B52s and Portland

I was sorry to see the graffitti

Part of the memorial

While we were at Moosehead Lake, on one of the Chamber of Commerce days, we took a short—very short—hike to the site of a B52 crash into Elephant Peak. It was a training flight on January 24, 1963. The vertical stabilizer broke off and the plane crashed ten seconds later. There was a crew of six and three observers on board, of whom two survived. The captain parachuted successfully, landing with a broken foot; the navigator is the only person to survive an ejection without the parachute opening; he landed in the snow upright in his ejection seat. They spent a night on the mountain in five feet of snow with temperatures reaching -30° before rescuers could get to them. The site has been preserved as a tribute to the victims and each January there is a memorial service for them at that site. Possibly only 5% of the airplane remains in the area but it is a very moving experience to see those tortured pieces of metal scattered around the area. Several of the landing gear with the tires still intact even now survive, 57 years later.

Randy and part of a B52 wing

B52 debris

After this we needed sustenance so we ate at the Black Frog, a restaurant with the most creative menu I’ve ever seen. Check it out here, but a few samples are warnings such as, “When dining in the Moosehead Lake region, never assume it’s a raisin.” And under “Salad Schmallad,” “Cook's Salad: If we call it a chef's salad, he'll want more money.” They also offer pizza with just cheese for those of us “with acid reflux disease.” And my favorite, their “Top Ten Answers To The Most Frequently Asked Questions:”

1. A deer becomes a moose at age 4.
2. Yes, we are in favor of Plum Creek's proposal...you wanna fight about it?
3. The weekend after Labor Day.
4. 38 below zero with a 77 degree below wind chill.
5. 32 miles long, 300 islands and 518 miles of shoreline and 90,000 acres.
6. No.
7. That's not how you pronounce Kokadjo.
8. The second largest fresh water lake totally within the confines of one state east of the Mississippi.
9.We never close. The bar is open Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for the lonely guys whose wives or girlfriends have thrown them out.
10.Yes, you can sit on the barge in the off season but we won’t be serving you there.

So after enjoying all that Greenville and Moosehead Lake have to offer (which is, not much) we headed to Portland to visit Randy’s cousin, Sherry. But we detoured to Acadia National Park. It was a pretty nice day and we wanted to see what it was like in Bar Harbor and Acadia NP. We didn’t have time to do much other than drive the loop drive in the NP and have lunch with a seagull on Cadillac Mountain. Then a long tedious drive to Portland.

Panorama from the top of the Observatory

Randy & Sherry ordering lobster rolls

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We spent four nights in the Portland area doing touristy things like going to the most photographed lighthouse in North America (Portland Headlight in Cape Elizabeth); having the most wonderful bagels anywhere (The Scratch Bakery in South Portland, just a couple of blocks from Sherry & Joe’s home); spending the morning at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden (which only opened in 2007); and of course, having fresh Maine lobster.

A beautiful rhodedendron

Rhodedendrons are in beautiful bloom!

Another rhodedendron

And another beautiful rhodendron

And a friendly animal

Sailboats off Sherry & Joe's home

The most photographed lighthouse

Portland Observatory

Lunch with a seagull on Cadillac Mountain

Sherry & Joe's house with the overhanging rock below

Randy on an overhanging rock below Sherry's house

We also climbed the Portland Observatory, the only remaining historic maritime signal tower in the United States, used before the advent of phones to alert people not only that a ship was arriving at the port but even which ship it was (there was a catalog of the ships’ flags kept at hand for the observers).