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Trenton, Maine
Half of the ring lies here with me but the other half's at the bottom of the sea
A lot to complain about at the Hancock County Bar Harbor Regional Airport in Maine. There are only eight other people on my flight today (it’s a really small plane to Boston) and already one of them is trying to travel with no identification (and it looks like they're going to let her go), another woman wants her bags checked through to her next flight but has no information at all about it (doesn't know the flight number) and there's a fog around the airport that "might be lifting soon" as no one seems to be in a rush to get out.
Of course I don’t mind if the fog doesn’t lift soon and I get to, um, I mean have to stay a little longer in Bar Harbor, in Acadia National Park, in Maine.
Remembering my time in Acadia National Park and on the Perpendicular Trail, an otherwise all stone stair trail that goes from the shores of Long Pond and then right up Mansell Mountain. The summit of Mansell (Western) Mountain is a wooded non event, but the trails on either side (the Perpendicular Trail up and the Razorback Trail down) make it worth the trip.
It was cold (50 degrees or so) and rainy in Maine, but between the heavy thunderstorms this morning and the annoyingly steady rain that is late in the day, there was just enough time to get out, at least for a while.
I have been to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park and Maine too many times to count (i apparently can’t count very high), and have included pictures of popovers and bridges and ponds and rocks and blueberry pancakes so many times in so many slideshows that you would think I have had enough by now, but you would be wrong. Of course you could also tell me that if I love it so much there, why don’t I live there full time, and then things start to get real between us. Of course I love it, but because I do, I’d rather visit there and long for it as I leave then overstay my welcome and be bored by getting used to it. Haphazard reasoning at best, but as someone who travels as much as I humanely can afford to, it’s kind of an overarching philosophy. I’d always prefer to walk away from a place thinking I haven’t seen everything and longing to return, than to walk away knowing I’ve exhausted it with no reason to go back.
And just like that, we’re back in New York on another Open House New York boat ride. This one was called the OHNY Boat Tour Up the Hudson and it was just what it said it would be. These boat tours are narrated so that you feel like you are learning about the city, but also swing by all of the best sites so you can experience a full on New York City tourist boat experience without feeling like you’re an actual tourist. Fun.
And just like that (again), we’re back (again) on another Open House New York boat ride. This one was called the OHNY Other Islands Tour, and it started down at the South Street Seaport and went under the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, 59th Street, Triborough and Hell Gate Bridges, all the way up to Rikers Island within view of LaGuardia and CitiField, as we learned about Randalls and Roosevelt and both Brother Islands and ferry disasters and potters fields and everything in between.
We’re off the boat and in Princeton, New Jersey inside the Carl Icahn Lab building designed by Rafael Vinoly, where another architect’s work hides inside. A freestanding room or artwork or installation designed by Frank Gehry called Horse-Head Conference Room is in fact a conference room that looks like (from some angles) a giant horse head from the outside, and looks like you’re inside a giant horse head from the inside.
This is not my first trip to Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, and I’m really trying to like it but I’m just not there yet. The sculptures aren't especially good (and some are downright awful), but if you've ever wondered what Seward Johnson's folly actually looks like, here's your chance. These pictures were taken with my DSLR's 50mm fixed lens, a rare outing with a lens that almost always manages to beat expectations.
We’re staying in New Jersey and visiting Duke Farms in Hillsborough. Duke Farms is the home of a dead rich woman (Doris Duke), a piece of land twice the size of Central Park filled with walking (and bike) trails that is free for just about all to visit. The place is kind of crazy, although (generally) in a good way. From the modest horse barn to the burned out hay barn to the unfinished ruins of a mansion to a pet cemetery where a dead pet camel is buried, the place is unlike anywhere you have ever been.
If you thought I was kidding about that pet cemetery where a dead pet camel is buried, well I have some photographic proof. Doris Duke was really into pets and buried two camels, a toucan and miniature horses here, as well as a few guard dogs who each received money in her will.
