More zombies in Boston!
The identical blonde twins are in the foreground having their picture taken by another zombie. One of the twins is making a scary hand gesture.
My sister and brother-and-law ran a 1/2 marathon in Massachusetts in June. They stayed with my aunt in Whitman the weekend of the race, and we met them for a day excursion in the North End at South Station.
There was a very large crowd of zombies outside the entrance to the station. I don’t know what was going on, but it was fun, and funny, and the zombies we’re happy enough to have their pictures taken – I didn’t get any weird looks, but hey, they’re zombies – so, weird looks…?
Saturday morning on the way into the office to do some work, the kind of work you can only do on the weekends, when offices are empty and updates to applications, software and/or systems can be made without disrupting users, or without asking users to outright stop working, I took a detour across the Casco Bay Bridge to South Portland.
The Casco Bay Bridge, or “CBB” as no one but myself in this explanation for what you’re about to see over the course of the next 5 day visual tour call it, is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Million Dollar Bridge. I discovered this morning, thanks to the Internet, Google and Wikipedia, this isn’t correct. CBB replaced the Million Dollar Bridge, or “MDB.” MDB spanned the Fore River, joining Portland with South Portland. It was a bascule drawbridge. (Yes, that is a nice animation!) CBD, also a bascule drawbridge, replaced MDB in 1997.
Anyway, earlier last week I was driving into Portland across CBB, and I was thinking how ugly it is, and I guess I was imagining what the Fore River and Portland waterfront might look with something more like Budapest’s Chain Bridge, Istanbul’s Galata Bridge across the Golden Horn, or any of the utilitarian iron bridges spanning the Chicago River. But that’s silly; I live in Portland, Maine; I like the city a lot; and CBB is what we’ve got here.
Anyway, I crossed the bridge, and I drove up to where the excellent bike/pedestrian walkway descends from the roadway, and I looked, and I took a bunch of pictures. The first batch I did with my Canon one-shot digital camera. I did 2 rolls of back-and-white 35mm stuff, which when I have developed I’ll share. At least the better pictures I’ll share.
So, get ready for a tiny bit of repetition this week. Monday-Friday are dedicated to CBB. I hope it’s enjoyable. Thanks!
I often find myself walking through the woods, off the main trail or road, thinking “Wow, this area hasn’t been touched by humans, and I know I’m the first person who’s ever walking through these woods!” when I come across a stone wall like this.
This was taken at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, which admittedly isn’t the western Maine mountains, but the feeling’s the same.
The Hidden Chapel was accessible by a 2-3 mile hike (seemed longer) up and down steep canyon walls (seemed steeper). I remember we kept walking and walking and walking, and I thought: Where, exactly, are we going here? But the guide was great — an older gentleman you knew did the hike more than several times a day. I took this picture by the side of a farming road pretending I wasn’t trying to catch my breath or wash the sweat pouring off my face.