MAINE: my final frontier. These are the voyages of the Scooter Vespa 250 i.e. Super. Its continuing mission - to explore America's most heavily forested state - to roam the vast coastline, numberless lakes, and mighty mountains. To boldly go where no scooter has gone before!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Nature

One of the very cool things about Maine is that you don't have to ride for hours to get close to nature. This National Wildlife Refuge is hard by the highway, a dozen miles from home.

Extending out into the water is a quite sturdy porch, complete with benches, binoculars, and camera rests. 


Since the binocular cases were empty ...

...I got all artsy.


Enough artsy. 


This gull enjoys a fresh Maine seafood dinner


While he doesn't have to pay our high tourist prices, he does have to protect his dinner table.
First, a loud warning...


...then prepare for incoming dive-bombing swallows


Nonchalantly turning his head, the gull ignores the birds, who are a mere annoyance, not a real threat



Order is restored to nature, and I ride off to a Sea Dogs baseball game, where I'll eat hot dogs. Oddly, I can't stand seafood. (My mother often lamented that she must have done something wrong in raising me: "How can a child raised in Maine not eat fish?"

9 comments:

  1. I also can appreciate that nature is just a footstep away from home (literally). One day I will have to visit Maine (being a lifelong fan of Stephen King and all...).

    See, you don't like fish... I don't like hotdogs. We would never get in a fight over leftovers. Good that we are all different.

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    1. Sonja,

      It's strange - before I retired and bought my GTS, I was mostly blind to natural beauty. It surrounds us, envelops us, and when we're speeding past it in a car, it's just the blur outside the window.

      Tom

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  2. One of the value added benefits of riding -- you are afforded the opportunity from time to time to see the natural world.

    I need to get back to Maine. Kim and I were just talking about the ocean...

    Steve Williams
    Scooter in the Sticks

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  3. Steve,

    Mike, of Scooter for Fun, and I have often said we'd like to meet the guy who posts the classy Scooter in the Sticks. Please strongly consider a Maine vacation this summer. Mike and I promise not to get you lost.

    Tom

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  4. Hey Steve. As Tom promised, we will not get you lost. Disoriented, perhaps, confused, for sure, BUT - never lost.
    C'mon up. The weather is fine.
    And Sonja! We can catch mackerel right off the City pier - with a minimum of effort, and let me tell you, grilled fresh mackerel, with some buttery mashed potatoes and sweet corn...... ummmm.
    We're here and ready to cook.

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  5. Like you I find I see so much more when I'm riding than driving. I didn't even own a camera before I began riding. Now I have two. Oh well.
    ~Keith

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  6. Keith,

    It's really a better world for us than for the "cagers," isn't it? I've only been in a car once since the end of winter, and then only to bring my wife's Ford in for state inspection.

    Tom

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  7. Tom:

    I like fish AND hotdogs, so I'll fight you for the last one ! I would love to come to Maine too but you are on the wrong coast. couldn't you and Mike "get lost" and end up in Portland, OR instead ? I think that's about half way . . .

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast
    My Flickr // My YouTube

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  8. Bob,

    Anything is possible! Mike is seriously seeking a larger, faster scooter - 50 mph is a barrier to long distance riding - and who knows what that old New Yorker can talk me into.

    I'm a dozen years younger, and in better health than Mike, yet he thinks nothing of riding a couple hundred miles a day. Mike survived cancer - I whine over a toothache. If we do get over to the wet coast, Mike will be behind the ride.

    You'll hear us coming - Mike will be yelling "Let's ride" while I whine "Slow down, I have a headache - and I have to pee...!"

    Tom

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