Height of Accomplishment

On July 23 & 24, we enjoyed our last in a series of excursions

into middle coastal Maine. A beautiful place in a lovely time

of year. This glorious cultivated sunflower serves to help me

introduce our Atlantic sunset and sunrise,

 all three photographed in Belfast.

 More recently, we have enjoyed many things nearer home base,

including critter visits like those formerly seen on the balcony of our

Goffstown apartment. Vince has now taken to baiting the big birds

with roasted peanuts (with a plate of finer birdseed for

the smaller varieties). We have a flurry of immature blue jays

that skittishly fly in and out, but they are not showy, yet.

Here, Vince captured on camera a female (brownish) red cardinal.

The male flew in later, and escaped his moment of "fame".

 Here is the first of three photos I include with this post of

Vince aiming at his subjects. This time, he has set up this

ottoman 'blind' from which he patiently waited and kept

his cell camera live for dozens of minutes until the cardinal

felt it was safe and quiet enough to alight and quickly grab.

We had another visitor, too. 

Vince with his spreading fame as the 'bug man', 

had just been recalling a late summer 2019 Mission Office guest, 

lamenting that IT hadn't returned.

(Not sure if he REALLY expected that.) An early cell call from

Elder Smith teased about a 'surprise'. Later they 'gifted'

a juvenile walking stick that they found perched reminiscently

on the building's glass door when they walked in that morning. 

Felt so much like last summer's walking stick visitor

that we immediately took to calling it 'Junior'.

Here, below, Elder Smith poses on the inside of the sidelight,

as Elder Warner replaced the liberated insect on the outside.

Another high note was a quick visit I made to visit these

wonderful pairs of Bedford Sisters at their apartment:

Sisters Evans, Young, McDonough and Mendenhall.

It was my privilege to make the 20 min. one-way trip down to

Amherst Road in Nashua to bring them back their

Chick-fil-A lunches. It was a FINAL farewell (for now?)

as Sister Evans is headed to Maine, and Sister Young

up into middle Vermont with the Aug 13 transfers

that included 23 newly arriving missionaries.

Sisters Young & Mendenhall are Sister Training Leaders,

counterparts to being Zone Leader Elders.

Returning to our Belfast excursion, my wonderful companion

did a slightly uncharacteristic thing, booking an on-the-coast

motel room. An overnight stay was required because of

the distance traveled to complete our car exchange in Ellsworth

(reported previously) and some Maine vehicle registrations.

This view (below) through our room's back deck door shows

the ocean beyond (with island shore in far distance).

We could easily walk down to dip our feet in the water!

Here is Vince perched on our wood railing to take a shot

of the unique weather vane up there on the cupola. 

And here . . . 

. . . is the picture he took.

With his Vehicle Coordinator business very successfully

completed, we passed a leisurely evening, and ended up

at a Belfast town center cafe, dining out-of-doors.

Then we walked around the harbor and out onto

a few floating docks, just in time for a colorful sunset.

Here, below, is one of Vince's favorite pics from our

Belfast trip - he loved seeing the tugboats up close.

(And I love it because of the wonderful colors in this shot!)

The next day we made a more thorough walking tour

around the quay, and I was fascinated as we passed

a boat refitting and repair dockyard - of enormous proportions.

I would have loved to back up until perspective allowed

a wider view of this giant cradle hoist, but I was too near

the edge of the dock already. Can you see the large bands

(called 'slipway') that allow this mid-size cruiser to be lifted 

out of the water for transport by the rolling hoist into one of 

the dry dock 'hangar' warehouses nearby?

Curiosity took me up close to these resting plastic-protected

(to minimize weather & salt deterioration) slipway loops.

As a textiles major, I was fascinated that they are constructed

from heavy fabric and stitched into their final form!

 Here, below, you get a low view of the hoist bay

with its two roadway tracks that allow the framework to roll

out over the harbor, to flank the boat or ship waiting there --

still afloat in the water -- where the cradle strapping 

can easily pass UNDER the vessel's hull, be cranked

up to snugly cuddle the hull's specific shape, and then secured.

Next, stays and ship are hoisted up to clear the dock deck, and

the hoist maneuvered away from the bay, back onto shore

and rolled into the assigned hold where it can be enclosed

and the repair work completed. Probably everyday stuff

for folks living full-time near the ocean - ingenious to me!

Here is a commercial aerial photo showing

Front Street Shipyard. I added the green arrow showing hoist bays,

and the red arrow showing retracted cradle hoists with

a very large ship held securely aloft.

Before the shipyard discoveries that Friday, I had a different

'eye opening' experience. Those who know me

understand that the BEST parts of my day often happen

before 7 am. So when I recognized our proximity

to the shore, I checked facts and made plans to walk down

and watch my first Atlantic shore sunrise at 5:14 am.

(For any who don't want to roll the 44 sec video that follows,

here is a still preview.)

And here are the most serene moments I have

experienced while stationed here. Incredibly still water.

Magical light. Quiet lapping of the ocean at daybreak.

Shoreline in the foreground. Forested coastline in distance.

(Belfast town can be briefly seen at the end of the clip.)

Later (when Vince had arisen and I showed him

what he had missed), we prepared and traveled back northward

to the Penobscot Narrows Waldo-Hancock Bridge.

Lots more to learn and experience there.

This wonder of human cooperative construction was built

in record time to replace the vital but failing original.

That remarkable steel bridge was constructed as America's

love affair with automobiles was taking off, opening in 1931

to connect Waldo and Hancock counties.

 We had traveled along it en route back to Manchester

on previous trips, and learned later from young missionaries

that the southern pylon includes an observation tower.

Here is educational material that we read while waiting

our turn at tower's base to ride the elevator up to the top.

The cable and section engineering 

fascinated me, too.

 I would have studied the posters for longer than we

waited, especially admiring the foresight to make

the strands that compose the cables removable

and replaceable, and include the observation tower.

 This vintage artwork, below, caught my eye, and I relished

the compass rose from the 1613 drawn map,

just the kind of motif so often captured in quilt patchwork.

 Here is the observation deck inlaid floor compass rose,

and beyond the stair railings (and through the glass enclosure)

the partial view of the town beyond.

 My third picture of Vince taking a picture is from the deck,

viewing Bucksport town in the distance,

across the serene Penobscot (a native American word).

And finally, the panorama itself.

Self-confession: I admit that as I read the promotional

online information about the bridge and the trip up

the tower, comments raised concerns for my usual anxiety

at the height of the view. But in the end, I summoned up

visions of granddaughter Baylynn, who despite "being little"

(her own description), does very fearless things,

like riding the California Screamer roller coaster.

If Bayla could do that, I could do this.

So, being up there to capture Vince shooting the shoreline

is my own "height of accomplishment", so to speak.

There has been an abundance of BLUE in the collection

of images shared here. Blue water, blue sky.

Here, at the end, is a hydrangea cluster.

I may never get used to seeing them so abundantly here.

They seem rare and exotic to this visitor from Utah

and the arid West (though I know some who grow them there).

If we were chatting together, I might inquire of you:

what things do YOU do that take courage

or which inspire you - leading to your own 

heights of accomplishment?
This week, please take time to recognize
how wonderful and brave you are.

Happy Middle-of-August!