October 2

October 2 - Portland, Maine

Our first port!  After seeing some of the views from the ship, we were excited to begin exploring the town!

   

 We had planned to walk around, but as we got off the ship we discovered Portland as a FANTASTIC Deal - a hop on/hop off pass for $5.00!!!!!  So of course being the wise women that we are (wise women = Charlene, Lori, Maurene, Wendy & me!), we purchased tickets!  We rode the complete loop and noted the places we wanted to go, then started the loop again until we got to the first stop we wanted to explore!

One of the first places we explored was a used bookstore which happened to contain the Cryptozoology Museum!  We didn't pay to go into the museum, but one of it's "residents" stood guard over the bookstore so we took advantage of him with a photo op!

Bigfoot was kinda bored and was looking towards the door, maybe he was thinking about running away! lol 

After we left the bookstore we wandered around some, shopped a little, took in the sights.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue

Then is was time for lunch.  The bus driver and a guy at one of the giftshops we visited suggested DiMillo's Floating Restaurant.  Since we didn't know any better, we headed that way.   Thankfully they had a menu posted outside and there were some crafters (not from the cruise) with tables set up nearby.    We all decided we did not want to spend $25 plus for lunch.  The crafters suggested J's Oyster.  One of the shows on the food channel had featured J's in the last couple of months!

It was a beautiful day and we were lucky enough to get a table outside, but we had a few rules to follow!  Since none of us had our kids or dogs with us, we were OK! lol 

After lunch we did a little exploring near the water front.  I "made" Lori and Charlene walk down a couple alleys/piers but I think we found some great pictures (I am only sharing about 10% of the photos I took in Portland!) and at least I didn't make them pick up some gross stuff for our collections. (On the first day of class Tim told us to look for little "treasures" about 2" or less while we were exploring all the ports.)   And you wouldn't believe some of the stuff some people were collecting!  Does anyone know if they used the "gross" stuff?

If we lived nearby, I know where I'd do some shopping for dinner!  Do you see those prices?

All too soon it was time to head back to the ship :(  Once back on board we headed up Deck 12 to have another look around and watch as we left the port. 

Portland Observatory as seen from the ship

 

Taxi anyone?

Charlene & Lori

Wendy & Maurene had the same idea, they were on the deck above us.

This is the "baby" lighthouse

 This is the "mama" lighthouse

This is looking back at the "mama" lighthouse as we left port.

Fort Gorges

And a few pictures of the "papa" lighthouse aka Portland Head Lighthouse

Since we were heading into open waters and the sun had set, it was getting cold so we headed in to the Windjammer for dinner.    Not sure what else we did because pictures for the day ended with the lighthouse and the written journal I was keeping has disappeared.  Even though I thought we left Roger in New Jersey, he may have paid me a visit and taken the journal, because he is sneaky like that! lol  (I will tell you more about Roger in a later post!) 

If you haven't checked out Joy's blog, what are you waiting for?

Hope you have a fabulous week!