"Nothing he [Saddam Hussein] has done has convinced me—I'm confident the Secretary of Defense—that he is the kind of fellow that is willing to forgo weapons of mass destruction, is willing to be a peaceful neighbor, that is—will honor the people—the Iraqi people of all stripes, will—values human life. He hasn't convinced me, nor has he convinced my administration."—Crawford, Texas, Aug. 21, 2002

Yep, that's our so-called President. Can't we just keep this guy on the ranch?

(Quote courtesy of Slate.com's Bushism of the Day)

Life imitates Star Trek: according to the BBC Science News, the U.S. Army has been field-testing a portable translator in the Balkans. Army chaplains in Croatia used laptops that could "hear" spoken Croatian and translate it into spoken English, via a speech synthesizer. Of course at this stage only about fifty percent of what was said was understood by the computer, since complex grammar and idiomatic expressions don't often sit well with machine-based translation algorithms. But if you're the sort of person who grew up dreaming of Universal Translators, this is pretty cool stuff. Ensign Hoshi Sato would be proud.

And in the Famous People Jogging Down Memorial Drive Department, while driving home from work my wife and I saw Chris Schleslinger, my favorite chef in the whole world and owner of the fabulous East Coast Grill, running along the Charles River yesterday. Or at least I think it was Chris. In any case, I'm glad we yielded! The East Coast Grill, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is home to the now famous/infamous "Hell Night", where diners eagerly pay to have their taste buds scorched by some of the hottest chile-spiked cuisine known to man. Even when it's not apocalytpically spicy, the food is always amazing. Chris was a huge influence on my own cooking style, which emphasizes heat, tropical flavors, and a lot of grilled meat and seafood. I treat my copy of his 1995 cookbook, Salsas, Sambals, Chutneys & Chowchows, like a holy relic, albeit a dog-eared, food-spattered, and coming-apart-at-the-binding one. But a cookbook isn't truly beloved unless it's seen plenty of action.

Have you noticed that most of the new state quarters jangling around in myriad pockets and purses are... how to say this... lame? Well, you're not the only one. Slate.com offers a hysterical deconstruction of the ones out so far, and what they seem to say about the internal psychology of U.S. states and their bland and risk-averse inhabitants. Case in point: my adopted home state of Massachusetts, who opted for a sorry-looking Revolutionary Minuteman against an outline of the state's boundaries. Now I'm all for us being the Cradle of Liberty and whatnot, but why not something a little more inspiring then, like Old Ironsides, or the Boston Tea Party? Or how about the "divine" cod, the once-abundant major export of New England, the trade of which paved the way to American self-sufficiency and independence in the first place, so much so that a wooden codfish totem was hung in the Massachusetts State House for centuries, and the nouveau riche of Boston referred to themselves with pride as the "codfish aristocracy"? Or for the love of Yaz, Eck, and Teddy Ballgame, why not Fenway Park? No, instead we settle for some weak Colonial Williamsburg-esque piffle. Oh, well.

I saw the heron again in the Back Bay Fens, which I braved despite the discovery of West Nile-infected mosquitoes in the area. I guess that's pretty good for an acknowledged hypochondriac! The heron didn't seem to mind, either, and had taken the pole position of the whole park, perched atop the submerged branch in the middle of the largest pond, right next to a motionless turtle soaking up the sun and a Canadian goose oblivious to anything but what his fellow geese were doing. Herons are so freaking majestic, even when they're just doing something stupid like cleaning themselves, so again I had no choice but to stand and be mesmerized (although I think I swatted once or twice at some nonexistent mosquitoes). It's funny but wildlife sightings tend to clump together like that, where you see the same odd creature day after day. I remember a year or two back that I kept running into a pair of redtail hawks that had chosen the Fens as their happy hunting ground, every time I went for a walk. And then one day they disappeared, as suddenly as they'd appeared. The heron is like that as well. I don't know if it's the same bird, but every once in a while I'll catch him hunting more or less the same patch of the park a few days in a row, after which I won't see hide nor feather of him for weeks or months. I guess that's how predators work, though - when we're fishing, my brother-in-law and I tend to visit the same place over and over again at a regular interval, and then move on when we feel we've caught all we can there. Funny thing, I've never thought of the heron as a fellow fisherman until now. I hope he's having better luck than I've had lately!

Enough about the birds already - let's bowl! (link courtesy of Whedonesque.com)

So Worcester lost to Louisville on Saturday night, 4-0, completely shut down by Louisville pitcher Zachary Osborne's masterful performance on the mound. Oh, well. It was a good run for Worcester, whose improbable ride to contention for the Little League Championship was just the antidote for a Red Sox Nation staring down the twin barrels of a possible players' strike and a sputtering team that was playing .750 ball going into Memorial Day weekend. Win or lose, the "Worcester 13" won.

My lunchtime walk around the Fens this afternoon yielded two surprises - first, I found myself within a stone's throw of a heron, and a big one at that. He had been stalking the shallow stagnant waters, and froze in mid-stride as soon as he noticed me noticing him. We stood there for about five minutes, me trying to creep closer for a better look, the crane tilting his head ever so slightly this way and that, still motionless otherwise, as he tried to feel out my intentions. Passersby must have thought I was a total nut-case, or practicing some very odd variant of Tai Chi. Either way, they definitely kept their distance. Surprise number two was a pair of turtles, one about five times larger than the other. The little turtle was swimming directly behind the big one, occasionally doing barrel rolls off to the side but always staying in close proximity to the big one. A mother turtle and its baby? Do turtles do the child-rearing thing? Up until this point, the only time I'd seen multiple turtles in the wild was when they were all sunning themselves on a big rock, or fallen tree branch (like they do in the Fens on sunny days). Very strange, but again a sight that I just couldn't tear myself away from. Wildlife can be such a distraction sometimes...

Right now I've almost read my way through Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. What a great little book!

Because you can never get too much French fashion. Or can you? Try watching ABCParisLive's streaming video feed of Fashion T.V. Paris and decide for yourself. I find it strangely hypnotic, like watching a tropical fishtank. Less trippy webcamage of the City of Lights, including some constantly-refreshed views of the Eiffel Tower - can be found here.

Little League World Series update: Worcester beat Harlem last night, 5-2, when Worcester's catcher Ryan Griffin hit his first home run ever in the bottom of the sixth inning to win the game and advance his team to the National Championship against Louisville this Saturday night. How awesome is that? New England sports commentators are already comparing this kid to Carlton "Pudge" Fisk, another hard-hitting catcher and Major League Hall of Famer who played for the Red Sox between 1969 and 1980. Maybe a little on the overboard side there, but what the heck. It's this kid's moment - let him enjoy it.

Do you like Buffy (of course you do!)? Do you like The Sims (of course you do!)? Then why not try both? Suddenly I feel the urge to go home and play The Sims. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" And if that weren't bad enough, the new expanion pack - Unleashed, due out next month - will allow you to add pets to your virtual family. Bad dog. Bad cat. Bad werewolf!

O.K., random link number two: The Church of Spongebob Squarepants. Yes, there is such a thing. And yes, I'm considering converting. Let's face it, how can Catholicism compete with the Holy Trinity of Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward? For another most excellent (and perhaps less heretical) Spongebob fansite, check out Absorbency.

And here's three. Have you ever gotten one of those spam e-mails from people selling discount toner? Here at the library we've been deluged by them lately, and my boss decided to fight dirty and get the Harvard Police on the case. According to the Imaging Supplies Coalition black-market toner and related copy products make for a $1 billion dollar a year industry. Of course maybe I'd have a little more sympathy for the ISC if toner didn't cost about as much as cocaine (aka "white toner"), and I have to say I find the whole idea of underground office supply cartels too funny to take seriously. And you thought the black market was cool!

I don't own a Sony Playstation 2, but Star Wars Bounty Hunter is sure making me wish I did, even if George Lucas managed to take the coolest characters in his mythos (who else but Boba Fett and his badass father Jango!) and turn them into cannon fodder. Poor Temuera Morrison. But I guess if you have to get decapitated in an unnecessarily confusing Arena/Execution/Charge of the Jedi Light Brigade battle, who better to do the deed than Samuel L. Jackson? With a purple lightsaber, no less.

Are you a hypochondriac? Just asking the question is probably a big fat yes. I took the quiz and ended up way into the meaty George Costanza ("Is it cancer?") section, which if you know me isn't that much of a surprise. When I was a child I used to be afraid of dying in my sleep, especially before a big family vacation or something equally cool. How this parlayed itself into an Aelius Aristidean neurosis is quite beyond me, but ironically I can look to Aristides - the world's first great hypochondriac who roamed the ancient Eastern Mediterranean in search of cures for what supposedly ailed him - for a little comfort. Although his aches and pains were myriad, he ended up living to the ripe old age of 63, which was about twice the expected lifespan for an average Greek or Roman of that time!

But let's talk baseball. That Major League strike (with a walkout date set for August 30th) may be unavoidable, but we can at least enjoy the Little League World Series. Although the heart of the nation is presumably behind a Harlem "Cinderella story", I can't help but root for the local kids, as Worcester has managed to battle their way into the semifinals as well. Tonight's winner-take-all matchup between the two will decide who goes on to the National finals, and perhaps to International World Series glory...

Went to the dentist today, for the first time in years. I expected the worst, but apparently I have been granted exceptionally sturdy teeth and gums by The Powers That Be, and got away with forty-five minutes of plaque scraping, x-rays, and a friendly public service announcement about how flossing is a good idea. My dentist, who as it turns out originally hails from Atlantic City, referred to my choppers as "King Kong Teeth", because for some reason their bone density is twice that of the normal 30-year-old male. Mutant teeth, eh? Maybe I have a Wolverine-like skeleton of unbreakable bones, and I'm wasting my time plugging away here at the library, because I could be out there fighting crime and ridding the world of evil (the real kind, not John Ashcroft's idea of it).

Probably not. Oh, well... Superheroes probably don't get dental coverage anyway.

p.s.: For reasons that I've promised not to go into here quite yet, today I owe a certain Greek goddess a debt of gratitude. Just for the record!

Every time I walk around the Back Bay Fens, I seem to notice something strange, new, and wonderful. Today was no exception. There's a neck of the pond near the halfway point in my lunchtime lap that has been nothing but an island of mud for all the years I've passed it - one time an aspiring modern artist stacked three broken televisions in a column there, but most of the time it was just mud and the occasional duck, goose, or crane. But this afternoon I round the corner, expecting Mud Island, and find that the whole strip has been covered with blazing pinkish-purple lupines (a wildflower that looks like this)! How cool is that? I don't know if they occurred naturally, or whether it was another guerilla art student at work, but this sure beats the T.V. Totem Pole... makes me think of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud", even though he was talking about daffodils:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

My brother Dave informs me that I will soon be the proud owner of a Harry Kalas bobblehead doll, an extra one of which he picked up for me over the weekend at the Phillies-Cardinals game. Sweet. Talk about the Holy Grail of bobbleheads - Harry Kalas is the man!

Went fishing yesterday. My brother-in-law and I both caught a striper (that's a striped bass, if you're not the fishing type, the most prized quarry for saltwater anglers in New England), but neither was large enough to keep. Still, we have ourselves an old fishing hole along Rumney Marsh, an improbable wetland oasis less than fifteen miles away from downtown Boston. Every time we've fished along the Pines river, we've caught something. Maybe one of these times it'll be a "keepah"!

Back to Saturday. In a desperate bid to escape both the sweltering heat and neighborhood BBQ party downstairs, the missus and I piled into the car and drove. We live a few short miles away from Cape Anne, and the coastal drive afforded by Route 127, which skirts the Cape in an at-times heart-achingly scenic loop, is always a good way to while away an afternoon. Even if you're not from the area, you likely have heard of Cape Anne's most famous (or infamous) town, the fishing port of Gloucester, thanks to Sebastian Junger. His book, The Perfect Storm - later turned into a surprisingly reverent Hollywood blockbuster movie starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg - is a chronicle of the deadly and destructive Halloween Storm of October 1991 that devastated Massachusetts' commercial fishing fleet and lead to the loss of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing boat, her captain Billy Tyne, and all of her crew. That celebrated disaster still packs in morbidly curious tourists, but there's so much more to Gloucester, whose unique natural beauty has attracted artists (such as luminist painter Fitz Hugh Lane), since the 1800's. When we were driving through, there was a streetside arts and crafts show along the seawall, so we stretched our legs, ate some kettle corn, and drank some lemonade while browsing the stalls. Dinner we ate downtown, at a hole-in-the-wall establishment called Jalapeno's that served some amazingly authentic (and tasty!) Mexican food. Maria had the carne asada, I tried the chicken mole enchiladas, and we both split an order of calamari fried in corn flour with pickled jalepeno slices and a chipotle-spiked mariana sauce on the side. Heavenly! We topped off our day in the air-conditioned car with a night at the also air-conditioned movies. XXX, starring Vin Diesel, is actually good, if you like that rock 'em sock 'em sort of spy thriller that the James Bond franchise used to be. But here was the best part: waiting for the movie to start, we stepped outside of the theater and were treated to a full-bore fireworks show going on out over Revere Beach. How's that for a serendipitous ending?

Two articles caught my eye today when I made the science rounds:

China is preparing for its fourth and final test flight of the Shenzou space capsule, the success of which will pave the way to the first Chinese manned space flight. According to unofficial sources, nine fighter-pilot "taikonauts" have been training in secret, and are ready to show the the world that China has the right stuff, as soon as the technology is ready for them. I've mentioned in an earlier blog that the rumors are flying about a possible Chinese moon landing by 2010, but apparently China is now denying that. So I guess only time will tell. Go taikonauts! Thank goodness someone still sees the exploration of outer space as the next logical step in the evolution of mankind. I've heard from a friend working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that NASA doesn't even have any new projects on the table, thanks to a combination public indifference and Congressional hostility. Maybe the Chinese flag planted in the Sea of Tranquility will dope-slap us out of our ever-growing national solipsistic funk.

Okay, it's not a Killer Space Rock, but it could be in 2022 - this weekend we will be treated to a fly-by of asteroid 2002 NY40, which will pass so close to the Earth that it will actually be visible through binoculars or a small telescope. Get out there and take a gander!

From the L.A. Times:

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

Click here for the full article by Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University. You'll need to register with latimes.com, but registration is free and the article is chillingly worth it. I'm very disturbed by the fact that time and time again our so-called leaders have used the excuse of war or national security to justify the suspension of our civil liberties. Odd. When last I checked the Constitution, there weren't any such provisions to make the President a dictator, somehow no longer restrained by the system of checks and balances that have held our Republic together for well over two hundreds years now. It seems to me that if the Founding Fathers had wanted such a clause, being the keen students of Classical History that they were, they would have written one in, just as the Romans had for their own Republic. But the Founders weren't stupid - they saw that Roman History was replete with incidents of citizens being given absolute power in times of crisis - the Roman Senate could appoint a dictator, whose authority was total but whose term of office was limited to six months - who then refused to step down from office. The idea of being able to limit absolute power must have seemed an attractive one, but as Lord Acton pointed out oh-so-eloquently (and originally in the context of the Roman Catholic Church and its doctrine of Papal infallibility, no less), "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

John Ashcroft is making J. Edgar Hoover look like a teddy bear, I'm horrified to say.

It's unbelievably hot out there. I wandered around the Fenway with a liter bottle of water, feeling guilty that I had to guzzle it all myself and not share a little with the parched, brown grass I was walking on. I miss Downeast Maine.

Idiocy on the march once more: a conservative Christian group is challenging UNC Chapel Hill's decision to require incoming freshmen to read Michael Sells' Approaching the Qu'ran: The Early Revelations, on the grounds that it would be tantamount to promoting Islam. Talking head Bill O'Reilly of Fox News (paragon of journalistic integrity) compares the requirement to making students read Mein Kampf in 1941, since apparently to him and many other empty-headed fools Islam is the "religion of the enemy". Remarks like that are exactly why we need more education about Islam, which claims over a billion souls as adherents. I've got news for you, folks - if every single Muslim man, woman, and child was a holy warrior dedicated to the destruction of civilization as we know it, we'd all be long gone by now. But this isn't really about Islam. It's about a growing segment of American society who want to live in a bubble, where they're always right and everyone else is always wrong. These bubble people pull their kids out of public schools, lest they be exposed to multiculturalism, evolutionary theory, or (gasp!) sex ed, or else they hire an expensive battery of lawyers to force those schools to remove the offending subject matter from their children's sensitive eyes and ears. They're not just religious zealots, but jingoistic zealots as well, who wrap themselves in the flag and scream bloody murder when teachers dare to explore the darker corners of American history. The slave trade? Attempted genocide against the Native Americans? The necessity of dropping two atomic bombs on a nation that by almost all accounts was on its last legs and ready to surrender? "Traitor!", they cry, and call for the offending instructor's head. Make no mistakes about it, folks, we are fighting a war, but it's not the one they advertise on television every night with creepy-crawlie factoids and slick graphics - it's a war between tolerance and intolerance, and the stakes are much, much higher than the outcome of any damned fool military crusade.

Whew! Where did that rant come from? It must be the heat. Why don't we all chill out and enjoy the sunset in Santorini. Or the sunrise. Or anytime in between. Because that's the beauty of webcams.

Now that I'm no longer hiking mountains, kayaking fjords, or canoeing my arms off, I find myself once again with oodles of time for browsing the web (yes, I've returned to work). First thing's first: Killer Space Rock Update! It appears that while my country's leader has decided to junk decades upon decades of hard-won nuclear arms agreements in order to construct an elaborate, expensive, and most likely non-operable anti-missile shield to protect us from "the bad guys", the Europeans put two and two together and figured out who (or in this case, what) the real enemies of civilization are. Rogue asteroids are far more frightening than rogue nations, and I'm pleased as punch that not only is someone finally listening to the astronomers, but that governments are actually ponying up the dollars - make that Euros! - to do something constructive about it, so that we won't have to make like the dinosaurs when our already-overdue Killer Space Rock draws a bead on poor Mother Earth.

In other news, Kentucky Fried Chicken - or, as it now refers to itself, KFC (and not without a bit of controversy/urban legend attached to the name change) - is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. I have pretty much the same relationship with The Colonel as Stuart MacKenzie from "So I Married An Axe Murderer". I crave it inexplicably until I break down and scarf half a bucket of chicken, at which point I immediately feel like I want to die, and then remain in that state afterwards for about twenty-four hours. Like Stuart, I remember how awful the experience was for about a fortnight, at which the irrational desire returns and the cycle begins anew. Damn you, Colonel Sanders! Damn you to hell!

Though in the world of fast-food fried chicken, KFC can't hold a candle to Chik-Fil-A. Their chicken sandwiches are truly the food of the gods.

Home again.

Our last full day in Bar Harbor, so we made it count and went for a nice, long hike. The first time my wife and I ever hiked in Acadia, we ascended the northern ridge of Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak in the park, at 1,532 feet. I can hear you Rocky Mountain folk snickering already, but how far up do you have to climb out west to break out above the treeline? Many peaks in Acadia National Park open up less than a thousand feet above sea level, providing breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains and the sea. So there! Today we decided to try the spine of Cadillac from the south, a longer and somewhat more challenging approach than the northern route, but still nothing like the total pain-fest that we put ourselves through on Monday in the Western Mountains. Round trip the hike was 7.4 miles, our longest venture together yet, and took us about five and a half hours, with breaks. The trail was simply spectacular - after threading its way gently through a boulder-strewn forest, we then came across a feature called Eagle's Crag, which gave us our first breakout views of the ocean and the nearby Cranberry Islands to the south. But that was just the opening act - a little more up and down, and then we were in a stretch of scrub pines, fir trees, and blueberry patches. The trees, only hundreds of feet above sea level, were nevertheless so exposed to constant high winds and foul weather from the sea that they were already gnarled and dwarfish, compared to the more sheltered forests below. We nibbled on some wild blueberries and continued along our way, trudging our way above even the scrub until it was just us, the granite, the boulders, and the painfully blue sky. Can you say sunburn on top of sunburn? Ouch! I knew you could... Ahead we could see the ridge of Cadillac and our final goal, the summit, rising before us in seemingly carefully-stacked heaps of stone. Behind us were the Cranberries, and the open ocean. To our right, Champlain Mountain, almost as tall as Cadillac, Dorr Mountain, named after the founder of Acadia, and their foothills rose against Frenchman Bay. And to the left, ridge after ridge of inviting peaks - Pemetic, Sargent, Beech, Penobscot, Day, Norumbega, and beyond. Maria was snapping picture after picture, while I just drank it all in and tried not to remember that this was the end of our vacation. But what a perfect week!

Sunburned, bug-bitten, and dog tired. But happy.

Today we got up bright and early and went canoeing along Long Pond, which is on the lesser-known western half of Mount Desert Island. Maria had never canoed before in her life, and I hadn't done it in years, but after cutting some goofy figure eights in front of everyone on the shore, we finally got our act together and set out merrily along our way. The pond is approximately four and a half miles, north to south, and has a ton of nooks and crannies for exploring. So we explored, paddling our arms off in the process. I was happy we were back in the Western Mountain region, since when we hiked there all the surrounding topography was shrouded in mist and fog. Today, however, there was hardly a cloud in the sky, enabling us to marvel at what we were stumbling up blindly on Monday. I think if we had seen what we were getting into that morning, we probably would have hesitated! Though it did turn out to be worth it. For an extra ten dollars, we got freshwater fishing gear with our canoe, and so I made like a Junior Bassmaster whenever we got tired of paddling - emphasis on the "Junior". Although I think I saw a big fish going for my lure early on in the morning, it was nothing but small fry after that, no bigger than the lure itself! Still, fishing is a great excuse for lollygagging, and that's exactly what we did, paddling and drifting, paddling and drifting, breaking for lunch on a tiny island that was part of Acadia National Park, then back to the water. As the day went on, we had to watch out for motorboats and waterskiiers, but mercifully the pond was big enough to get away from their roar and nasty gasoline fumes and enjoy the silence and the breezes (which took our minds off the sunburn-in-progress). Wildlife report: we saw a couple of loons while we were on the water - one of them popped his head up right next to our canoe before diving back down again for his lunch. Those birds are huge! And their call is quite striking.

After crashing at our motel room for an hour or two, we mustered our strength and visited the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound (just over the bridge from Bar Harbor), and were richly rewarded for our lack of lameness. As it turns out, this lobster pound is considered the best of the best in the region, and we had no reason to argue with that judgement. The steamers were the most delicious we'd ever tasted, and the lobsters were fresh and ridiculously large. Best of all, this place has a Tide Cam!

Having scarfed our shellfish, we then headed down to Compass Harbor and Dorr Point, which are also part of the National Park and just a hop, skip, and a jump from our motel. Dorr Point is named after George B. Dorr, the founder of Acadia, who kept a seaside residence along Compass Harbor. Although the house is long since gone, some ruins remain, including a set of granite steps inexplicably rising from the water's edge into a stand of trees. Dorr Point at sunset was a wondrous site - the Porcupine Islands appeared ethereal, dreamily lit by the rays of the waning sun. Far off to the east, heavy rain was falling over the Schoodic Peninsula, and the clouds there slowly turned from cranberry to deep purple, while the lighthouse of Egg Rock in the foreground gleamed bright white and red in contrast. Maria and I hopped the rocks, looking for starfish, but the tide wasn't quite right, so we only found two. We did however find a natural sea cave very similar to the famous Thunder Hole, only much less crowded and easier to get to. Ever since my wife and I discovered this tiny little slice of Acadia, right next to our doorstep, it's always been a special place for us.

Finally, a stop by the Ocean Drive Dairy Bar. How does vanilla ice cream with homemade wild Maine blueberry sauce sound? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Back on dry land. This morning we decided to ingest a little culture along with our breakfast (wild Maine blueberry jam is a substance I could eat with a shovel), and visited the brand spanking new Abbe Museum in downtown Bar Harbor. The Abbe was founded in 1928 by Dr. Robert Abbe, a New York surgeon with a lifelong interest in the Native American peoples of New England. The original museum, which still stands today, was located at Sieur de Monts Spring, just inside Acadia National Park, but it was rather small and open only during the summer. The new facility, which opened in 2001, is right in the middle of town, open year-round, and a wonderful way to rest one's aching limbs while learning about the Wabanaki, the original inhabitants of Maine. Wabanaki, which means "people of the dawn", is a term that refers to the Maliseet, Micmac, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes, whose tribal territory once stretched north to the St. Lawrence River, south and east to the Atlantic coast, and west to Lake Champlain. Ravaged by European diseases, caught in the crossfire of France and England's titanic 18th-century struggle for world dominance, then forced off what was left of their land by resource-hungry Americans high on their manifest destiny, the Wabanaki's population plunged down as low as six thousand souls (from an estimated pre-European level of close to a hundred thousand). The story of their survival against all odds is told masterfully by the main ongoing exhibit "The Four Mollys", which chronicles the lives of four Wabanaki women named Molly, one from each of the past four centuries. Another great touch by the museum was the timeline, a staple of any historical museum. Only instead of starting with the distant past and working forward to the present, the designers of the museum started with the Wabanaki's present, and worked backwards through time - what a clever way to emphasize the living continuity of the tribes, rather than bury them under centuries upon centuries of archaeology. The Greeks should consider such a tack! And an unexpected treat: a screening of the silent 1930 film "The Silent Enemy", a remarkably sensitive portrayal of a Ojibway (the northern cousins of the Wabanaki) community driven by hunger to undertake a grueling march north in search of game, starring an all-Native American cast. Even the museum's gift shop was like another gallery, continuing a centuries-long tradition of displaying (and selling) the arts of native craftswomen. Mount Desert Island used to have a summer population of Wabanaki, who used to come to the island to fish and beat the summer heat; when the Americans finally turned Bar Harbor into a playground for the wealthy, the Native American men sold their skills as hunting, fishing, and camping guides, while the women wove and sold sweetgrass baskets. The Wabanaki presence in Bar Harbor is just a shadow of the old "Indian Camps", and most stores downtown now hawk moose t-shirts and blueberry pancake syrup, but at least in the Abbe Museum store you can still find (and buy, if you have the money! (we didn't)) authentic sweetgrass art - baskets, mock ears of corn, even little acorns and teacups!

The rest of the day was devoted to hiking. First we explored Bar Island, which is accessible from the town at low tide, and affords fantastic views of the waterfront and the mountains of Acadia National Park behind it. A funny thing - a giant amphibious truck was stuck on the bar when we crossed it. By the time we returned from the island, the massive truck had attracted a small crowd of curious onlookers, who treated the vehicle as if it had crash-landed from Mars. Come to think of it, it did look somewhat alien...

Finally, we drove into the park and trudged down the Coastal Path, which is a mostly horizontal trail that hugs the granite cliffs of MDI's eastern shores. Our quarry was the elusive Monument Cove, site of an odd rock formation caused by the erosion of the surrounding stone, resulting in a free-standing obelisk jutting out from the ground. No one marks this minor wonder on a map, probably because it's so difficult to get to - the cove's walls are steep, and the approaches somewhat dangerous - so I figured we'd just start heading down the path and hope we find it by accident. And we did, completely by chance! Sometimes the Zen way is the way to go.

Today the mists parted, and we traded our hiking shoes for stinky neoprene booties. Sea-kayaking is one of those things you always say you're going to try, but you never get around to doing it. Somehow my wife and I overcame our shared natural aversion to the unknown and signed up for a tour last summer in Maine, and we loved it. The guide was fantastic, the seas calm, and a skies a brilliant-yet-serene blue, and we emerged from our tandem kayak that day as converts. So we had fairly high expectations this time around, all of which were met, and then some. The company that handled our tour (also the same as last year) is called National Park Sea Kayak Tours, and they're an incredibly professional outfit. They keep their groups small, use only Registered Maine Guides who are extremely knowledgeable and personable (and today's guide was an absolute riot, to boot!), and take extra care to choose the best possible route for the tides and weather. The winds were howling from the north this afternoon, so our guide wisely decided instead of risking the exposed sea-side routes to take us down Somes Sound, which happens to be the only true fjord in North America, running in a v-shaped furrow straight down the middle of Mount Desert Island, with spectacular views of both the eastern and western mountain ranges. With the wind at our backs and an outgoing tide, we were able to cover seven and a half miles (the length of the sound) in a little under four hours of paddling, including a break in an unbelievably scenic cove at the foot of one of Acadia National Park's many peaks. Sometimes the swells reached as high as three feet, which was a little disconcerting for us, but also exciting when we realized that a little wind and waves wasn't going to capsize our craft, no matter how ineptly we steered it. And since we were in a slightly more civilized part of the island than the last time, when we paddled in the company of harbor seals, ospreys, and bald eagles, there was less wildlife this time around, although it was more than made up for with the views of the natural beauty surrounding us at all times and the multitude of big, gorgeous sailboats taking advantage of the winds and tooling around the sound. Some denizens of MDI have an awful lot of money, and it was definitely on display in some of the boats we were sharing the water with. Sloops, steamers, yachts, windjammers, what a collection of ships!

So now my arms and legs hurt. But it's nothing that a large order of fried clams from the Ocean Drive Dairy Bar (right across the street from our motel) can't fix. Mmmmm. Fried clams...

Our vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine began yesterday. The wife and I spent Saturday on a leisurely drive up Route One, stopping a few times along the way. For lunch we dined at Flo's, which serves the finest hot dogs anywhere. Flo's is a one-room shack invariably filled with customers who line up and wait to be served the only item on the menu - steamed hot dogs, with or without (I strongly suggest with) Flo's sweet and spicy hot sauce. Heavenly. I always order two, only to drive away wishing I had one more. The next stop was Freeport, home of L.L. Bean, the legendary outdoors clothing and gear outfitter whose massive flagship store is open 24 hours a day. Even if we're not looking to buy anything, it's an awful lot of fun to browse, and you never know what neat little wilderness gadget you'll find. For instance, I bought myself a nifty thermometer-compass that clips onto your backpack, because as we all know, there's nothing worse than being lost and/or improperly dressed for the weather. Aside from L.L. Bean, though, Freeport is an intolerable tangle of faux factory outlet stores and overpriced food emporia. If you go to Maine and you want to shop, go to Kittery. And if you want to eat, by all means keep driving up Route One until you get to Moody's Diner in Waldoboro. Moody's has been serving travelers tasty and affordable fare for almost eighty years now, and like Flo's, it's well worth the wait. Be sure to finish your meal with a slice of their peerless blueberry pie (although my wife was quite happy with the fresh baked cupcakes, served on a plate with a knife and fork, no less!), made with fresh Maine wild blueberries, which are smaller and more tart than their southern cousins. From Waldoboro it was a brisk jaunt through Rockland, Camden, Belfast, Ellsworth, and then we parted ways with ol' Route One and headed south for Mount Desert Island, home to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The park is small by western standards, but takes up most of MDI, nearby Isle au Haut, and the Schoodic Peninsula, and offers vacationers miles and miles of trails for hiking and biking, rocks for climbing, lakes for canoeing, and seaside vistas for kayaking.

We went hiking today, a ten-mile loop through the western half of the island, which we haven't seen much of at all. It was quiet, the hills were misty, and the climbing was strenuous to say the least! My wife and I hadn't hiked in months, so it was a workout. But it was glorious. Though all the overlooks were obscured by clouds, the smell of balsam fir was everywhere, and the stonework of the trails was masterfully done (by the Civilian Conservation Corps, back in the 30's), zig-zagging up the almost vertical trail we took like an endless staircase. Think of Acadia National Park as a giant stairmaster. With trees. Needless to say, we came back to our motel exhausted, but not too tired for a trip back down into town for some seafood at the West Street Cafe, one of our favorite places to eat in Bar Harbor. It's a bare-bones, no-frills establishment, but the mussels steamed in beer are unbelievable, and the regular menu fresh and tasty. I of course dismantled a lobster, while Maria tucked into a plate of stuffed shrimp. After that we wandered the streets, poking in and out of the shops, looking for Tourmaline, which is the state gemstone of Maine. Tourmaline comes in a dizzying array of colors, including a mixture of color that looks like a watermelon. Very odd. But again, despite the good eats and the balsam-scented souvenir pillows, Bar Harbor is choked with tourists, many of whom drive all the way Downeast only to chug around the park in their SUVs and complain about the fog. A nasty overgeneralization, I know, but my legs are sore and my feet are on fire, so allow me a little righteous indignation before I collapse in a heap and sleep like the dead.

We go sea kayaking tomorrow.

There's nothing worse than losing a nice, long piece of writing to a wayward mouse click or some other accident of technology. Here I was, waxing poetic about my favorite bottled hot sauce, when suddenly in the course of copying and pasting a link I make the whole danged browser window go away, taking my unsaved, unpublished blog with it down to electronic Hades. Damn! But still, it's not as bad as the time in high school that I spent hours typing a term paper on my oh-so-stylin' Franklin Ace 1000, only to reach around and turn off the machine as soon as I had finished, forgetting either to print out the paper or even save it to a floppy. That was an all-time low, and I couldn't even blame the machine for it!

So I'm clicking the Post & Publish button right now, just in case. My ode to Tabasco will just have to wait.