12/7/12 Downtown Bangor

Cold gray day with rain in the forecast  so we just went downtown for about an hour. Lots to sniff, many people to greet , and even a poodle to meet. One man gave her a hot dog in a cardboard container- she even ate the relish that was smeared on the bottom. The cold and damp made for a not very cheery atmosphere and even Kelley seemed ready to quit when I did.

This is a memorial to the U.S.S. Maine, sunk in Havana Harbor in 1878. The scroll and shield were dredged up from the bottom of the harbor.

12/6/12 Little Long Pond

Sunny and cold ( about 30 ) with winds that made it feel colder. Most of the hike we were protected by the woods so it was comfortable. We started from the parking lot on Rte. 3 and took the Friends Path down to the pond. Kelley was excited as soon as she was out of the car. This is one of her favorite hikes. As we neared the pond Kelley raced ahead and when I reached her she was with two women and four dogs and was also into the pond. Oh joy! We followed the trail on the west side of the pond to the Jordan Stream Trail

Sunlit water rippling over the rocks.

  View of the stream

When we came to the cobblestone bridge we stopped and shared an apple, looking back the way we had come.

From there we took the carriage roads and met Bailey and her owner, who we had met before. Kelley and Bailey play well together and she was, again, very excited. I tried to get pictures of them but it was too fast and furious for me.

We continued on the carriage roads to the Asticou and that to the Harbor Brook which took us back to Rte. 3 and then a short walk up the road to our start. Very pleasant hike -  2  3/4 hours

12/5/12 Walden

We got up to a gray rainy day and just did a short walk around the neighborhood. Then about noon it cleared so we went to nearby Walden for an hour and a quarter. Didn't do much with the camers but it was nice to beoutside in the sun and it made Kelley happy. Shortly after we got home the clouds returned.

These tiny things are British Soldier Lichen. They were on the top of an old stump and the scene looked, to me, like one out of a science fiction movie.

12/4/12 Sears Island

A cold, gray, damp morning but not raining which it is supposed to do tommorow  so we want to get in a hike today. The tides are right so it's Sears Island.

We started along the east shore and followed that to the Blue Trail. That took us inland to the gravel road. There are several unmarked narrow trails that cut across from that road to the Island Road. I was trying to decide whether to take one of those  and then the Green trail back over to the shore or just continue up to the Homestead Trail when Kelley spotted a trail she wanted to take so we just went the way she wanted to go.  Surprise- rather than taking us to the other road it took us back to the shore which we followed to the jetty - we were not as far along the gravel road as I had thought. From there we followed the road to the Homestead Trail and that back to the shore where we had our lunch.

Some things we saw along the way

After lunch, one last dip in the ocean and we returned to our car.

An interesting hike in spite of the dismal ( only to me) weather .  3  hours

12/3/12 Downtown Bangor

Woke up to a gray drizzely day but by mid morning the sun was out so we went downtown for an hour and a quarter. Kelley was glad to just get out of the house and downtown offers a banquet of smells and lots of people to greet. About an hour into our walk it clouded back up. Some of what we saw.

I think these are more of Pigeon's work.

  Built in 1897, the Thomas Hill Standpipe is a 1.75 million gallon, riveted steel tank enclosed in a wooden shroud. Four times a year they open it to the public and you can walk up inside stairs  to an observation deck. The windows are beside the stairs. 

 

12/1/12 McFarland

Cold and gray with a few flakes of snow. Decided on yet another attempt to find the abandoned McFarland Hill/Mountain Trail. The top map is our approximte route today. The other is the Pathmakers map of the old trail starting near the Breakneck Ponds.  We know two other ways up McFarland and decided we would go up and look for the trail from the top.

We started from a trail a short ways up the service road that leads to the air quality monitoring station. An easy trail to follow as people have added more cairns along the way.

After a short time in the woods you come to a nice ridge with good views

Please click this one and then again for a large view

 

A very old stump

We think this large cairn marks the summit

From here we searched several possible routes, none of them leading antwhere that we could tell. There are some small cairns which we had found before- shown next to Kelley

but hey appear to only lead to a ledge offering a view to the east

We walked a ways along the slope but never found anythin promising and went down via the other trail that starts/ ends at the air quality monitoring station

We walked back  down the road  to the car and, since Kelley had found little water ( only ice) we drove the short distance to the Breakneck. I thought the large ponds might not be frozen yet. I was wrong

We made a brief attemp to follow what we think might be the trail we want but as before we lost it at the same spot as previousely.We gave up and walked back to the car. Not a bad hike in spot of poor weather and another failure to find the trail.  2  1/2 hours

11/30/12 Walden Parke

Cold ( 16 when we started) and sunny but no wind. We just went to nearby Walden for an hour and a half walk. We met only one other person- a biker. There was water in small streams for Kelley to drink but the places she usually gets in the water were frozen.

At one point I left the trail to check out an area of frozen water and found this beaver dam- what a lot of work
 

And the pond they had created

A nice outing - the lack of wind was very nice.