The trail splits in two directions to either take you up a small ridge (hence the name “Ridge Trail”), or around the base if you’re not feeling a climb.  I went up the ridge and the views were pretty awesome.  Definitely worth the climb in my opinion.

Ridge View Panorama

After descending the other side of the ridge, I decided to check out the remainder of the trail (which was a little over two miles round trip).  That’s where I started to dislike the hike.

It was another hot day, though by the water and on top of the ridge there was a nice cool breeze, but further along the trail, into the woods, the breeze disappeared and the horseflies and mosquitoes took its place.  Plus, there were several downed trees across the trail that I had to try and climb over/under in order to continue.  At one point, there were several trees down in a row and I said “screw it” and turned back.

I headed back to the beach and luckily the tide was on its way out so I was able to climb out on some rocks and have lunch.  While in the midst of my lunch, I noticed something odd in the trees.  It looked like a chimney but there was no house.  After I was done my lunch, I went to investigate and found that it was indeed a chimney (probably the reason they call the second trail in this spot the “Chimney Trail”).

Old Chimney

I’m definitely putting these trails on my list of places to go back to in the fall when it starts to cool off and the bugs take a hike (so to speak).  I think I’ll like it a lot better if the air is cooler and I can move five feet without twenty mosquitoes biting me in spite of all the bug spray I wear.

Until next time….

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~A.M.