We spent two weeks away, most of it in Maine, despite my aborted sailing voyage. Nine nights we were in rented accomodations -- from a bed and breakfast to housekeeping cabins -- and five we stayed with relatives.
Maine by land is quite different from Maine be sea. We prefer the latter, having now sampled both.
The highlights of the trip turned out to be the people we visited. My cousin, Bill, who shares a birth year with me and whom I hadn't seen in 29 years, was our host in Machiaseport, a very remote fishing village near the Canadian border. He was  the same wonderful person as  the kid with whom I spent time duirng childhood.
At the other end of the spectrum were Astra Haldeman and Lou Gallagher, a couple whom we met when, as kids, they attended, and then were instructors in, our local sailing school. Astra now works in the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Lou is captain of the Helen Brooks, a charter Friendship Sloop, seen below, and they live in Northeast Harbor aboard a 33-foot wooden gaff-rigged ketch, the Evelyn, which I was privileged to visit during a fog-bound downpour. I'll post a picture of the interior of the Evelyn. It was raining too hard to take photos of her exterior.

Monica and I are sitting on the wrap-around porch of a housekeeping cabin in Lincolnville, Maine, gazing out at a blue wedge of Penobscott Bay, most of which is hidden by a wall of green trees catching the 6:15 P.M. falling sunlight. The heat of the day -- 85 degrees Farenheit at one point -- has seeped from the air, and we're sitting in shadows. The sounds of traffic on US Route 1 can be heard coming from behind our plastic chairs. All else is tranquil.
Without a boat to call home, we're having a new Maine experience. I do regret not bringing Robin north, but now we're learning to enjoy this great place in a different way.
Not ten feet from my right shoulder, the nearest branches of a woodlot reach toward us. Some of them have green berries along with their leaves. We can't identify the trees. We're hoping that in the morning, they'll be filled with berry-eating birds that we can identify.
I would guess that the cottage is about 100 feet in elevation above the bay. There is a gravel road passing 100 feet or so in front of the cabin and that road descends through a field toward the bay. In time, we'll investigate to determine how close it goes to the bay and whether, should I locate some bait and some fishing gear, it is a good place to cast a line.
With some luck, I might land a fish. There is a charcoal grill about 50 feet from the cabin. Maybe grilled fillet of bluefish is in our gastranomic future.
Or, more likely, another restaurant will be our fate.