"The Home of Craft Everything"

Even tight accommodations look better in the morning.  Magda and Joe slept in the top bunk of our creaky loft bed.

Claustrophobia quickly sent us in search of the Holy Donut, highly ranked by people who care about such things.  Potato flour is the secret ingredient.

 

An early morning stroll took us past some nice homes, pretty flowers, and old buildings.

John Ford, the film director, is another of Portland's favorite sons.  His late-career Western, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," was one of the first movies I ever saw.  I mostly remember its theme song.  Sung by Gene Pitney, it introduced me to Hal David and Burt Bacharach, my favorite songwriting team.

Murals depicting Portland's maritime past adorn the covered piers.

We bought tickets on a commuter ferry to see more of the city's waterfront.

 

Some of the city's more modern forms of transportation provided momentary distractions until it was time to board.  Who can resist a beer-swilling mermaid?

 

We also popped into a gallery where the owner/artist, who belonged to the class of "Mad Men" before retiring, shrewdly agreed to be photographed with a pair of prospective customers.  Joe and Magda have seen his work elsewhere in New England, and may add one of his paintings to their growing collection of art.

Final Destination

It cost us $46 to cross the Confederation Bridge.  Eight miles long, it connects Prince Edward Island with New Brunswick and rests on 62 piers planted in the Northumberland Strait.  The long crossing gave us plenty of time to learn more about PEI on Wikipedia.  The red earth is great for growing potatoes, the province's primary export.

A stop at Magnetic Hill in Moncton broke up a long morning of driving.

It's been around since horse and buggy days.  Let's just say people were more easily entertained then.

An unpleasant surprise awaited us when we picked up Thom's car in Bangor.  Less than a mile from the garage, we discovered it had a flat and no spare.  The wonderful employees at a nearby Citgo station dropped everything to "plug" it.

It took us another couple of hours to get to our final destination.

Millennials flock to Portland, Maine's largest city for its cheap real estate.  Our hosts moved from Washington, DC to an old neighborhood once populated by ships captains just a five-minute walk from downtown.   Physicians moved in during the '70s because the ground floors of the huge houses were perfect for seeing patients.  But the area eventually fell into disrepute before hipsters, young families and Airbnb came to the rescue.

 Our hosts' daughter may have a future as a florist.

Portland claims Romantic poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  He wrote "The Song of Hiawatha."  If nothing else about his epic, you probably remember the name of the title character's girlfriend:  Minnehaha.

We passed Longfellow's house on our way to church for a drink.

The only thing Grace lacked was a congregation, though Tuesday evening may have been to blame for that.

 

 

Amidst plenty of derelicts, downtown Portland has a lot to offer, including a barber shop catering to senior citizens.

After an incredibly delicious tapas meal at Sur Lie, we window shopped before turning in at our very small "studio," where we shared a bathroom with some other, unseen lodgers.  It was by far the least pleasant and most expensive of our accommodations.