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Where’s Waldo?

by Brian on September 2, 2010 in Maine

Neither too big, nor too small, Portland’s Museum of Art is just the right size to tackle in an afternoon. While its collection of 42,000 objects is 50 times smaller than New York’s exhaustingly large Met, we found the quality to be superb. And not just from an artistic mastery perspective. Yes, many of the giants, including Monet, Picasso, Degas, and Rodin, are represented in the small collection. But, more importantly, we found the museum to be densely populated with interesting subject mater. Maybe we were just in the right mood for a museum that day, but it seemed this museum had a higher than normal concentration of works that we wanted to linger over.

The Running of the Bulls (above) is just one example. The painting first captured my attention because I liked the depiction. I admit, I’m the kind of person who roots for the bull in a bull fight. I take a perverse pleasure in seeing people who torture and torment animals get gored. It is a decidedly deserved rough justice that occurs far too infrequently. So I stopped to admire these bulls ripping one such jerk a new one.

It was Shannon who noticed that the artist is Waldo Peirce, a good friend and traveling companion to Ernest Hemmingway. The two men traveled to Pamplona, Spain, on one of their inaugural trips. In what is likely the first ever “Where’s Waldo” illustration, Peirce painted himself and Hemmingway into the crowd. You can see Hemmingway, in the upper left of the canvas, directing Peirce’s attention to the carnage of the main event.

Art is fun. Class dismissed.

Ohh-gunquit

by Brian on September 1, 2010 in Maine

It was a rookie mistake; heading to a popular beach destination late on a summer Sunday morning. If we had planned better, or given ourselves more time in the area, we would have come here during the week. But we didn’t. And by 10:30 A.M., we were lucky to grab one of the last remaining parking spots anywhere in Ogunquit, ME.

A cloudless, ninety-plus degree day, on one of summer’s last weekends, brought out the crowds. Fortunately, we had already eaten and didn’t have to bother with the many lines gathering on the sidewalk in front of places like The Egg & I. We also didn’t plan to fight for real-estate on the three and a half mile beach that virtually disappeared beneath the hordes. No, we were here to simply walk the town and its “Marginal Way” coastal trail. And that was enough.

I can see Oqunquit’s attraction as a weekend getaway, with plenty of great looking beach resorts, restaurants, shops, and even a quality art museum. The rugged coastal scenery along the Marginal Way puts Newport’s Cliff Walk to shame. It’s a beautiful area and there is certainly enough to do here for a couple of relaxing days . . . starting immediately after Labor Day.

Masterpiece

by Brian on August 31, 2010 in Food & Drink, Maine

I can’t deny that her answer wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. But I had asked the question for a reason, and I was determined to see it through. We stopped at Congdon’s Doughnuts in Wells, Maine, on a whim and I had just asked our cashier, Rebecca, for their best doughnut. Her response: jelly. With options like chocolate crunch and blueberry filled, how can jelly be the answer to that question? A jelly doughnut is so ordinary, so typical, and not usually my first choice. But she was the expert, or at least more expert than me in all things Congdon’s, so who was I to question her wisdom? Jelly it was.

I could tell the pastry was going to be terrific the moment I plucked it from the bag. It was plump, and pillowy, and almost impossibly fresh. Just the feel of it in my hand was something to be admired. A bite confirmed my suspicion. Holy crap these are good doughnuts. The fresh raspberry preserves still contained lumps of fruit and had just the right sweetness to complement the sugar dusted cake. Too often jelly doughnuts are sweet enough to induce diabetes, but not Congdon’s, theirs are perfectly balanced. Somehow they’ve managed to raise the simple jelly doughnut to a form of high art, a masterpiece. Thank you Rebecca!

When we’re lucky we happen upon places like this. Little, nothing-looking, road-side establishments that turn out to be memorable gems. We found out later, though, that many others have discovered Congdon’s before us. This mere doughnut shop is listed by Trip Advisor as the sixth best restaurant in all of Wells. If anything, it is probably ranked too low.

Wanderlust

by Brian on August 30, 2010 in Travel

I’ve been told that traveling in a motor home fulltime is an old-fart kind of thing to do. So it stands to reason that I’d also read AARP magazine. Well, I don’t, normally, but I did happen upon this month’s issue and was intrigued by their article “Paradise Found: Ten Best Places to Retire Abroad.” It’s a good list representing both traditional Latin American destinations and less traditional European ones. They surprisingly skip Asia completely, but it is always easy to nitpick a “best of” list, so I won’t.

Having just set out on our North American travels, we’re not looking to settle down at the moment, either abroad or anywhere else for that matter. But we do like the idea of living overseas someday for long enough to become locals: to learn the language, the culture, and the traditions. A year in any, or each, of these places would be fantastic.

I have to admit that reading this article stoked a desire to pick up and rent an apartment in Languedoc-Roussillon, France, which is funny considering we just picked up and bought an RV to travel in. And that reminded me of Shannon’s comment asking whether it is possible to have wanderlust while traveling. I know, for my part, it certainly is. Not wanderlust born of a “grass is always greener” kind of thinking, but rather from the simple recognition that there is so much to do and such a short time in which to do it. Visiting one destination necessarily means foregoing, or at least postponing, another. If one were to spend even a single year in each of the places suggested by the AARP article it would consume an entire decade. And as much as we’d love to do just that, we’d cover just ten places on three continents after all of that time. There is simply too much ground to cover.

So even as we travel we dream of other, more distant places we hope to visit one day, knowing full well that we can’t possibly get everywhere. It is both a curse and a great blessing. For as sad as it is to think of the places we’ll never get to, how much sadder still it would be to have already visited them all.

Whiteface Mountain

by Brian on August 27, 2010 in New York

A stop in Lake Placid isn’t complete without seeing the lake from above. It’s an 11 mile hike to the top of Whiteface Mountain, but why hike when you can drive? Although one might expect that some of the proceeds from the $16 admission to the toll road ($10 for car and driver and $6 for each additional passenger) are used for occasional road maintenance, mostly what they seem to be invested in is “Rough Road Next 4 miles” signs. So don’t expect a smooth ride, but it’s still worth the trip.

The road ends just shy of the apex, at a parking lot and “Whiteface Mountain Castle.” Built with the granite excavated during construction of the toll road, the castle now houses a café and rest rooms. From there you can reach the summit by two distinct routes: the quarter mile “Stairway Ridge Trail” or an elevator through the center of the mountain. Each has its merits, so plan on doing both. We hiked up the “Ridge Trail,” which winds directly up the north slope of the mountain, mostly over boulders but occasional steps as well. It’s a neat hike with excellent views the whole way.

The top of Whiteface provides stunning 360 degree views of the Adirondacks. On a clear day they say you can see all the way to Canada. After our descent, we heard you can even see the dome of St. Josephs in Montreal, which would have nicely linked our last destination with this one. But alas, we didn’t know, and didn’t look (and are somewhat dubious, anyway).

For the trip down we rode the elevator, which is an entirely different experience. It descends 276 vertical feet through solid rock, ending in a 424 foot tunnel back out to the parking lot. The tunnel stays naturally cool given the superb insulation of the mountain. On our trip through it was a chilly 40ish degrees. But just as the chill began to set in we emerged on the other side; out of the cold and the darkness and back to the sun dappled vista of the Adirondack Mountains.