Bezabor: (writing from Ocean Park, Maine) I'm starting to lose track of time already. We spent Thursday the 8th at Ogunquit, Maine. We saw a sobering exhibition of World War II press photographs at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and walked the 'Marginal Way', a coastline trail, to Perkins Cove where we had a sunset dinner at an outdoors table at 'Jackie's Too' restaurant. We couldn't decide whether to spend the night back at the Walmart at Portsmouth which we knew to allow overnighting or take a chance on the one at Sanford which was a little closer. At that point I remembered that I had purposefully bought the 'Plus' version of Delorme Street Atlas because it has a database of phone numbers-- and sure enough the number for the Sanford Walmart was easy to find. A quickie call to them and we learned we were indeed welcome to stay the night parked near the Lawn and Garden section. But just a few blocks later we saw a sign advertising campsites for $12 per night so we took that option and it worked well.... we didn't have to drive the 15 miles or so out to Sanford only to have to come back to the Ogunquit area the next day so that was worth it to stay at Elmere Campground.

We spent Friday morning at the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge and the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm in Wells, Maine. We took a pleasant walk along the interpretive trail at the Refuge and a longer walk of a little over three miles at Laudholm Farm. After a relaxing lunch in their parking lot, we got back on the road and slowly toured Biddeford Pool, then stopped at the Biddeford boat launch to check out the Saco River. The launch ramp parking area only had a few cars but included a young fellow sunning himself in a wheelchair and two bicyclists taking turns taking pictures of each other passing the photogenic harbor area. One would lie on the ground while the other would pass in front of the harbor background time after time, slowly circling around behind, then standing in the pedals and putting on a racing pose as he passed in front of the photogenic background. Then they'd switch off and the other guy would be the star.

We went on to Ocean Park and realized we were too early to meet with Labashi's high-school friend who lives there so we slowly toured the area and found Ferry Landing State Park. We walked the Tupelo and White-Oak trails and learned about the Tupelo or black gum tree. This stand is the furthest-north stand of this tree. We were happy to have no mosquitoes in this area -- we had run into more than a few of them at Wells. We walked down to the beach and saw the long white strand was virtually empty--- only a few people far in the distance-- and on such a beautiful day.

We met up with our friend and she invited us to dinner at Huot's Restaurant where she said the haddock was the best ever. So we had haddock and scallops for dinner and then later took a drive for ice cream. It's a tough life but somebody's gotta do it!