Spring Spring Spring

More evidence that Spring has arrived (see photos).  Made our final lodging reservations for Maine. Rental car price went down so we canceled and re-booked (enough $ saved to buy a couple lobster rolls!).  Thinking positively for nice weather while we're there.

Spring Has Sprung

Well Spring has arrived finally and it couldn't have come soon enough. Angie and I have made some more reservations for our Maine trip. We've booked a couple of our lodgings and TWO whale/puffin tours! One thing we were wondering about was how to pack for the trip.  We want to minimize things we take along since the airlines charge so much extra for luggage but we don't want to have to buy a ton of stuff while we're out there. This weekend we were able to determine (from the operator of one of the whale/puffin tours) that we should plan to dress for temperatures that are 30 degrees lower out on the water than what they are on land. Guess we'll be taking along a jacket and some gloves (even though it will be late Spring).  Good to know!

March Maine update

Well, Angie & I are making progress on our Maine vacation plans. We've narrowed down our destinations and activities. Rather than hitting the sandy beaches of Southern Maine (& the crowds), we've decided to do the middle to upper coastal regions. With our airfare booked (using our credit card points for free flights), this past week we reserved a car rental.  Prices have been rising rapidly over the past few weeks so we didn't want to hesitate any longer. We were able to find the cheapest rate through Alamo (using an Entertainment Book coupon). As an added bonus, the reservation can be canceled, without penalty, should we find a cheaper rate later. Next we are turning our attention toward lodging. We would like to stay in comfortable, clean hotels, in scenic areas, without spending an arm and a leg. We found one such place near Booth Bay Harbor, which is one of our primary destinations. We plan to go on a whale/puffin watching cruise while there. The hotel is outside of town so we're way from the hustle and bustle of the shops and includes kayak and canoe rentals. It is surrounded by trees, has a large wooden deck facing the water, and has a sloping grassy hill down to the waterline. There is a nearby nature preserve, and I am confident that I will find some nice areas to run while staying there.  Speaking of running, I happened upon a Rails to Trails website and searched for trails in Maine. There are many trails listed. However, they are listed by county and I have not yet familiarized myself with the county names in the areas we plan to visit. That can wait for another day.  Another one of our primary destinations is Arcadia National Park.  We found a Comfort Inn in the nearby town of Belfast. It has an indoor, heated pool (with hot tub), private ocean view balconies, an on-site restaurant (breakfast included in the $99 rate). It's one of the few chain hotels we found in the region. The kicker reason we are deciding to stay there is that we can redeem our Choice Hotel credit card points that we have accumulated for three free nights, so there you go! Free nights...woo hoo!  We'll probably stay in or near the Portland area our last day in Maine so that we won't be stressed out driving a long distance to get to the airport on time. We have yet to make our choice for that lodging.  We'll be making our hotel bookings this weekend. It's getting exciting having our plans come together and actually start to make the bookings!

Maine Update

The flight finally got booked but on a different date than we had planned.  Also got a chance to view the Maine video that I had checked out from the library.  We were disappointed to find that 95% of the video focused on people you might find in Maine, rather than on attractions/destinations.  The video did show one business that we were already planning to visit (Red's Eats), so we now have a better visual idea of what to expect. The destinations that it did show were either too brief (Acadia National Park) to get any better sense of whether or not we should visit it, or focused on things we are not interested in (a music box collector's house, for example).  Almost a fifth of the video was comprised of three random hikers rambling on about their experiences on the Appalachian Trail (which ends in Maine). However, no video of the trail was provided. Two of the hikers looked like they had had a little too many nuts in their granola trail bars, if you know what I mean.  Another looked as if he had been eating bacon, eggs and washing them down with milkshakes on the trail (while riding on a moped).  Another positive from the video was there were a couple of cool shots of whales surfacing in the water off the coast, which increased our desire to do a whale watching tour.We are now scouring the travel books looking for places we'd like to see and things we'd like to do. I'm writing down the ones I'm interested in to narrow down a bit later.   

Resolutions and Frustrations

I'm ignoring you Mr. Soda Pop.

Resolutions: I'm doing something a little different this year.  Instead of a New Year's Resolution I am resolving to give up something bad or improve myself in one area per month.  In January I successfully gave up eating fried foods.  This month I've given up drinking pop. (So far, so good, which is something, given that I usually drank at least 2 cans per day).  Although I'll allow myself to eat some fried food this month, my plan is to keep it to a minimum.  Next month when I give up something (or try to improve in something), I will allow myself an occasional pop or fried food, but hope to keep both to a minimum.  That way, by the end of the year, I'll have weaned myself off many of the vices that I've been holding onto and will hopefully have improved myself in other areas where I was lacking. New approach.  We'll see how it goes.

Frustrations:  Angie and I are planning a vacation to Maine. Angie has done quite a bit of on-line research and I have checked out a few travel books, a travel video and have interviewed a couple of people regarding their Maine experiences. Although we still have some fine-tuning to do as far as lodging and itinerary, we were all set to book the flights by redeeming mileage points we have been saving for the purpose on our credit card. Alas, when Angie went to book the flight only one seat was available to redeem but the website deducted both of our credit card points. Although there are other flights available for redemption AT THIS MOMENT, we were told it will take 5 days to credit the points back so that we can book the flight. By then it is very possible that the seats on the other flights will no longer be available.  Frustrated, but I'm sure it will all work out.  If we aren't able to get a flight to Maine, we can look at alternate destinations and keep the Maine trip on the back burner for a future trip. 

Winter of our Discontent, Part 2: The Thaw

Temperatures made it up to 50 degrees today!  The sunshine helped brighten the day.  With the warmer temperatures Spring Fever is starting to settle in as well as thoughts of summer vacation.  I picked up some additional Maine resources at the Public Library this weekend (two travel books and a travel video).  We have checked into flight schedules and found some possible alternatives using miles that we have available from one of our credit cards. We confirmed with a friend, who is an airline employee,  that there should be no problem making connections in Washington DC, even with a short scheduled layover.  That eased our minds.  As soon as Angie gets vacation approval (hopefully tomorrow), we will go ahead and book the flights.  Then we'll need to move on to rental car, accommodations, and itinerary. Some have advised us that Arcadia National Park is a must-see. Others have said it's no big deal. Since it will be a 3 hour drive (each way) from the airport we want to make sure it's worth the drive. Hopefully the video and travel guides will prove helpful in making that determination.   

Ice Ice Baby

February 1, 2011 Ice storm hit last night as I was tutoring two of my students.  When I went out to my car there was a thick coat of ice on the car that took about 15 minutes of elbow grease application to remove.  School was canceled today due to the ice.  Took these photos in our yard.  We are definitely not at the beach (but wish we were) !