[Journal entry for Windham Maine Trip, October 1-6, 2020]

October 1, 2020. Dallas and I arrived at our rental cabin, on Lake Sebago (15 Wintergreen Circle, Windham Maine) in the late afternoon, having left New York at about 11AM. It’s a pleasant little cottage, with a white-clapboard exterior situated on a hillside among White Pine Trees on the shore of Lake Sebago. The lake is large, perhaps ten miles in in largest dimension and very irregular in shape. Our cabin is on Jordan Bay, on the lake’s western shore. The view across the lake, past tiny Squaw Island and much larger Frye Island, towards the low mountains of western Maine, is spectacular. The beach is mostly composed of granite cobbles.

The sun was close to setting by the time we unpacked. We climbed down to the beach. Dallas swam in the lake while I stood on the beach and watched the sunset. The west-facing beach provided an excellent view. The sun lit up the clouds, first to gold and then to orange, and then set behind the trees on the far shore of Jordan Bay. We climbed back up to the cabin and watched the progression of dusk through the window in the dining room of the cabin, which looks westward across the lake.

October 2, 2020. On this rainy morning. Dallas and I donned out rain suits and climbed Rattlesnake Mountain. We parked at the trailhead along Route 85 in Raymond Maine, and took the Bri-Mar Trail first across a field and then up through mixed woods onto the low ridge of the mountain. We paused were the trail passed an old quarry and examined the granite blocks that were strewn about. We then followed the trail up the flank of the mountain and along the ridge of it, coming to an overlook with a wide rock ledge that commanded a great view of the woods and lakes southeast of the mountain. The woodlands about us had some fall color, but are well before their peak and are still mostly green. The ledge is composed of gneiss (and not granite) and Ice Age glacial striae are preserved in a few places. We continued on, ascending a bit higher, and finally reaching a high point with a small sign giving the elevation of 1035 feet. The trail appeared to continue onward, but we turned about and headed back the same way we came. The rain slowly diminished during the course of our hike, leaving only overcast. 2:00.

In the afternoon, Dallas and I drove over to Harpswell Maine. We stopped briefly at Seahaven Cottage in the Auburn Colony, in order to check that everything was in order, for the Cottage has been unoccupied this season, on account of the Coronavirus Pandemic. We then swung by Erica’s Seafood and bought take-out lobster rolls, fried clams, onion rings and chips. We brought then over to the Estes Cottage. There we joined Carolyn Bumatay, who was visiting from California, and Harold Weeks, who lives in Harpswell, for dinner. We had a pleasant time dining - in a socially-distanced fashion - on their porch. The view from the porch was terrific. The afternoon clouds dissipated, the sun lit up Merriconeag Sound and Bailey Island and the bottom of a rainbow hung over the island.

October 3, 2020. The morning is very misty. Dallas and I hike in the Holt Pond Preserve, in Bridgton, Maine. We park at the intersection of Chaplins Mill Road and Grist Mill Road, and walked west on the latter to the entrance of the preserve, which is on the north side of the lake. We then walked the main loop trail around Holt Pond, or rather, around quite a bit of wetland in the center of which is Holt Pond. Much of the trail is via a series of puncheons. They provide good access to this marshy land, yet we found them tricky and tedious to traverse, for they were slick with wet fallen leaves, and some were tilted besides. Winterberry bushes have their bright red berries. Many bushes are also festooned with cup-shaped spider webs, now collecting droplets of list. We took one detour onto a puncheon that led to the lake lakeshore, but otherwise stayed on the Main Trail. We crossed several streams via footbridges, including Grist Mill Brook on the pond’s west side. The mist gradually lifted, and by the time we had reached the south shore, had yielded to sun and a partly sunny sky. We passed several Witch Hazel bushes, in bloom with their ropy, green flowers, even as their leaves turned amber-brown. We found several vantages with beautiful view of the pond. Enough Maples were in their fall colors to make the shoreline very beautiful. The trail emerged onto Chaplins Mill Road after wrapping around the east side of the pond, and we walked that road back to our car. The roadside was full of wildflowers, including purple New England Aster, Goldenrod and Silverrod. We crossed the Muddy River before reaching out car. 2:30.

In the afternoon, we met Peg Abbott, Ed Abbott and Tim Mills at Kettle Cove State Park, at the end of Kettle Cove Road in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. It is a tiny park but one with a great view of the sea. We set up lawn chairs – far enough apart to be socially-distanced - on the grassy top of a small rocky peninsula that extended out into the bay and chatted and sipped ide tea. I took a short hike on a path that led from the parking lot through a bushes and low woods to the beach at the back of the cove. I passed three different kinds of Crab Apple Trees. I also spotted a Monarch Butterfly feeding upon the ubiquitous Aster flowers. 3:00.

On the way back, we stopped briefly at a small park in Scarborough Maine, where Route 77 crosses the Spurwink River. The salt marshes along the river were beautifully lit by the late afternoon sun.

Back at the Windham cottage, Dallas and I climbed down to the beach and watched the sunset.

October 4, 2020. The morning is sunny with a bright blue sky. I drive south to where the Sebago-to-the-Sea Trail crosses the Presumpscot River, parking at the soccer field on Soccer Field Road. I had visited this spot in August, when I hiked a section of the Sebago-to-the-Sea Trail, but today I took a different route. I first walked down to the river, by the boat ramp below the soccer field. Mist was swirling above the surface water. Dogs were playing in the water at Shaw Park, on the opposite shore. Enough of the trees were in their fall foliage to give the shoreline some color.

I then crossed the river via a high railroad bridge, now part of the Sebago-to-the-Sea Trail and no longer used by trains. I then took the Presumpscot River Trail, first by Shaw Park and past what appears to be an old sand pit. Finally, I crossed the Presumpscot once again at Gambo Dam. This last section is the most scenic, for the water above the dam is very still and reflects the fall foliage beautifully. I took one side trail that took ne down a staircase to a quickly-running section of the river below the dam. My arrival disturbed a Great Blue Heron. I poked around old ruins at river level. As I peered out into the shallow but quickly running river, I was reminded how much the dam has widened and deepened the upstream part of the river. 1:30.

In the late morning Dallas and I drove north, first to Bear Pond in Waterford Maine and then to Little Pond Farm in Otisfield, which is owned by Dr. Harriet Robnson, an archeologist and highschool classmate of Dallas’.

The early Twentieth Century landscape painter Ethel Dana (who was Dallas’ great aunt) lived at Bear Pond and pained oils of it during the 1930’s. I had been wanting to see the lake, especially from its western shore (where Ethel has her cabin) because the beautiful view across the lake to nearby Hawk Mountain figures in several of her paintings. We stopped at three sites, one at the southern end of the lake, one at the western and one at the eastern. The southern stop was where Routes 35 and 37 diverge and where there is a tiny park that provides access to the lakeshore. Very large boulders, some ten feet tall, stand in the shallow water. The western stop was along Road Fl 91 and provides a great view of the dome-shaped Hawk Mountain. This summer’s dry weather has colored the trees on its summit a water-stressed red. And the eastern stop was on a pull-out along Route 35, with slender birch Trees. 1:00.

We stopped briefly at Gage Rice Beach, on Keoka Lake in Waterford Maine. It also has a few large boulders along its shore (though none are as tall as the tallest we had seen earlier at Bear Pond. The otherwise sandy beach looked like a great place to swim – at least on a day that was warmer than today!

At Little Pond Farm, Harriet gave us an extensive tour of her flower and vegetable gardens. She has just build a set of flower beds in which she is growing the hundred (or so) iris hybrids that Dr. Currier McEwen developed. Coincidentally, we knew Dr. McEwen socially, for he lived across from the Abbott family cottage in Harpswell. In this fall season, the irises, however, were merely stems protruding from the ground; we will have to come by in the early summer to see them in bloom. We spent more time admiring the giant tomatoes, purple cabbages, Asters and other bright flowers, and the exotic Venus Fly Trap (complete with insect legs protruding from one of its traps).

Harriet led us on a walk through some of the country roads in rural Otisfield. We started on a high ridge that offered a great view westward toward the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Mt Washington was visible, though its summit was shrouded in clouds. Our route took out slowly downhill to the Crooked River, which we crossed via the Ryefiled Bridge. We went as far as the Ryefield Cemetery on Ryefield Bridge Road, before retracing out route. 1:00.

Back at Little Pond Farm, Harriet served us (socially-distanced) coffee on the back deck.

October 5, 2020. In the morning, I taught my class, Quantitative Methods of Data Analysis, from Ed Abbott’s house in Auburn Maine. I had been concerned that the bandwidth of the internet at our rental cottage was too low to support video conferencing, especially with hundreds of school children using it for Pandemic-engendered home-schooling. The service at Ed’s house worked just fine.

In the afternoon, which was bright and clear, I returned to Rattlesnake Mountain and walked the Bri-Mar Trail. The view from the first overlook was fantastic. I gazed out past green woods sparsely peppered with bright red, orange and yellow trees, and past lakes reflecting the bright blue autumn sky. I then continued on past the summit, to investigate where the Bri-Mar Trail led. After about a half mile, it led steeply downhill. This section required care to traverse, for the path was covered with leaves and was very slippery. After a hundred yards or so, I reached a broad rock ledge with second overlook. The view of Lake Sebago was better from this overlook than from the first. However, being late afternoon, the view westward to that lake was in the direction of the sun and rather hazy. I shall have to come back yet again, some morning, with the sun in the east and its light works to my advantage. I retraced my route back past the first overlook, but then took a side trail down the north flank of the ridge. The trail led to Spiller Road, a winding gravel road that led through the woods, passing a few houses. I walked it to where it joined Route 11, which was a longer distance than I had counted upon, and then took that road back to Route 85. I viewed a wetland from a small park were Route 85 intersects Route 11. It’s mostly full of grasses, but has some open water with water lilies where its feeder stream, Robinson Creek, passes beneath Route 85. A few minutes later, I was back at my car. 3:00.

I watched the sunset again from the beach below our rental cabin. The sun dipped behinds clouds when it was close to the horizon, lighting them up to an orange that slowly faded to gray.

October 6, 2020. After packing and tidying up the rental cabin, Dallas and I walked around the neighborhood of our rental cabin, which is in a triangle of land between lake Sebago and Route 302. The water for the cabin is taken from a historic spring that’s located at the intersection of Mineral Spring Road and Wellhouse Way. The springhouse is a small brick building with an open front secured by a wrought iron gate. A small hand-cranked water pump is behind the gate, and behind it is yet another gate that protects what appears to be a ground-level a reservoir, capped by a concrete slab. A little water, perhaps a liter per minute, was flowing in a gulley beside the spring house. Its temperature was 10.9 C, measured with our Thomas Scientific digital thermometer. Afterward, we walked Wintergreen Court to Mineral Spring Road to Linnell Road to Route 302, and then retraced our path back to the cabin. 1:00.

We then drove straight back to New York, arriving back home in the late afternoon.