Fall leaves

 I love New York in the fall.  Here are some pictures.  

GWB as the sun sets

The Cloisters

 Hudson River at different times of day

This tree is the last to turn 

I walk this path every day

Little visitor

My sister and her family moved last week, so she and my niece came and stayed with me for a few days.  She did remote school from my spare room, and had lunch from 12-1 every day, so I took her to the park during that time.  The first day, all the kids were really young and she was ready to leave after about 10 minutes.  But the second day, she made some friends.   

After school and work, Jill and I took her on a little walk down to the Little Red Lighthouse 

Eating breakfast before school.  

We had a fun time and maybe we will have another slumber party soon.  

RBG

 Like many people, I was very sad to hear of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  I had requested to take two days off to help my sister move, but when the move was delayed, I took one of those days to drive down to Washington DC to pay respects.  

Standing in front of the Capitol

We stood in line for about an hour and a half, but it went by very fast.  Some people were dressed like Justice Ginsburg.  

here she is lying in repose in front of the Supreme Court 

And in case you need something lighter, here is a RBG parody from SNL

Pie Night 2020

 Covid-19 did not stop Pie Night at Dominique Ansel.  

Here are a few of the pies we had that night.  This was my favorite of the savory pies -- the potato and bacon with yummy fontina cheese

Strawberry guava -- I didn't like this one very much, but thought it was very pretty

This is the passionfruit coconut pie, which was very good.  

Maine post script

 I love Edward Hopper paintings.  Here are links to his versions of the lighthouses that I posted earlier.  

Portland Head Light

and Two Lights 

Maine part 5

 After spending a few days in the east coast version of mountains, we wanted to spend some time at the beach.  I went into work one day (I go in once a week or so, always wearing a mask because we are taking this pandemic seriously in NYC), and I was telling my coworkers that I was going to Acadia for a few days and was looking for a place by the beach to go for the rest of the week.  Both of them said that they used to go to a small town called Ogunquit in Maine.  I went to my office and did a little research and by the end of the day, I had reserved a room at a little hotel in town.  

It has the feeling of typical beach town, with restaurants and T shirt stores.  We could walk from the hotel to the beach.  At the end of the street, we crossed over this little bridge over a river and at the end of the bridge was the beach.  The river was really cool for people to kayak or paddle board.  

Here's the river at lowtide.

Here's a short video at high tide:

Here's the beach in the morning.  It was a really nice beach, but I didn't get any good pictures.  

There is a cliff walk called the Marginal Way.  Here are some views from our walk, but if you look at the website there are lots of better ones. 

And that's summer 2020!

Maine part 4

 After some nice days in Bar Harbor, we drove south to go to the beach.  On the way, we stopped outside Portland and went to the two lighthouses there.  I went to these two a few years ago, but it was worth it to go back. The first one is in Cape Elizabeth and is also know as Two Lights.  There's not much to do at this stop, other than go to a little food stand and get a lobster roll, which we didn't do.  

Then we backtracked a little and went to the Portland Head Light, which is very recognizable, and for good reason.  This one, you are able to walk up to it and around it.  The first is the view as approaching from the parking lot.  

These are from the other side.  

Maine part 3

 Each night in Acadia, we would look at the map and see what trails or monuments we wanted to see the next day.  So to get ready for our last day, LT found something called Thunder Hole (and of course, I sang Thunder Road the whole time on the way there).  When we got there, we realized it was on the path during our first hike the first day, but we hadn't spent any time there.  Apparently, during high tide when the waves come in there is a loud noise.  We waited with many other people to hear the "thunder" but we didn't hear anything.  

After Thunder Hole, we went to see the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.  We had read the night before, that there were two views-- one that was easy to get to, and one that was a little more difficult.  We also read that a family in the Coast Guard lives in the home and it specifically said, "Don't knock on the doors or the windows because you might be interrupting dinner."  We got a good laugh about that. Who would do that??  

Thought this typo was quite funny

So next we walked around to the other side and definitely saw what they were talking about.  I had to walk down on the rocks in order to get these pictures.  My main goal was not to get any people in my pictures, which was hard.  

After seeing the lighthouse, we found another hike that was close by.  Although it was still very pretty, we definitely saw the best parts of the park the first two days, so here are some random pictures.  

The last night in Bar Harbor was so beautiful, and the weather was perfect.

Maine part 2

 The second day we needed a bit of an easier hike so we went to Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park.  

During the walk, I started singing a part from the movie On Golden Pond that basically goes "On Golden Pond, On Golden Pond..."  and I learned that my friend has never seen it.  So when we got back to our hotel that night I found that it is currently on HBO Max, so we watched it.  

This was the beginning of the hike.  It was overcast, but I knew it was going to get better.  

As we walked, the sun came out and it was a perfect day.