Performer: The Allman Brothers Band
Songwriters: Donovan Leitch, Duane Allman, Gregg Allman, Dickey
Betts, Jai Johanny Johansen, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks
Original Release: Eat a Peach
Year: 1972
Definitive Version: The Fillmore Concerts, 1992, because it wasn’t cut
in half, like it was on Eat a Peach
For the second-longest song
on this here list—and the second one I won’t finish on a one-way half-hour trip
to work—I should have an appropriately long post, right? Well, it won’t be, but
it’s not too short.
In yesterday’s blog action,
Debbie and I were headed in Maine. Today, Debbie and I were in Maine—two years
later. No, that wasn’t the world’s longest traffic jam on I-95, just different
trips. (See? With enough padding, you can make anything as long as you want it
to be.)
Anyway, as I mentioned,
Debbie and I loved our first Maine experience so much that of all of the “we
have to get back there” locations, Maine was first on the priority list.
Because we had more time this time—a long weekend—we could do things we hadn’t
done last time, such as take a whale cruise, as I mentioned. We also drove up
to Acadia National Park, which I’ll get to in a second.
One other thing we could do
was just hang out at Ocean’s Gate in Southport. We noticed a pingpong table was
set up in the grass to the side of the driveway, and Debbie announced that she
loved playing pingpong, which was news to me. I like it, too, and it was cool
to be out there amongst the trees, having no low basement ceiling to curtail
smashes. I’m pretty sure Debbie didn’t appreciate that facet as much.
When we returned the paddles
at the end of our play, the owner told us about an osprey that built a nest at
the end of the cove where their inn was located. Debbie wanted to see it, so we
went from pingpong in the woods to a canoe paddling out to see the osprey nest.
We saw the osprey briefly.
Debbie was hoping to see chick heads poke up from the gigantic nest that was
perched atop a cove beacon, but she had no such luck. Still it was fun to do
those things before heading in to town for the inevitable lobster dinner at the
Rocktide Inn.
The next day we got up
fairly early to a beautiful blue sky to drive up to Bar Harbor and Acadia,
stopping along US-1 whenever the mood struck. The park itself was OK but little
that you can’t see anywhere else along the coast of Maine—maybe a bit rockier
and hillier.
We climbed Cadillac Mountain,
and that was scenic, but I was bugged by the clouds that were starting to form
on some of the outcrop islands—wisps of white that clung to the tips and made
it less appealing to a photographer. In fact, a fog seemed to be rolling in. By
the time we headed to Bar Harbor, the sky was gray.
Bar Harbor is nice, I guess,
but touristy. I liked that, because people who go on vacation in Maine typically
go to Bar Harbor and Acadia. They bypass Boothbay, which makes it far
sleepier—and better. Debbie and I had dinner at a nondescript place and headed
back just as it began to rain.
And by rain, I mean a
monsoon. There was no wind, just huge raindrops coming straight down in a
deluge. It was as though someone turned on a faucet instead of a shower. Before
long, it got so I could barely see as I drove along the unfamiliar, winding,
poorly lit two-lane road—slowly, to account for the lack of clear vision. And
whenever I came behind a truck, that kicked even more water on my windshield
with nowhere to pass until it mercifully turned off the road.
When we got to Rte. 27 to
head to Boothbay Harbor, I was overjoyed. The rain continued to come down, but
the excruciating part of the drive was over. I was pretty whipped, so we just
headed back to our room.
The torturous rain didn’t
diminish our ardor for Maine one bit. And as we headed to Boston the next day,
we began to make plans for our third visit.
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