New House Blog: Episode XXXVII - More Water And Electricity

This Episode deals with both planned and unplanned repair work in and around the New House, and it also deals with updating our continuing feature, Back Yard Archaeology.  But first an update on our small garden.  We planted a few varieties of lettuce and mixed greens a couple of weeks ago, but so far we are only seeing growth from one of the varieties.  All of the other plants, except for one pepper plant which is still pale and wan, are thriving, however.  The catnip is really flourishing in the new soil, and the cats are benefitting from this.  Shamrock plants are also flourishing in our garden, thanks to their seed's apparent ability to lie dormant for long periods of time and to fool naive gardeners into not picking them out of the dirt when said dirt is being tilled and turned over.

Water Part I

The shutoff valve for our garden's hose hookup was old and sometimes leaky - I think its seals had simply worn out from age and use.  You may recall from this Episode that we had to repair the punctured PVC pipe that carries water to our garden's hose hookup.  Since this water line was already drained and dry, due to the leak and repair, it seemed like a good time to replace this valve and its associated PVC pipe.  Here is a picture of the old spigot.  Note its old, leaky appearance.

This view shows the spigot and the PVC piping that was replaced.












This repair was pretty straightforward and it went relatively smoothly.

The new shutoff valve, in the off position.

Here is the overview of the new valve and piping.  Way back in May, when we bought our New House, the house inspector recommended that we paint any outside exposed PVC to protect it from sun damage.  We (I, Bish) chose a nice shade of green.

Yes, this picture was taken at night.

Here is a picture of the whole assemblage after painting and filling in the hole where the PVC goes into the ground.







Electricity Part I

There was a splice job in the attic that our house inspector recommended we correct.  He even provided a picture of it, and it looked like it would be no big deal, except that it would mean going into the attic, or suckering an electrician brother into going into the attic and doing the job for us.  I don't recall the name of our house inspector.  It's probably somewhere on the inspection report, but I'm not sure where that is at the moment.  That splice job has been corrected.  A big part of the reason for the delay in repairing it was that it was out of sight and we didn't often think of it.  As it turns out, suckering a brother into doing this repair for us was harder than we thought, so we decided we had waited long enough and the job had to be done.  This was to be a two-person job: one person would go into the attic and do the work and the other person would be nearby, ready to do whatever the person in the attic needed done - fetching tools, insulting the pre-Bishopians, etc.  Since the attic is a dark, dusty, grimy, insulationy place we decided to take a vote on who would do which job.  They vote was 4 to 1 in favor of me being the one to go into the attic and do the work (the cats were unanimous on this issue).  I gathered everything I thought I would need and put it in my orange Home Depot bucket, put on some clothes I could get dirty and grimy, put on a hat and respirator, put the orange bucket up into the attic, and climbed up into the attic, which is accessed through my office.  Before going further with the narrative, here's a picture of the offending splice job.

What a mess!

As bad as it looks in this picture, it was worse in-person.  What our house inspector failed to mention is  that this splice job was above the furnace, where footholds are few and open spaces below are many; the cables are on the other side of the furnace intake pipe; and the wire coming in from the right side was not long enough and had no slack.  Long story short - what I thought would be an easy job of re-splicing some wires inside a j-box turned into a several-hour job involving multiple j-boxes and a trip to Home Depot.

Did I mention that I naively wore a short-sleeve shirt in the attic during this repair?  Did I also mention that we had to turn off most of the breakers before starting this repair?

Now for the longer version of the story.  I climbed into the attic and experienced annoyance and irritation when I saw the actual splice job and its location.  At first I wasn't even sure I could maneuver around the furnace intake pipe (which is wrapped with insulation, by the way) or reach far enough to attach a j-box to the stud.  But I knew it had to be done, so I slowly shifted myself into the open space above the furnace and found some good footholds.  It was hot up in the attic.  I took a closer look at the situation and realized that it was worse than I had thought when I first entered the attic.  There were two cables on one wall, one coming up from below and one coming down from above, connected to a third cable on a different wall, and the third cable had no slack and not enough length to rout it properly around the corner to meet up with the other two cables.  I would need a second j-box and a length of romex.  Additionally, the ground wires did not have a wirenut or electrical tape - they were just kind of twisted together.

I had the romex with me, but I had only brought one j-box into the attic, so I called Becky and she retrieved the j-box for me, along with a second faceplate (it's a good thing we have some spares).  Just a quick note to those who may be wondering - we did not use any of the romex we dug up in the back yard.  We only use new romex that was bought at Home Depot.  The back yard romex has been sitting underground for years, in some cases it has been sitting in conduit filled with water.  Some of it might be ok, but we're not taking that chance.

I cut and stripped the new length of romex, mounted the first j-box, ran the cables into it, spliced them all together with wirenuts, and got ready to tape them up.  Hmmm...  Where's my yellow electrical tape?  I don't feel it in the bucket.  Let me look in the bucket.  Hmmm...  I don't see it, either.  Time for another call to Becky!  She couldn't find my yellow electrical tape in the garage, in my office, or anywhere.  She couldn't find any other electrical tape in the house, either.  D'oh!  I squeezed myself past the intake pipe and climbed down into the house.  I couldn't find any electrical tape, either.  Where had it all gone?  I know we had some.  I used my yellow electrical tape just recently, in this Episode, but it seems to have disappeared into thin air.  No electrical tape in the house at all, and none in the cars, either.  I changed out of my grungy attic clothes (and into clean clothes) and made a Home Depot run.  I got a few rolls of electrical tape - 2 yellow, 1 green, 1 orange.

Back up into the attic, and back into the space above the furnace.  One splice taped, two splices taped, tape falls down below where I can reach it.  I called to Becky and she kindly handed up the other new yellow roll.  Three splices taped and 1 faceplate attached.

One down, one to go, or so I thought.  The second j-box mounting and romex splicing went smoothly and I thought I was done when I screwed on the second faceplate.

A lovely splice

Tucked into the box

Newly faceplated

After adding the faceplate to the second j-box I looked up above the first j-box and discovered another exposed splice job.  As with the original botched splice job, the ground wires had no wirenut or electrical tape.  Another call to Becky brought me another j-box and faceplate.  Finally I was done.  This repair job can't be seen, and won't likely affect our electricity experience in any way, but it did address a potential fire hazard.




The picture below, composed of two pictures, shows the three new j-boxes and their positions relative to each other.  The insulation-covered pipe in the center is much wider in-person, and it was quite difficult to navigate around.

Electricity Part II

There is no Part II.

Water Part II

This project combines repair work with Back Yard Archaeology.  While attempting to break-up and remove The Monolith, first seen in this Episode, I discovered that our garden hose connection's water pipe was embedded in the concrete of The Monolith.  It appeared as though someone had laid the water pipe and then at a later date had poured the concrete, completely disregarding the presence of the water pipe.  What to do?  Should I leave The Monolith in the ground and hope it didn't annoy me in the future, or should I cut the pipe, remove The Monolith, and patch the pipe?  I chose the latter course of action.  The Monolith's continued presence in the back yard would surely have annoyed me quite a bit.  Pictures.

The repaired pipe

Concrete Mining Update

Our concrete mine has run dry.  All of the concrete has been mined, but you can still get your very own piece(s) of genuine mined concrete for the low low price of just $5.00 per pound.  Act now before prices skyrocket!

This is the mining site after all of the concrete was extracted.  It has since been filled in with dirt, and possibly a few rocks.







While mining the concrete, I uncovered and extracted a strange object.  It is a length of what appears to be a whitish-silverish metal.  This metal is not corroded or rusted, but it is dirty and grungy.  It may be the same type of metal that was sticking up out of The Monolith.  Here is a picture, with Pick included to show scale.

Bonus Update

We now know which light switch turns the back yard light on and off.  Until now it was a mystery.  The light fixture is there, and it has a new bulb, but we did not know how to activate it.  Now we know.  There are two light switches near the kitchen sink, and one of them is known to control the garbage disposal.  The other switch is the one for the back yard light.

Mystery solved.

We are happy to report that the light lights up the entire back yard very satisfactorily, and we should have no trouble spotting any more opossums that wander through.

You should learn something new every
   bIsh

New House Blog: Episode XXXVI - Electricity And Water

Welcome back.  We now resume our tale of adventure, intrigue, and mystery that is the New House Blog.  In this Episode we will explore faulty electricity, meet some unexpected water, extract unexpected cable, meet new team members, and possibly probe more mysteries of the back yard.  How is it possible to cram all of this into one Episode?  I don't know, but somehow we manage to make it work.  Let's get blogging.

Electricity

An outlet in the garage was not providing electrical flow.  We discovered this when we moved our Dustbuster to the garage and plugged it in to said outlet.  The charging light did not light, so we plugged in a known working radio and the radio did not power on.  D'oh!  After turning off what we thought was the right breaker we proceeded to open and disconnect the dead outlet.  This outlet, as it turns out, is not on the same circuit as all of the other outlets in the garage, but we eventually found the right breaker (nevermind how this was discovered) and turned it off.  The wires inside the outlet were corroded and one of them had broken off from the outlet, thus stopping the electrical flow.  The old j-box had to be removed so that we could cut off the corroded sections of romex, restrip them, splice them, and reattach them to the new outlet.  Fortunately, there was plenty of extra slack in the romex, so we did not have change the location of the outlet.  To remove the old j-box we had to make a bit of a hole in the wall, and we had to make the hole bigger so that a hammer could be used to nail the new j-box to the stud (a drywall-mount j-box would not work in this situation).  The new j-box was mounted, and the romex was spliced, taped, and connected to the new outlet.  The wall was repaired and a new faceplate was installed.  Voila - another outlet replaced and working.  There are no pictures of the old outlet, but we can show you the new outlet and the plug for the Dustbuster.  Note that since this is in the garage the wall repair is not as neat and clean as an in-house wall repair would be.

New Team Members

Let's meet the new team members.  We know we've given you a lot of names to remember, but we are confident that you can squeeze a few more names into your already-crowded memory.  First up is our new leaf/grass rake.  Let's all give a warm New House Blog welcome to Rakey!  Rakey comes to us from the Home Depot at the Great Mall, and is a standard leaf/grass rake.

Heeeeeeer's Rakey!

Next up is El Toro, our new lawnmower.  El Toro also comes to us from the Home Depot at the Great Mall, and is a Toro 22" front-drive lawnmower.  We chose this particular model because of its uneven-ground capabilities.  Our front yard is composed of uneven ground, and our back yard is nowhere near being mowable yet.  El Toro features independently-adjustable wheel heights, optional front-wheel drive, an optional grass trimmings bag, and a garden hose connection for quick cleaning.  We did not find the front-drive option to be useful on the first mowing of our front lawn - it wanted to pull me along faster than I wanted to walk (I did the intial mow).

Notice the huge rear wheels.

The pilot's view of El Toro

We have the wheels set at maximum height right now, per the instruction manual's recommendation for mowing tall grass.  On the next mow we might lower the ride-height one notch.  Also per the manual, we did not use the trimmings bag for our fist mow in the tall grass.










Unexpected Cable

In the front yard, near the edge of our property, there was some flexible orange conduit sticking up out of the dirt.  We pretty much ignored this conduit since we bought the house, but now we have removed it.  It turns out that this conduit contained some old cable cables (no, that's not a typo - it means old cables used for cable tv).  The cables were not connected to anything on either end - they had been severed and left in the ground.  We only traced the conduit a short way, then we cut the conduit and cable and buried them.  They are deep enough that they won't bother us, and we don't want to dig up the front yard at this time.  Here are some pictures of what we pulled out of the ground.  The tools are there to show scale.

It occurs to me that maybe we should collect and save all of the cabling we've been pulling up out of the ground so we can sell it.















Unexpected Water

For this segment we return to our continuing series - Back Yard Archaeology.  In this Episode we uncovered some PVC pipes sticking out of the ground.  These pipes have now been fully excavated, and I discovered (so far, I, Bish, have done all of the excavating of ancient artifacts in the back yard) that there were actually three pipes in this group, and not just two.  The third pipe did not quite break the surface, which is why I didn't know about it initially.  Here's a picture of the partially uncovered pipes.

The pipe at the top of the photo has a slightly larger diameter than the other two pipes.  While excavating these three pipes I came upon another unexpected discovery - a seemingly randomly-buried piece of PVC.  The pictures show it in its actual discovered location - great care was taken not to disturb this artifact during the excavation.

I know I mentioned water, and we're getting to it.  This background is necessary and is leading up to the unexpected water.















The three pipes ran underground for several feet, then two of them turned upward and one of them turned ninety degrees to the left.  And I found another PVC pipe while excavating these three.  It was discovered as I was uncovering the upturned ends of two of the three pipes, and it was not as deep as the three, and it was a smaller diameter pipe.  See for yourself.

Note the 4th pipe, near the top of the photo.

And now we get to the water.  While excavating the leftmost of the three pipes, the one with the ninety-degree bend leading into more dirt, I accidentally punctured a live PVC water pipe.  At first I thought that the water coming out of the pipe was just residual water that had been gathering and sitting for years in an unused pipe, but I quickly realized that I had punctured the pipe that leads to our garden's hose outlet.  We like having a hose outlet right by our garden.  This water line has its own shutoff valve by the house, so I was able to turn off the water flow, but not before the excavation had flooded.

I naively thought that the water would subside overnight and I would be able to continue with my excavations, but I had forgotten that we have clay-like dirt here, and it does not drain very quickly.  Added to that, it took a few days for all of the water to finally dribble out of the punctured pipe.

On a positive note, however, I discovered the end of the third pipe right next to the puncture I made in the live pipe.

While waiting for the water to subside I decided to excavate the mysterious fourth pipe.  In this photo you can see a bit of uncovered fourth pipe.  What you can't see is that the trench for the fourth pipe seems to be a good place for a drainage channel to help with water subsidence.

In this photo you can see more clearly how the fourth pipe's trench would seem to make a natural drainage channel with just a little more digging.  I removed the fourth pipe up to the angled coupling at the top of the photo and started to dig my drainage.  This led to a most unexpected discovery, and then another unexpected discover.  I don't remember the precise order of discovery, so I will arbitrarily mention the amazing ancient artifact first.





Another Amazing Ancient Artifact

While digging the drainage trench mentioned above I uncovered another amazing ancient artifact, or AAAA. This artifact appears to be made of rusted metal and is about 8" to 9" in length.  It looks like it might be related to modern wire cutters.  Judge for yourself what it might have been.

Side One

Side Two

Concrete Mine

The other unexpected discovery was the concrete mine.  I had never before seen a concrete mine, and I understand that they are very rare, so I was quite shocked at this discovery.  And it appeared to be a particularly rich mine, too.  We don't know the market value of mined concrete, but we're willing to let it go for only $5.00 per pound.  Act quickly, because mined concrete values could go up at any moment!

This is a rich, rich pocket of concrete, and the pile you see in this photo is the result of only the first mining session - I did not attempt to mine all of the concrete at once.



Pipe Repair

I am happy to report that the punctured pipe has been repaired and the water has subsided and/or evaporated.  I was able to remove the three PVC pipes intact and undamaged.  This is important, because undamaged artifacts are worth more to museums than damaged artifacts.  At this time the fourth pipe has not been fully excavated.

The repaired PVC

Bonus Pictures

What you see below is the result of me testing out the new panoramic mode on my iPhone's camera.  They are what they are, and they provide a good overview of some of the archaeological excavations in the back yard.  Sharp-eyed readers may even notice one or two items in the pictures that have not been discussed yet.  We plan to discuss said (unsaid) items in future editions of Back Yard Archaeology.

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Thank you for your continued support.
        bIsh

The Maine Thing - Part II

And now for the conclusion of our Maine adventures.  In Part I we reviewed some of the things we learned on our trip, and in Part II we will be sharing the highlights of the trip, in roughly chronological order.  We have put the link to the rest of the photos at the bottom of this blog post, so you'll have to either read the whole thing to get to the pictures, or else just scroll all the way down to the bottom without reading.  On with the show.

Flying First Class

Flying first class was definitely a highlight of the trip.  Waiting on the runway in San Jose for two hours because they sent the wrong plane from Atlanta was much better than it would have been in coach.  On our first flight, to Atlanta for our connection, we slept almost all the way, so we didn't really get to take advantage of being in first class, but the wide seats were very nice.  Flying out of Atlanta we got served real breakfasts on real dinnerware.  We got real silverware, and all of our beverages were served in real glass glasses.  We might never get to fly first class again, but we're glad we got to experience it on this trip.

My First Lobster Roll

We landed in Portland, Maine, on Friday, and we drove northeast to Bath.  On the way we stopped for lunch at Day's Take-Out, and I ordered a lobster Roll.  Becky had crab cakes.  As far as I know it was a good lobster roll.  It was overflowing with lobster meat and the bun was toasted on one side.  Day's Take-Out sits just off the highway, on the edge of a wetland, and it has a nice outdoor eating and viewing area.

My First Stuffed Lobster

For dinner, in Bath, we went to a restaurant that we don't recall the name of.  It's on the waterfront of the Kennebec River, and it has a nice outdoor seating area.  The skies entertained us with some lightning, thunder, rain, and hail.  I ordered the stuffed lobster.  Becky ordered the fish.

Visiting The LL Bean District In Freeport, Maine

On Saturday, before the wedding, we drove to Freeport, Maine, to look at the outlets for a bathing suit for Becky (she had forgotten to pack one).  We didn't realize that every other outlet in Freeport is an LL Bean outlet.  In addition to all of their little outlets, the have their gigantic main outlet (it's the one with the giant boot out front).  The giant main outlet was quite impressive (not many outlet stores in our area include an indoor archery range and a large pond stocked with live fish).  We had some good ice cream while in Freeport.

The Wedding

The wedding is the reason we were in Maine at all.  The outdoor setting at the Maine Maritime Museum was gorgeous, with sun, trees, and beautiful views of the Kennebec River.  The wedding featured a hand-made Chuppah and breaking of goblets, among other traditional acoutrements (but, alas, no pirates), but it was too windy for the unity candles to be lit.

The hand-built chuppah

After the ceremony, while the pictures were being taken before the reception, we toured a bit of the outside of the Maine Maritime Museum.  The museum is set up in what used to be a real Maine shipyard.  Ships were built outdoors, all year round, in all kinds of weather.  This particular shipyard built the biggest wooden sailing vessel ever to sail, the Wyoming.  They're working on building a skeletal life-size model of the Wyoming, but so far the only have put up the bow and stern sections.

The Wyoming

The reception was a typical modern wedding reception and the food was really really good.  Between the two of us we had the fish (char, I think) and the steak.  The cake was decent, but not excellent, and we left shortly after its being served.

Nubble Point Lighthouse Area

On Sunday we drove down to the York, Maine, to explore the Nubble Point Lighthouse area.  We finally found free parking well past the main part of town in the parking lot next to Brown's Old Fashioned Ice Cream.  As we walked down the road, mostly sure we were going the right way, we encountered a local who gave us some very useful directions.  She also told us about the freshwater pond that we would pass by.  She informed us that that is very rare to find such a freshwater pond right next to a saltwater ocean.

We walked out to the peninsula and got as close to the Nubble Lighthouse as legally possible without getting wet.  The lighthouse sits on a rocky island only a few tens of yards off the coast, but it is illegal to visit the rocky island without express written permission from the town of York.

Before starting our walk to Long Sands Beach we stopped at Fox's Lobster House for a lobster roll to-go.  This lobster roll had a nice piece of greenleaf lettuce, which added a nice texture to the roll.  Long Sands Beach is a nice bit of a walk from the lighthouse area, and we passed by a lot of seemingly vacant summer rental houses and also a few vacant houses for sale.  When we reached the beach we still had to walk a ways to get to the one public restroom so that I could change into my bathing suit (which I had been carrying, along with my towel (from Aruba) since we got out of the car).  It was cloudy and kind of grey when we got to the beach, but I wanted to swim in the Atlantic Ocean, something which we don't get to do much of where we live, on the West Coast.  Becky was content to sit on the beach and remain dry while I bravely waded out into the cold, cold ocean.  On my first attempt I managed to wade out to my waiste and splash ocean water over my head and upper body.  Then I decided it was too cold and I went back to the beach and Becky.  Upon arriving at Becky's location, however, I decided that it wasn't so cold after all, and that I should at least attempt to actually swim in the Atlantic Ocean.  I had swum once before in the Atlantic Ocean, and that was in Aruba, and the ocean there is a lot warmer than it is off Maine.  On my second dip into the Atlantic I waded out again, splashed myself again, and it wasn't bad - maybe I had become acclimatized to the near-freezing temperature of the water.  I did a little body surfing, and it felt great, but the rational part of my brain reminded me that even though I felt great the water was quite cold, and I might be losing a lot of body heat, and I should not stay in the water very long.  I listened to my brain and returned to the beach after riding several waves into shore.  Back to the "changing room," then the trek back to the car to drop stuff off before getting some excellent ice cream from Brown's Old Fashioned Ice Cream.

Long Sands Beach

Finding The Back-door Entrance Into Canada

On Monday, Labor Day, we drove to St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.  I had never been to Canada before and I wanted to see the Bay of Fundy.  We headed toward Calais, Maine, and discussed various topics as we drove.  We also saw a lot of moose advertisements on yellow signs along the highways.  Despite all of this advertising, however, no moose ever appeared as we were driving.  When we got to the Calais area there was a bit of navigational confusion (some of the blame could fall on Bish, and some could fall on Becky), and we ended up missing the big, main border crossing into Canada.  And I had really been looking forward to seeing it.  Instead, we followed a little road to what seems to be a back-door entrance into Canada.  There was only one solitary guard booth by the road, and only one border agent, and he didn't even ask to see our passports.  He pretty much just waived us on through.  The brief conversation went something like this: "Are you US Citizens?"  "Yes."  "How long will you be in Canada?" "Just for the day."  "Go on through."  That was it.  We were in.  There was a bit more navigational confusion before we found our way back to the main freeway that leads to St. John.  As mentioned in Part I, the Canadians apparently don't believe in having rest stops along the freeway.  We didn't see a single one during our foray into Canada.  And they apparently don't believe in putting food, gas, or towns anywhere near the freeway.  There is at least one exception to this, however: we did come across one single, solitary gas station/convenience store that was within sight of the freeway.

Just outside St. John there is an information center.  We stopped there, and we learned that the Canadians take their Labor Day seriously.  Retail establishments close on Labor Day.  When will our norther neighbors learn that holidays are supposed to be big selling days for retail establishments?  We found some nice parking in St. John, we walked by some kind of car show, and we found a nice cafe/restaurant at which to eat lunch.  Becky had some nice barbecue chicken, and I had some nicely seasoned fried catfish.  As we ate our meal on the outside deck a singer with a guitar entertained us with some live music.  The cafe was happy to take our American money, but they gave us Canadian money as change.  We walked around St. John for a bit, found a small shopping center that actually had a few open stores (I bought a waterproof jacket for our scheduled kayak adventure), and then enjoyed the view of the Bay of Fundy on the waterfront.

Seeing The Bay Of Fundy

I wanted to see the Bay of Fundy.  Specifically, I wanted to see it at low tide, but we got into St. John during high tide.  From Bath, Maine, to St. John, New Brunswick, is a 5-hour drive, so we weren't able to stay in St. John long enough to see the tide go down very far, but we noticed the tide lower by a couple of feet along the waterfront.  We also noticed some granite carving going on, and we learned that a bunch of artists were in the process of creating several granite sculptures that were going to be distributed to various places.

On the way out of St. John we stopped at a place called Reversing Falls, where the outgoing and low tides apparently make for some fantastic viewing.  The viewing was pretty good at high tide, too.  We also stopped by a gas station/convenience store for some carbonated caffeine and we spent all but 10 cents of the Canadian currency we had gotten as change earlier in the day.

Coming back into the USA we did use the main border crossing.  The border agent was much more thorough in checking our passports and making sure it was okay for us to re-enter the country.  He did not, however, stamp our passports.

Visiting The Maine Maritime Museum

On Tuesday we visited the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath.  It was an overcast and sometimes rainy day, and I got to wear my brand new Canadian rain jacket.  Sadly, we arrived at the museum too late to sign up for the day's tours of the Bath Iron Works.  We did get there in time, however, for the guided outdoor tour of the facility.  As stated above, the museum was formerly an actual shipyard, and most of the original buildings are intact and open for touring.  The shipyard was open year-round, and the outdoor workers had no protection from the elements - they had to work in whatever weather was available at the time.  This particular shipyard built large wooden sailing cargo ships, and they could build up to two at a time.  Also as mentioned above, they built the largest wooden sailing vessel to ever sail, the Wyoming.  This ship hauled coal for several years before it was lost at sea with all hands.  After the guided tour we took the 1-hour boat ride tour of the Kennebec River.  While on this boat ride we got to see part of the bow of the first Zumwalt class destroyer (still under construction), the USS Zumwalt.  This is the Navy's newest class of destroyers, but only 3 are scheduled to be built.  We also got to see the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer, USS Michael Murphy on its last day in Maine before sailing out to be put into active duty.

USS Michael Murphy

The bow of USS Zumwalt

After the boat ride we toured the old shipyard buildings and then we toured the inside of the museum until it closed.

Enterprise VS. Boxer

One highlight for me was reading about the battle between USS Enterprise and HMS Boxer at the museum.  This battle took place off the coast of Maine during the War of 1812.  Enterprise was victorious.

Boxer vs. Enterprise

After dinner at a barbecue restaurant in downtown Bath we explored the town a bit, but most things were already closed for the night, which was both surprising and disappointing.  Happily, the ice cream parlor was still open.

Not Kayaking

We had scheduled a kayaking excursion for Wednesday, to leave from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, but the weather forecasters all predicted rains and storms for Wednesday, so the kayaking company cancelled the day's excursions.  We decided to visit Boothbay Harbor anyway, despite the cancelled kayaking and the predicted stormy weather.  When we rolled into town the weather was not stormy, and it got better and sunnier as the day went on.  The weather prognosticators had gotten it wrong: it would have been a great day for kayaking.  But the kayak people were not the only people affected by the faulty weather forcasts - we noticed that several boat tour companies had cancelled the day's scheduled boat tours because of the expected rough weather.

Looks like a good day for kayaking.

The restaurant where we had lunch let us in about ten minutes before their official opening for the day.  I had their fried lobster and chips.

While exploring the town of Boothbay Harbor we found a used book store and went in.  We bought a total of 3 books and contributed 3 more dollars to the local economy.  Boothbay Harbor is a nice town, and some nice people live there.  In one of the shops we asked the bored-looking cashier where we could get some ice cream.  His face lighted up as he explained that there was only one place to get ice cream in town, The Ice Cream Factory.  He gave us directions to get there, too.  The Ice Cream Factory is pretty awesome.  Their flavor selection is huge, and the ice cream has a very good texture and feel, as well as a great taste.

Popham Beach State Park

After awesome ice cream in Boothbay Harbor we drove down to Popham Beach State Park and explored a bit.  I had bought two waterproof single-use cameras for our planned kayaking excursion, and I had opened one of them in anticipation of our adventure, and I was determined to get at least one underwater picture with it before leaving Maine.  I got my three or four underwater pictures at Popham Beach State Park.  They may not be great pictures, but they were taken underwater.  My secret technique was to hold the camera just below the surface of the water as the waves came in to shore.  I was at wading depth, wading, and I have no idea what was captured by the camera, but I used my underwater camera underwater.  I also took several dry pictures.  We have not yet gotten the film developed, as of this blog post.

The beach was beautiful, and we saw a few lighthouses on islands and peninsulas.  Maine seems to have a lot of lighthouses.  After walking as far as we could, to the private property border, we headed back to the car and back to Bath for dinner (some call it supper).

Last Dinner In Maine

We had our last dinner/supper in Maine at the restaurant where we had our first supper/dinner in Maine, on the Kennebec River.  The weather was clear, the tide was flowing out, and the sky was dark.

Flying Home

We flew first class on the way home.  Our first flight took us to New York City for our connection to Atlanta, but we were not on the side of the plane that could see the tall buildings when we flew into New York City.

Upon takeoff from New York City we were again on the side of the plane that did not have a view of the tall buildings.  We had a great lunch on the plane - shrimp, chicken, tiramisu.   Our plane for the flight to Atlanta had movie/entertainment screens in the seatbacks, and I watched Brave.  Right in the middle of the movie my screen stopped working.  It wouldn't turn back on for several minutes, after which I had to restart the movie and fast-forward to where I was before it stopped working.  Because of the time it took to get the movie working again I was concerned that I might not get to finish it before we landed.  And as we got closer to Atlanta the pilot and flight crew kept interrupting things by making announcements.  But I was able to watch my movie all the way to the end as the plane landed in Atlanta.

On the flight from Atlanta to San Jose we had a very nice dinner, and we got to watch several lightning storms off the starboard side of the plane.  They were quite beautiful and fascinating.

Sadly, the pictures I was able to capture do not come close to conveying the true beauty and awesomeness of watching these storms live.

Getting Home

No matter how good a trip is, it's always good to get back home.  We got home and greeted the cats.  The end.

As mentioned at the top of this post, here is the link for the rest of our Maine pictures.  I had fun playing with various Picasa settings and filters.  Enjoy.

The Maine in Spain falls rainly in the
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