To break up the drive north, we spent a night in Portland. On the way we stopped at New Hampshire’s beach resort Hampton Beach, which was way better than we expected.
We spent a few hours there in the boardwalk shops and arcades before continuing on to our Portland hotel. The rest of the day was shopping (including in a great comic shop) and lazing around like sloths.
The next morning we visited two lighthouses. The first was the over-200-year-old Portland Head Light, which was breathtaking!
The area around the park is now parkland, and has a lovely cliff walk that provides great views of the lighthouse (which is still functioning) from several angles.
It was a beautiful morning and the sound of the waves on the rocks was occasionally broken by a bell from a buoy or the engine noise of a fishing boat going out for the day. Standing on the cliff and looking out over the water was mesmerizing.
Next we drove a few miles north to a second (active) lighthouse built at the end of a jetty like the one I crossed in Provincetown.
Once again KLS waited on the shore (these rocks weren’t trivial to negotiate) and I sprinted out for a close look.
It was bigger than expected and seemed to be occupied! It was also well fortified with trapdoors limited access and preventing trespassing – probably a good thing since it’s built right next to a university campus!
While quite different, both of these lighthouses were great to see especially up close! If you’re ever traveling and have a chance to visit a lighthouse, I recommend it!
The other thing we did today was visited a fort in the Maine capital of Augusta. We took an excellent guided tour that covered the history of the fort as well as what life in those days (>200 years ago) was like. It was definitely worth the stop. Unfortunately I didn’t take a single photo so the one above I borrowed from the internet 🙂
Oh yes we’re in Maine, which is famous for moose. We’ve seen signs warning of them, but haven’t seen any yet. The closest we’ve got was this life-sized statue at a rest stop:
Imagine running into one of them in the wild!!