The Penultimate Day: Belfast, ME and South Portland, ME August 23

That's toast, not chocolate -
she likes it that way.

Hello everyone! We woke up outside Belfast, Maine, and then drove into town after having breakfast at the hotel (see above). Belfast was neat. We walked around for several hours and discovered lots of things:

Belfast has a project-sort-of-thing called Please Be Seated, where (we gathered) local artists design benches and chairs for the public. Zola greatly enjoyed this.

We visited a lot of local stores (like a cheese shop, a candy store, a shoe store - which happened to be the oldest shoe store in America - and an underwear store, out of which it took much persuasion to get Mom and Zola) and then ate lunch (pancakes!) at a diner. We decided to go to the historical society's museum and then get ice cream.

The museum was great (pictures below). I'm not a baseball person, but we found this interesting: Belfast is where now-common wording "at bat... on deck... in the hole" originated. Pictures below.

There was also a vintage sign that said "There are many literary girls in Belfast." I was inclined to agree, seeing as we'd passed six bookstores in town. Other artifacts include several ship models, portraits, and quick biographies of Belfasters of years past.

We got ice cream (which sounds a lot more concise than it was - it was actually a minor ordeal including the dumping of Zola's cone) and then drove to South Portland after discovering a dead bug adhering to the van's antenna. Zola decided to name it Mack.There were already a lot of dead bugs that had been killed on the front of our roof bag, but they were mostly gnats, and this was like half a dragonfly. 

Ahem.

South Portland, a separate city from Portland, was also neat. We went with our awesome friends and hosts, Patti and Susan (and their dog Mackworth) to a park with a lighthouse. Or maybe it was a lighthouse with a park. We played with Mackworth and some other dogs that showed up, and enjoyed the watery scenery. (We couldn't enjoy the water itself because it was edged by huge rock chunks, off which it is easy to fall and die, so they were fenced off.) 

Anyway, then we returned for dinner and cookies and chocolate. It was a nice relaxing end to the day, especially since it preceded a full day of driving. Dad will probably post about that, since he was the one who did the actual driving. Meanwhile, pictures!

Scenes from Belfast, ME

Fun Handel reference

The fine line between "cool" and "eerie"

A fun but not very well explained knot-tying board

Belfast

Historic bank building

Mack our traveling companion

Belfast Harbor

Judging by the six bookstores, I'd say this is accurate.

The museum

Ice cream time

Scenes from South Portland, ME

Looking across the water and
at seagulls in S. Portland

See previous caption

This is like using the microscopes in Bio - they'd
always be focused weird after somebody
without glasses used them.

Dad and his friend Patti (the mayor!)

Zola and Mack (the dog, not the bug)

Not sure what Grace is doing here

Yuckin' it up like in old times

Corn on the cob, Maine style

Susan, Patti, and Mackworth - Thanks!