Where To Now?

We spent Friday morning wandering around North Haven. After a hearty breakfast at Nebo, we headed back out to Turner Farm, where they'd let us know that we could walk out to the beach from the parking area near the barn where we'd had dinner. This was a great place to see the Goose Rock Lighthouse, #42 on our trip. We also stopped at the farm stand, which wasn't open the night before, and I picked up some maple cranberry granola and a handful of beets.  We wandered around the island, enjoying the beautiful views, before heading back to the ferry. After claiming our reserved spot (no worries about not making it on this time), we checked in at the office and then wandered on. We scoped out the options at The Landing, but didn't find anything we really needed, and then headed over to Hopkins Wharf Gallery, a little gift shop and art gallery a couple of doors down. I was particularly in love with the paintings of Amy Peters Wood . I decided to stay in the car with Kef when

We left our cute little cottage near Bar Harbor Thursday morning, headed back toward Rockland. It was a scorcher of a day by Maine standards. When we got to Rockland, we got in line for the ferry to North Haven and left the car there in the standby line in hopes of being able to take it over with us to the island. Then we walked over to Home Kitchen Cafe for some brunch. It was very hot inside, with no air conditioning and no breeze. But we did our best to enjoy our food... although mine was SO MUCH! They have their own bakery, so we decided to share a pecan sticky bun just to try it out, and I ordered the sausage gravy and biscuits to try their biscuits too. My plate was also piled high with potatoes... too much! But all of it was very good, and I chose an iced coffee to go with it because it was just too hot for hot coffee. By the time we left, I was putting ice down my shirt and on my head to cool myself down.  We had plenty of time before the ferry, but instead of wandering further

It's still hard to fathom that I've been living this life for 50 years! I'm still a kid, you know.  Today started early with birthday gifts in bed. Kef gave me a beautiful necklace that a friend's niece made, a canvas photo of us as little kids, a book of New York Times front pages from my birthdate, and the poster that I lost on eBay... the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum that my aunt Melinda designed! After opening these priceless things and having a cup of coffee out on the water, we called Mom and Dad (giving them time to wake up in Central time) and had a great surprise moment with a box that exploded with butterflies and flowers, complete with a carrot cake in the middle. I opened the final card of the last 50 days of amazing memories that Mom and Dad have been sending, and set aside their gift card for something special.  Today's agenda was left up to me, so we did what we do: breakfast, lighthouses, wandering around. Kef had scoped out a breakfast place ca

Tuesday we set out on a "lighthouse crawl" that took us from Port Clyde to Bar Harbor! Let's get right to the rundown: 31. Indian Island Light - this one was visible through binoculars from Rockport Marine Park. You could just barely see the lighthouse portion peaking up between the trees, but it still counts! As interesting in this little park was the old lime kilns that were once used to create, obviously, lime. A little railway, plus the harbor there, made for a perfect system for distribution. 32. Curtis Island Light - We parked at a little pull-off in a residential neighborhood, where there was an overlook that got us pretty darn close to Curtis Island Light. It was established in 1838. Many of these lighthouses we saw today are at points all over Penobscot Bay, which is huge. Got a little better at my binocular/cellphone shots today! 33. Grindle Point Light - We saw this one through binoculars too... from Lincolnville Beach. I first caught a glimpse of it from the f

Monday was a spectacular (and spectacularly tiring) day! We boarded the ferry to Monheagn Island first thing, and I made sure not to eat anything so I wouldn't toss my cookies (or coffee or breakfast) into the sea or onto Kef's lap. I practiced dad's mantra of picking a spot on the horizon and focusing on it, and that really worked. Plus, we were on the top deck in the fresh, open air. The card Kef presented to me that morning promised a shipwreck and a lighthouse, and so I was ready to go find them as soon as we got there. But first: food. We stopped at The Fish House first thing and sat near the water to eat our crab roll, clam chowder, lobster bisque, and fish tacos. All were excellent, but Kef said the lobster bisque was the best she'd ever had! We set out to find the restrooms before further hiking. This is an all-walking island, for the most part, so we were on foot for the entirety. We then split up for a little while as Kef wanted to look in some of the gallerie

A two-days-in-one this morning as I try to get caught up. I was so exhausted the last couple of nights I couldn't see my way to writing a blog post! So trying to fit one in really quickly while Kef is in the shower. On Sunday, we hit all the Portland lighthouses! A couple I'd seen before with Trudy, and others were new. Continuing the numbers: 19. and 20. Cape Elizabeth lights... a pair that are not particularly close to each other like the last pair was. One is decommissioned and privately owned, the other is still a lighthouse. We got some great pics by sneaking up into the neighborhood, rather than just the designated public access. I say if you don't want people slowing down and stopping to take a pic of your house/lighthouse, don't buy a lighthouse! haha 21. Portland Head Light - this is probably one of the most accessible, most iconic lighthouses we've seen here. It's gorgeous! 22. Ram Island Ledge Light - this one is off the coast, seen through binoculars

Well, maybe not a million, but almost. Yesterday was the first full day of my fabulous 50th birthday trip, and we saw 18 lighthouses. Today we saw eight! After yesterday's breakfast in Wentworth, we made our way to the first set of lighthouses, each marked in order in the Lighthouses of New England guidebook that Kef gave me. Technically, the first one we saw was the night before... the Isles of Shoals light, which we saw at night as it rhythmically lit the sky slightly southeast of our bnb. Then we saw: 2. Portsmouth Harbor Light - under construction to repair damage from winter storms, so we saw it from afar. 3. Whaleback Light - we saw this from a couple of different viewpoints... one was the same park where we saw Portsmouth, and the other was a viewpoint from a state park a couple of miles down the road. 4. Cape Neddick Light (aka Nubble) - we were able to get pretty close to this one! 5. Boon Island Light - this one we saw from the same place as Cape Neddick, only through bi

Yesterday at about 1:30, Luke came into my office, handed me a card, and told me to leave. Now. I opened the card, which said: It’s time to go home | You must prepare | You’re starting an adventure | But who knows where? I wasn't ready, but I rushed my way through the last couple of things and exited the premises. I still had to run a couple of errands, including getting more fish for Maya... and I hadn't even begun to pack so I wasn't sure what Kef was thinking asking Luke to kick me out. When I got home just before 2:00, Kef was standing in my kitchen, starting on dishes. Because I thought we weren't leaving until Saturday, I hadn't done any of my last-minute things yet. I still felt like I needed to do at least one more load of laundry, I hadn't done dishes, or cleaned up piles, or taken out the trash, or even begun to pack. But Kef said I had one hour to be ready before Cindy would come to take charge of Maya. And we had to be on the road by 3:30. Needless

Yesterday and today, we spent our time wandering Newberry and Spartanburg Counties in order to try to see where our folks lived. During a visit to the Newberry Library local history room, we came across a description of the Cappleman land in an equity filing that said it was along Cannon Creek. The 1810 and 1825 maps of the area each had a pinpoint that said Cappleman's Hill and Cappleman respectively. With those tidbits of information, we were able to deduce the present-day location of this land... which is currently under development to be the future home of First Baptist Church Newberry! We also visited the Newberry Museum, where we learned about the history of the area and looked through the exhibits to try to find names we recognized. The only one that caught my eye was Senn, the family who donated a large cupboard that was right beside the elevator. Elizabeth Senn was my 5th great grandmother, wife of Heinrich Boozer (their daughter married a Cappleman, and the lineage goes d

How is it that a map can show a populated place called Cappleman in the vicinity of where you expect your Capplemans to be living, but there are no records of deeds in their name? Ah, a mystery. But I'm getting ahead of myself. A followup on yesterday's task: finding the current location of what was once Ulrich Boozer's land. Sadly, there are multiple industrial complexes currently on that land, including a power station. Soooo... we won't be able to stand on that little piece of ancestral land. Today's search took us to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History , where we dove into deed and will abstracts, then culled microfilms for scans of the original documents in their fullness. My goal was to locate the land of Francis Mason (my 4th great grandfather), and therefore that of his son James Mason as well. They moved to Spartanburg from Virginia after the Revolution, so they didn't have original land grants but rather purchased from those who did.

We slept in a little bit this morning and had brunch at the appropriately named Curiosity Coffee Bar, a highly-rated little place just a couple of blocks from the White Rabbit (our Alice-in-Wonderland-themed bnb). Curiouser and curiouser, we spent the rest of the day at the South Carolina State Library.  The library staff were quite accommodating of our multiple requests from the stacks (I don't have a pic of the big pile of books we left behind at the end of the day).  The things we're curious about make some people (Kef and Dad specifically) shake their heads. Today's finds included a listing of early settlers to South Carolina, among which was my 5 greats grandfather Samuel McGill, described among the "poor protestants lately arrived from Ireland on the encouragement of the Bounty given by this Province." His age was listed as 23, and he was granted that bounty of 100 acres. Although we knew he was born in Ireland, we didn't know what year. So this 1766 lis

Well clearly I fell down on the job regarding blogging the Maui trip. My only excuse is I didn't take my laptop and it's really annoying to blog on a tablet.  But on to the next thing. This week is my trip with mom to South Carolina to stalk dead people. We moved it up to spring this year instead of fall for myriad reasons. So far, we're off to a bit of a slow start, as mom's flights were delayed and I'm just killing time in a Starbuck's outside Charlotte waiting for her to land. Not all bad, though, as it gave me some time to wander a bit. Primarily, I looked for scenic views, and was rewarded with a brief section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have to say that the drive through Virginia, in particular the Shenandoah Valley, is one of my absolute favorites. I suppose it's fitting that I would choose this particular lookout as my destination as the sign explains how our folks ended up coming through here...they were among the Scotch-Irish pioneers referenced h