Acadia: Transplantation

Standing in the woods for an early morning bird survey, the cobwebs clinging to my face are a fairly close match to the cobwebs lingering in my head. I'm functional, yes, but never truly reach full capacity on mornings that require predawn rising. Lately, I've been amassing a sizable collection of beautiful sunrise pictures, which may surprise those who know me, but what else is there to do when confronted, stumbling and half-awake, with a gloriously dawning sky? Certainly not finding suitable words to coherently describe it. No, I pull out the camera to attempt to convey what my brain won't be able to for at least the next several hours.

The car sits by the view form my front door.

 In the last two weeks in Acadia, on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine – two weeks that, in the way of truly engrossing experiences, feel like much more – there have been several times when words have eluded me, and by no means have all been because of wee early morning cobwebs. Acadia is lovely like few other places. Driving north through Downeast Maine, even on the highway, the smell of salt and tidal mud was in the air, rich with childhood memories. Despite the middle of August, there was and is a faint chill in the wind, maturing to something much more definite when rains or fog seep in, grey and evocative. Low, rocky mountains, their summits scoured by sea wind, stretch slopes clad in boreal spruce over the short distance to meet the Atlantic in a jumble of pink granite shadowed by mist and bleached by sun. 

Ship Harbor.

A spray of herbs at the doorstep.

A 2-legged cairn fogged in at Wonderland.

Lovely indeed.