Change in plans

We made a last minute change in travel plans,  to skip a swing by our home in Georgia and head straight for Williams, Arizona and the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim attempt. After comparing distances and travel opportunities, it will actually save us about 400 miles total and the change will allow us to visit the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma.

We are spending more time in Connecticut visiting the Philbins then will be heading to Oklahoma for a couple of days at the Native American sites, then on to Williams.

Monday

After spending most of our time on East Side Acadia we decided to take a drive to West Side Acadia, directly across Somes Sound.  This would be our last day on Mount Desert Island.

Our first stop was at Bass Harbor Head Light, at the very tip of the isthmus.  We walked through Bass Harbor then headed across the harbor to the Bernard area. After walking the docks and talking with a couple of lobster truck employees waiting for the boats to get back, we headed to a restaurant that we enjoyed with Michelle and Michael several years ago when we attended Michelle’s graduation.  It was still there and we had an early lunch.

This facility is still manned, with the attendants living on site.

Here are a  couple of views of the harbor at Bernard.

Cathy is standing with the lobster traps piled on the dock.  The lobster boats return anywhere from early morning to about 5:00 PM, and the refrigerated trucks wait on the dock for the duration to purchase the catch and distribute to the restaurants.

This is where Marshall Brook enters the harbor at Tremont.  The tide is outgoing at this time and the current is clearly visible in the next photo.

Continuing on, we stopped at the Big Heath marsh area.  The fog is lifting in the hills in the background.  There were several great blue heron working this stretch of water.

This guy was very busy birdogging something in the water and allowed me to get pretty close.  He looked at me then went immediately back to what he was watching.  He moved in a very deliberate slow motion.

Below is another view of the Big Heath marsh.  The area was gorgeous, especially with the fog in the background.

Southwest Harbor, our last stop on the way back to Bar Harbor,  is home to a fleet of power and sail boats and several large yachts.

On our way back to Bar Harbor, we passed by Eagle Lake.  There is a small marsh area on one side of the road and the lake is on the other side.  Cathy spotted a very large turtle starting across the very busy Eagle Lake Road.  I missed it but quickly turned around, parked the truck in the lane with the hazard lights on and walked with the 18″ snapper across the lanes of traffic to ensure that he would not be squished.  The other vehicles all cooperated and waited patiently.  I was not about to pick him up as I value my fingers.

We intended to use the Bar Harbor library for WiFi, found a great parking space right across the street and, yes, it was too good to be true.  The library is closed on Mondays. Since the city was missing the typical weekend and cruise ship crowds, we decided to walk areas of the town that we have not previously been to.   It was an entirely different city.

Tuesday

Travel day, from Maine, through Massachusetts and into Connecticut.

Wednesday

We started the day in the town of Willington.  Willington was founded in 1720 when a group of eight men from England purchased 16,000 acres in this regions and called it Wellington.  One of these men, Rodger Wolcot eventually became Governor of Connecticut from 1750 – 1754.

The town continued to grow and by 1845 boasted a thread mill, a cotton mill, three silk factories, a scythe factory, several comb factories and a button mill.  I admit that I had to look up what a “scythe” was.  It was an agricultural hand tool used for mowing grass or reaping crops and is still being used in some parts of Europe and Asia.

Closer to my heart, it was also home to the Willington Glass Works (1815- 1871), which produced various flasks, base embossed spirits bottles, demijohns and cathedral style pickle jars, including three sizes in an amber coloration which are more than extremely rare.  We have several of the Willington spirits bottles, have owned Willington flasks and have seen the three different amber pickles.  While attending the first ever public auction by the Heckler Auction Company many years ago in nearby Ashford,  I was lucky enough to find and explore the original grounds of the glass works and brought home several pieces of slag, which I still have.

This is the heart of Willington.  These homes surround the town square.

One of the 1700s era homes near the square.

Cathy is looking at the honor roll, a listing of the veterans of Willington, at the church on the square.

After walking the town square, we headed for the library, where we saw a notice the day before that there would be a book sale today.  Yes, we picked up two large bags of books for the princely sum of $8.

Next, we met Dana and accompanied her to pick up Graham from school.  After school we headed for a local farm co-op that Dana is a member of and Dana picked up her allotment of vegetables.  Meanwhile Graham spent the time feeding the fish and letting the fish tickle his fingers.  We went back to the school to pick up Mackenzie then headed for the Rails to Trails at the Hop River Linear Trail State Park.  The trail system runs through Manchester, Vernon, Bolton, Coventry, Andover, Columbia and Willamantic.  We walked part of the trail and I explored the track bed searching for date nails and insulators but ended the day with a goose egg.  We did manage to cover some distance before turning around.  Graham and Mackenzie convinced us to give them a ride back to the truck.

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From the park we headed into town for dinner.  It was Dana’s anniversary but Jason was working at an Elton John event so we went with Dana and the kids to a local mexican restaurant.  After dinner and back in Tolland, Cathy ended the evening reading “The Toy Story” and “Peter Pan” to Graham and Mackenzie.

We said our good-byes and headed back to camp, dodging possums, turkeys and deer.

In the morning we will be heading through New York and into Pennsylvania.