Home Again

The kids and i just returned from an almost two week vacation at the beach in Maine. We lucked out and had great weather most of the time, so we all have savage tans - even with the SPF 30 slathered on every day.

We've been going to the same beach for all our lives - my great grandmother used to live there - so many generations. Luckily, the beach changes very slowly. It's about 3 miles long and only residential and a couple of bed and breakfasts and one "corner store". The water was unseasonably warm - sometimes up to 78! I went in several times and played and rode waves one day. Most of the time, though, i walked the beach - combing for specific shells and sand dollars.

On Summer Solstice, we went on a whale watch. Cool! I will download my pictures soon - and hopefully one will come out. After about two hours out to sea, we saw Minke, Finback and Humpback whales. The finback were large and i caught a couple of pictures of the fin. We saw one, then another. We went a little further in another direction and all of the sudden we were in whale city! Minkes on one side, 2 finbacks in our wake, and a couple more up front and then a couple of humpbacks. Very cool. We got to see the humpback tails flip up before they dove deep...but unfortunately, i took the picture of the shy one that didn't do the tail flip before diving. Later that evening, i took my new native flute out to the beach by the ocean and played for awhile as the sun set. The sky was one of the most beautiful i had ever seen - with layers of colors, pink, blues, and purples.

The flight home was a bit dicey, as we were traveling for over 12 hours...Because of bad weather in DC. We sat on the tarmac there for over 2 1/2 hours - and i was so pleased that the boys were so well behaved - and relatively no complaining!

Now, it's back in Atlanta - and we're looking forward to a nice, long weekend with free concerts and fireworks on Tuesday.