We got going early Sunday morning and made our way to a local breakfast hangout, Becky's Diner on Hobson's Wharf. This place really brings in the people and serves up the food fast. The kids had pancakes and bacon and Stacy and Erik had Maine blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. Becky's was so family friendly that they had a men's restroom, women's restroom and a toddler restroom, complete with a small toilet and sink.
After a hearty breakfast, we drove north to Wolfe's Neck State Park for some Casco Bay hiking. We hiked for a couple hours along rocky and tree-covered shoreline. Lucy hiked much of it on her own feet! Nice for daddy's empty backpack. We saw an island with nesting ospreys, guarding their young. Of course, we threw rocks in the Ochen (kid for ocean) and picked of shee shells. This was probably the best family hike we have had.
We left the park for Bath, just north of Portland. Bath is home to the Maine Maritime Museum. This place had very professional and informative exhibits filled with art and artifacts. There were contemporary, interactive areas for all ages, an historic shipyard with five of the original 19th century buildings and a life-size sculptural representation of the largest wooden sailing vessel ever built, The Wyoming, built in 1909 at a length of 329 feet!
Bath Iron Works, just down the river, has built more than 240 ships for the U.S. Navy. It built more than a quarter of the destroyers for WWII, 82 of them, totaling more than the entire Japanese Empire. This is history we never realized!
After an hour or so touring the grounds, as well as a now warm 80 degrees, we went to take a quick lunch at a local chain restaurant, Amato's. We chowed down on cheese pizza, an Italian sub and steak and cheese on foccacia and then hurried back to Portland to take our final trip!
We got back to Portland at 5:30 p.m. and boarded the Casco Bay Ferry for a sunset cruise through the bay. It was a nice 80 degrees on the shore, but as we got toward the Atlantic Ocean, it was a windy 50 degrees at least! We made stops at various islands dropping off and picking up locals and visitors. That was such a neat way to look at local life.
Between stops, we made a rare sighting, as one of the locals on the ferry told us. We saw two seals swimming along catching fish. Rigby and Lucy were so excited!
Making our way back to Portland, we saw a couple old U.S. forts that had been built for the Civil War, but were never used. It was interesting that Portland helped preserve them. They are only accessible by private boats- no commercial or park tours are given.
We had a great 2.5 hour ferry ride and saw a great sunset over the city. What a great way to end our last full day in Maine. So now we are packing and getting ready for tomorrow when we will drive down state route 1 to Boston to catch a plane to Chattanooga!
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