October 12, Thursday
51 degrees and rainy this morning. The generator doesn't want to stay running - ran fine last night ???.
Made sausage and eggs for breakfast with bagels, along with sharing an orange.
We left the campground about 8:45, headed to the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray. This is a reserve where injured animals are cared for. The rain stopped and it turned into a pretty nice day. The park was nicely maintained with roomy animal enclosures.
The first thing we saw as we walked, was a white deer that we were almost convinced was fake. Turns out it is real, just very still and according to staff almost albino with a few brown spots. 
There were other deer, black bear, a big old bull moose, red and gray foxes, coyote and a surprising number of big cats.
We especially enjoyed watching two lynx interacting with lots of posturing and hissing, and several mountain lions (also called cougars or panthers). So beautiful!
There were also quite a few raptors including eagles, harriers, owls, and vultures and a few smaller critters.
Some pretty colorful trees and plants as well.
We stopped at a grocery store for a few items, and then visited Len & Libby Candies to see a life size chocolate moose! All 1700 lbs!
Talked with the folks there and got a recommendation for lobster rolls at Ken's Place in nearby Scarborough. The place was hopping'! Tasty but pricey!
We headed to Two Lights Light House for the first light house of the day. (There used to be two, but only one now.) It is also called the Cape Elizabeth Light.
Overlooking Casco Bay, they were built in 1828 and the existing eastern light is automated and can be seen 17 miles out to sea. Quite a rocky, rugged coast! We walked a bit, stopped in a small shop and then continued up the coast to Fort William and Portland Head Light.
Portland Head Light was commissioned by George Washington in 1790 and is, perhaps, the most photographed Maine lighthouse. It marks the entrance to Portland Bay which even in the 1700's was one of the busiest ports in America. It is now on the grounds of Fort William State Park. Unfortunately we arrived just as the museum there closed, but we're still able to walk the grounds. We'll try to come back tomorrow.
We wound around Portland to find Portland Breakwater Lighthouse, also known as Bug Light. We were here at the "golden hour" and lighting got progressively better. It is on a 2,500' breakwater on the south side of the entrance to Portland harbor. A small tower stood there earlier, but the current light, with Greek architectural elements, was built in the early 1870's. It was extinguished in the 1940's, but restored in the 1980's.
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| Bug Light |
In a small park nearby there is ship-shaped pavilion which contains information about the Liberty ships built in South Portland from 1941 to 1945 for WWII. These shipyards employed about 30,000 workers, including some 3,700 women. The first ships were "Ocean" cargo ships built for Britain and then 236 "Liberty" cargo ships for the US.
Earlier in the day, we came across folks in another Road Trek and in chatting discovered that they had stayed at a CrackerBarrel in Portland the previous night, so we decided to head there this evening. There were at least 8 other RVs with us, and though it wasn't the quietest spot, we did ok. The sleep sacs which the previous owner of the Trek gave us are working out well. There are two and they are like a sleeping bag with a built in foam pad on the bottom and a nice comforter on top.
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