All posts by Drew

BenSpark.com is about my life through photography. Each image is a gateway to a story about my daily life. Occasionally funny, inspiring, interesting or creative BenSpark.com is real life in photos. With over 4200 consecutive days and many different cameras BenSpark.com has documented images from the mundane to the amazing.
Photo-A-Day, Travel

Riding Around in My Automobile

On Sunday Allison and I left Great Diamond Island. We had a lot of fun there but it was time to head home. I slept late while Allison read a book on the porch. Then we had some tasty donuts from a place called the Cookie Jar. Thea picked them up while we were in Portland on Saturday. At 9:40 the small bus that runs between the two docks on the island picked us up. There are two docks: The Diamond Cove dock that we could walk to and the Great Diamond dock that was one the other side of the locked gate. You see, on the island there was some spat over golf carts from the Diamond Cove being parked on the Great Diamond side and how unsightly they were. This started the Golf Cart Wars and this occurred about two years ago. Now the folks on each side of the island have separate stickers for their carts; as well as two locked gates separating the two sides of the island. It is all wound a bit too tight for my liking.

Elise and Charles were leaving today as well so the four of us took the ferry over to Portland and we said our goodbyes. After Elise and Charles left, Allison and I went to a little souvenir shop to pick up some dice games. They did not have Farkle but they did have Left Right Center, Moose Spotting and Two Lobster Catch and On The Rocks.

This is what I should have bought the day before. Actually we should have picked these up on Friday so we could have some travel games to play Friday night. But we have them now.

We headed down to York, Maine to meet up with our friend Maureen (She writes the We’re In A Fight blog) and her sister Peggy. Maureen and Peggy took us to lunch at Lobster Cove. Allison and I split a fisherman’s platter and it was very tasty. We then drove up Long Sands Beach and back to Mo’s house. Then her father, John, took us on a ride in his 1952 Chevy. It is black and named Josephine after the woman he bought the car from. It fits. We drove down to the beach and cruised along the strip. I kept taking pictures of the beach and the water when we were stopped and I had an opening between the cars. Because I was looking in the viewfinder I didn’t see anything beyond what the lens saw. So one time I took a shot and a second after I clicked the picture three 16 year-old girls walked by. Both Mo and her dad razzed me about taking pictures of 16 year-olds through the rest of the ride. They’d be like, “Drewbie there is another young girl, where is your camera,” or “oh what about that one, she’s too old huh?” I have no idea where Mo got her sense of humor, yeah right. We even went up to Nubble Lighthouse. It was a lot of fun but over all too quickly and we were back on the road. Then back to Manchester to pick up my computer and Allison’s car. We visited a bit with Marcia and then off again for home.

Once we got home I helped my sister download some pictures that she took this weekend at a fair in Walpole, NH as well as some videos. Allison ended up staying in NH for an additional 40 minutes. When she came home, we were off again and this time we headed to see my cousin, Carissa, and her boyfriend, Chris, before they left for their 2 week cross country trip.

For some reason we always need a vacation after our vacations. And this week is not going to get any quieter. You may notice a theme with the Photo-A-Day This week.

Grab Bag

Photo-A-Day #484 08/05/06

This morning Allison and I got up very early and headed to Sea Glass Beach. Sea Glass Beach is where you can find lots of sea glass because this is where the fort would dump trash. There was a grind house that took the trash and ground it up and shot it out through a pipe into the ocean. Environmentally not friendly but now things like glass bottles, ceramic plates and pottery pieces that have been tumbled by the surf against the rocks for many years washes up on Sea Glass Beach to adorn the homes of the islanders.

We also walked over to the moon garden. I wanted to get out and take as many pictures of the island as I could. There were some really interesting rock formations on the shores. After our walk we headed back to the house, took showers and had some homemade blueberry muffins for breakfast. Great big blueberries, fresh from Maine.

We took the ferry into Portland and on the way back stopped at Long Island and the Great Diamond Island stop, there are two stops on Great Diamond Island (Great Diamond, village side and Diamond Cove, fort side). Kids will jump off the docks as the ferry pulls away so that the wake propels them. I got a few shots of some jumpers in mid air. Apparently the wake can propel someone about 70 feet or so. Long Island seceded from the city of Portland and is almost entirely inhabited by the local fishermen. It is a very close-knit community. When someone dies the whole island attends the funeral and when a baby is born it is outfitted for the first 5 years of life.

When the ferry docked we walked over to a bazaar that was going on. It was sponsoered by an organization called Cultural Survival. They sell items made by indigenous peoples to help them improve their quality of life and promote the cultures. I bought a pirate thimble from a Russian vendor. It now sits on my Guinness souvenir.

We went over to the mainland so that we could have lunch with Elise’s grandmother, Rosie, and her Aunt Mary. Rosie is in an assisted living facility and we went to visit her and have lunch there. It was a beautiful place and they had a very nice meal that included bread, salad, meal and dessert.

After lunch we walked around Old Port and poked around the shops. Didn’t buy anything, but we would be back the next day to pick up something we missed.

We caught the ferry back to the island and took a swim in the pool. Then we had a nice cookout and headed down to the Bob Marley Show. George Ham opened for Bob and he was the better of the two comedians. It wasn’t so much about the content for me as it was about mic control. Bob was practically swallowing the mic and that made for a very un-enjoyable show. Way too loud. No reason to be that loud at all. The show was to benefit the fire station on the island. On the island if the fire bell rings all people on the island become part of the fire department. It is a volunteer fire department and they have one truck. The show was fun and it was nice to have something to do in the evening and we were happy to finally see Bob Marley even though my eardrums were bleeding when it was over.