It has been quite the “summer of fun” for Quincy here in Maine. This past weekend, including today, was full of outings and fun activities.
On Saturday, we went to the Blue Hill Fair. It has your typical fair stuff, too much food, unsafe rides, etc., but we took Quincy to see all the animals. There were cows, horses, goats, llamas, alpacas, chickens, goats, ducks and border collies (more on that later). Quincy’s favorite was by far goats – maybe because they aren’t very big or intimidating.
We sat and watched some cows being judged and then traipsed around the various animal locales. The highlight for Quincy was the sheepdog trials. There were around 40 border collies and 1 blue healer on hand to take a turn at herding sheep in timed trials over a specific course. It was very cool to see the dogs at work. The first dog did well, but didn’t get the sheep to run the course 100% correctly, but the second dog nailed it in just under 3 minutes (4 minute time-limit). It was a good thing we got to see that #2 dog, ’cause the following ones we watched were not very good. They usually ran out of time with sheep cast to hither and yon. Quincy was giggling and laughing at the running sheep – so much so that we had to “shush” him so as not to distract the handler. I see no need to go back to this fair every year, but maybe just for the dog trials.
On Monday, Labor Day, we went to Fort Knox and Penobscot Narrows Observatory. The observatory at the top of the new bridge is the tallest public bridge-observatory in the world. I, having a healthy fear of heights, declined to go up, but Quincy made it up. He didn’t have much to say about it, but he loved exploring Fort Knox and all of its passageways. Just an FYI, this Fort Knox and the other Fort Knox (the famous one) are named for the same person. We’ll have to go back to Fort Knox when Quincy is older and he can really explore more and learn about the history of the fort.
Today, Tuesday, Dara was off so we made another day trip – this time down to Acadia National Park. Quincy has been there a lot, but we went because I had wanted to ride my bike around the park loop road and up Cadillac Mountain. While I was off biking, Dara took Quincy on the carriage roads near the visitor’s center. The plan was for me to call them when I got to the base of the road leading up Cadillac Mountain and then they would just meet me at the summit. It took me 20 minutes to climb the 1000 vertical feet to the summit (not to mention a lot of energy since I had just finished 20+ miles on the park loop road). As an aside, if anyone loves road biking and visits Acadia, riding the park loop road is a must-do. The asphalt is new and it has beautiful scenery. Okay, I beat them to the top of the mountain and when I met up with them, Quincy very excitedly told me that he had a snack of blueberries for me to eat. Turns out there were a lot of wild blueberry bushes along the carriage trails, so Dara and Quincy picked some and saved some for me after my ride. They were actually pretty bland, but Quincy was very excited about them. While they were picking them, he told Dara that it was just like Blueberries for Sal, the title of one of his books that he loves to hear.
So it has been a busy past several days, but a very fun past several days. We got to do a lot of cool stuff over the summer and hope to do more neat things this fall before I have to dust off the snowblower. 🙂 I hope everyone else had a good summer as well.