On Top of the World

The beauties of the surroundings of my new home are absolutely breathtaking.  Here in South Portland, it’s the architecture of the cape-style homes, in Portland, the history behind the brick buildings and cobblestone roads.  As I travel beyond the city, it’s the plant life, not just the abundance and varieties, but the shear heights of these trees are incredible!

With this much outdoor beauty so close at hand, it’s hard to believe it’s taken my husband and I this long to finally do a day hike.  Really, we had to find a pet sitter for the dogs and I was a bit leery about letting a total stranger come into my home and play with my pups.  Thankfully, we’ve found an amazing lady with a passion for animals just a few short blocks from us.  We knew she was the perfect fit when she walked thru the door and Lulu didn’t bark at all!  Any who, with the dogs taken care of, we planned a day hike and fully executed it yesterday.  Here’s how it went down.

To start, my husband had a late ballgame Wednesday night which pushed our wake-up time back an hour.  Of course, it took us a good three attempts to get out of the apartment with everything we needed.  We had to stop for gas and Ananias’s didn’t have any breakfast sandwiches prepared so I had to wait for those.  We took off for our hike at 10:30am, MUCH later than planned.  For those of you who’ve hiked the Rockies, you know that this hike would not be happening.  With the sudden change in weather on the mountains, the thin air, and the difficult level of the trails, this late start time would have been the perfect recipe for disaster.  Thankfully, my husband and I were driving to the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire where the distance between sea level and mountain summit are much smaller in comparison and alleviates oxygen deprivation.  There’s also much less threat of erratic weather.  As for the terrain, I would say it’s very comparable, at least if I base it on the soreness I feel today.

Though we got a little turned around a couple of times (thanks Siri), we made it to Piper Trailhead by noon and began the 4 1/2 mile hike to summit Mt. Chocorua.  Now I have to preface this with the fact that by the time we arrived, we had changed our plans and weren’t going to summit.  We ran into another couple about our age at the bottom and the guy told us this was at least a 10-hour hike, top to bottom.  This caused us some worry, as there was no way I was hiking this at night.  We had decided to hike to a lookout about 2 1/2 miles up and then head back.  This is where I get to brag on us a little.

My husband said we needed to, “Book it,” meaning go super fast which is much easier for him with his long, Nairobi legs than me with my Miss Piggy legs.  Either way, I did my best to keep up and we hiked the crap out of that mountain!  From parking lot to summit, we made it in 2 1/2 hours!  And the views were totally worth it.

The descent was a little scary as it is much easier to climb up rocks than down them and apparently in my older age, I’m becoming less than thrilled with heights.  Fatigue had begun to set in our legs which we hadn’t realized until we stood up after enjoying our mountain top view.  It also didn’t help that on our way up, rather than stay on the path, we crawled wherever we wanted to make it to the top.  This caused for a bit of confusion on the way down and thankfully with the help of a couple of nice and well-informed hikers, we found our trail to get back down.  At this point, we were hungry, thirsty, and tired and still had 4 1/2 miles to go.  No worries, though.  We blazed that trail making it back to our car in under an hour and 20 minutes.  We even ran the last 2 miles of the trail!

The drive back to South Portland went much smoother as we didn’t get lost and were able to reflect on our day over some much needed water and snacks.  Back home, we enjoyed some great bar food and drinks at Gritty McDuff’s Brewpub in Old Port.  Tonight’s agenda includes a four-course dinner at raved restaurant Bar Lola in Portland’s East End followed by tickets to see La Boheme at Merrill Auditorium.  Just another day in paradise!

Dog-a-palooza

If you’re a dog-lover, you’re going to appreciate this post.  If not, you’re missing out.

One of the things that brought us to Maine was the dog-friendly atmosphere.  We have two medium sized dogs who we consider our children.  No, we don’t dress them up or carry them around in my purse, but we speak to them like tiny humans.  Of course, they respond to certain phrases.  Lulu does what we call the “Dinner Dance” when I ask if she’s “so hungry.”  Winslow howls when I ask if he wants to go on a car ride or for a walk.  They both go nuts when I ask who wants a treat.  Back home, the two joined my husband and I every Sunday while we went grocery shopping, waiting patiently in the back seat for two hours while we traveled from store to store for the best deals.  Yes, we love them and consider them our family with tails.

When we chose this apartment back in March, one of the biggest draws to it was that it is located about 50 yards from the Greenbelt Walkway.  This paved trail runs in one direction to Bug Light Park and the opposite into Portland.  Of course, there are trails that spawn off of it creating a never-ending series of walks/runs for my husband and the dogs.  Since we don’t have a yard that the dogs can run freely in, it was important for us to find an easy way to exercise the dogs each day and thus far, they love it.  We leash up at least once a day, usually in the morning, and make the 1 1/2 mile trek to Bug Light where Lulu swims and Winslow smells, then we head back home.  It’s a perfect 3 mile walk with something for everyone.

There are several other dog-friendly beaches, but summer rules allow dogs only during certain times due to the influx of tourists.  Last night, we decided to take our babies to “our” beach where they could run on the sand and play with other dogs.  Willard Beach is located about 1 1/2 miles from our apartment as well, just slightly south of Bug Light and off the campus of Southern Maine Community College, SMCC.  My husband discovered this beach while I was interviewing our first week here and it has been “our” beach ever since.  It’s small and somewhat hidden, certainly a beautiful gem within walking distance.  When we arrived, we could hear barking and people calling out to their pups, but I was overwhelmed when I caught my first glimpse of the beach.  There were dogs everywhere!

It made me a little nervous at first because Lulu can sometimes bark at other dogs which automatically makes others think she’s aggressive, however, once she’s near water, it’s the only thing she can focus on.  She took off like a crazy lady running straight into the water, splashing, barking, just going nuts!  Winslow, in typical fashion, trotted down the stairs and immediately began sniffing every dog he could see.  We found a spot, got out Lulu’s stick and her ADHD kicked in.  She swam non-stop for almost 2 hours!  My husband took plenty of pictures, I got soaked trying to steal the stick from Lulu and every other dog that fetched it.  We coined Winslow “The Creeper” as his instinct to smell dog butts is much greater than his instinct to swim.  The people were all very nice and eager to share their dogs toys.  I found myself smiling and giggling like a dingdong at all the fun everyone, dogs and owners alike, were having.  All this fun while enjoying the sand and Atlantic with the beautiful backdrop of sailboats and another lighthouse.  Everyone had a great time and was thoroughly worn out by the time we got home.

This morning, as I began writing this post, I found the evidence of last night’s adventure.  So far, I would have to say that the bigger the mess we bring home, the more fun we had.  Well, I swept up a pile of sand, and laughed while doing it.  Yep, it was that much fun!

Here are some pictures of Lulu doing her best to pull me in the water with her.

Willard Beach at Sunset

Disclaimer:  All these pictures were taken by my wonderful husband.