Another beautiful, sunny day here in Maine. Not hot by any means, only around 65 degrees this afternoon, but plenty warm to still wear shorts and t-shirts.

   Drove up to the town of Old Town, about 25 miles north of Bangor this afternoon. The idea was to go to the Old Town Canoe factory store I had visited many years ago and see what they had on their floor that was for sale. Last time it had been a brand new 18 1/2 foot Penobscot for $750 because it was suppose to have a couple 'blemish's' in the gel coat. Never did see any of those blem's, but didn't buy the boat anyway because we had flown out instead of driving, so there was no way to get it back to Colorado. Of course it was the next year that they stopped making those boats, so that was kind of sucky!

    Anyway; back to today..... got into Old Town okay, only to find that the original factory had closed down and it and the old store were abandoned and falling down. Was pretty sure that Old Town was still making canoes, but wasn't sure where exactly anymore, so that was a pretty big bust in the day. Found out once I was back at the trailer that they had been sold to another boat manufacture named 'Johnson Outdoors' and that the factory was still there somewhere in the town of Old Town. If I find myself with nothing better to do some afternoon I may make another trip up there and see what it is all about.

    Stopped on the way back into town and bought a 16 quart stock pot. Noticed the other day on our trip to Bar Harbor that live lobster's were going for under $4/lb out of the local 'lobster pounds'. At $24 for the pot I'm going to need to eat a lot of lobster, but that was my intention after all. Plus, I keep seeing signs for lobster dinners for anywhere from $15 to $30 per person. So in that respect I only need to eat one 2 pounder to be ahead of the game.

    Spent some time this evening figuring out some of the things I want to do over the next couple of weeks. A couple of things for sure include a 4 hr cruise out of Bar Harbor some morning to see a couple light houses out on a couple of the outer islands. I also plan to do a couple days down in Bath, Maine checking out the maritime museum there, as well as taking another light house cruise with them. In between times I want to spend time going to Rockport and Boothbay harbor and exploring some more of that coast line. I can already tell that I won't be able to do everything or see everything that is worth doing or seeing on this trip. Guess it'll just mean that I'll have to come back at some point.

Here are the photo's from the 8th day on the Grand Canyon raft trip.

Morning light on the cliffs across the river from camp.

Early morning on the boats and the guides are taking it easy on us as far as getting us wet. It may still be August and early September, and it may get above 100 degrees later in the day, but right now it's still cool in the shade. Add a little 48-50 degree water down your back and it feels down right cold.

Our first hike of the day was up a side canyon to this waterfall. My good friends Tom and Donna.

Deb taking it easy in the shade.

Jan doing the same thing.

Looking up at the hole the creek has cut down through the rock.

Fino brought several penny whistles and flutes along that he would break out periodically and play. He looked like he could be a character right out of Shakespeare 'A Mid Summer Nights Dream'. Put a couple goat horns on his head and he could be 'Pan'.

More wonderful scenery.

It's warm now.... going right through the middle of the waves is okay at this point.

Sometimes the walls are so high and the river so narrow that it is hard to tell where the river is actually going.

Saw this guy out chasing a couple of ewe's so it must be they're mating time. Never saw any 'head banging' going on, but all of the guides have seen, and heard, it in the canyon before.

Amazing colors.

Our 2nd hike of the day was up Havasupie Creek. The blue color of the water comes from the blue sky reflecting off of the white calcium carbonate deposits on the bottom and sides of the creek.

We ended up at a couple pools about a mile up river and found this really cool water slide we could all play in. Here we have Tom.

Ben

Sandy

Spud

Ginny had an interesting 'feet out of the water' approach.

Jim

The wash-out pool down below. Most of us did it a half dozen times or more. It was just a blast.

Fino in his own private pool.

The color variations between the red and brown rock, blue water and green plants was spell binding.

A last look at the river as we are walking out the cliff side trail to the boats.