Odd Old Bridge

Last week we spent another glorious week with the kids in Maine. Two days of snow, two days of rain, and two days of sunshine. On one of those sunny days we hopped in the car and decided to head out to find the ocean, or get as close as we could. The area in Maine where our daughter Sara lives is about 20 minutes from the coast, but it is made up of lots and lots of little finger islands. You can find bay access, but not really the Atlantic. I had spent the day before looking through the her towns small newspapers looking for any garden centers or nurseries that might be open for spring. Their climate is much colder than ours, and pretty much everything said "closed for season". So decided to look for another aspect of our business, gifts & wine shops. We found a listing for a wine shop on Bailey Island so decided to shoot for that. This is one great thing about my family......they understand that if I am on a trip, anywhere, one of the main things I like to do is try and visit stores that might carry some of the same products we do. Ideas can be found in the most unlikely places and this trip proved no exception.

We headed out towards Bailey Island, and this is where family history came into play. Robert lived in Maine as a child. His father was working at the naval base there as a private contractor, and his brother was actually born there during the short spring & summer that they spent on the island. He has strong memories of sailing in a bay area outside the house they lived in and Sara and I had always heard these stories. What he didn't remember is that our daughter is now the historian of the family, and as such, she had done some research with his mother, Sharon, to find out where he had lived. We headed through Brunswick on our way out to Bailey Island, and Sara says "this is the street that you lived off of Dad". He looks right and left, taking in the water in the bay, the small houses scattered throughout the woods...."yes, I think you are right Sara, it does feel right". We didn't have an exact address, so couldn't find the exact house, but the memories were there all the same.

We made it to Harpswell, the location of the wine shop we were looking for, "Black Sheep, Fine Wines on the coast of Maine" Tucked into a little forest area, the wine shop was in a small little house attached to the owners residence. Happy to see it open, we ventured in and spent the better part of the next hour visiting with the owner, John. We talked wine, travel, locations to visit...and Robert and I picked out a few things to return to Nevada with. John was a wealth of information, and his wine shop is similar to ours in that he is an independent that is making the effort to never carry anything you will find in the big stores. He knows a lot about wines and the local area and we picked his brain about places to visit.

This is one of the things on his list. This bridge is made up of entirely granite boulders. Apparently the only one like it in the world, it's purpose is to allow the high rising tide to go right through it. Next post, we find the ocean. till then, Susan