Vacation - Day 2 (Part 2)

There are some really nice hiking trails in Quoddy Head State Park. We walked the Arctic Bog Trail.

West Quoddy Head Bog covers approximately seven acres and is the easternmost open peatland in the US.

Peat, in its natural state, is about 90% moisture and 10% organic matter and is the first stage in the formation of coal. It is the partially decayed remains of plants that accumulated in moist places, such as marshes and swamps. It forms at a rate of 4-15 inches every 1,000 years.

Although we have seen several beautiful Pitcher Plants, this is the first time we have seen the flowers too.


Pitcher Plant


Pitcher Plant flowers

[Pitcher plants eat insects to obtain essential nitrogen and proteins they cannot find any other way. Their leaves have nectar glands that attract insects. The cone-shaped leaves, lined with downward-pointing hairs, form a natural insect trap. When an insect climbs inside the plant, the hairs prevent its escape. Eventually it falls into water, which has accumulated in the base of the leaf, and is digested.]

We also saw quite a lot of Spatulate-leaved Sundew.


Spatulate-leaved Sundew

[Sundews thrive in nutrient-poor bog soils by trapping insects for food. The leaves are covered with reddish hairs. Each hair is tipped with a sticky fluid that sparkles in the sun like dewdrops and attracts insects. Insects caught in the hairs seldom escape and are held tightly against the leaf surface and digested.]

After leaving Quoddy Head we drove about 25 miles to Cutler Coast Public Reserve and went on a wonderful hike on the Bold Coast Trail.


More foggy coastline.




The fog finally lifted a little.

Vacation - Day 1

Our friends Sharon and Rick flew in for a quick, one week visit. Our first day of vacation started after lunch and was spent birding and hiking at Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge and Lake Josephine.

At Aroostook we came across about 1000 European Skippers puddling in the middle of the road.





We munched on raspberries while hiking on the trail around the visitor center.



Rick got a glimpse at a black bear but the rest of us missed it.
We saw quite a few birds, butterflies, and wildflowers.


Silvery Checkerspot


Yellow Warbler


Dark-eyed Junco


Black-throated Green Warbler


Black-capped Chickadee


Ox-Eye Daisy


Daisy Fleabane

At Lake Josephine we came across two foxes running through the adjacent wood yard. Looked like good hunting among the logs!






Unknown snake

We ended the day at our favorite restaurant for lobster rolls and other good eats.

Dead mule at the worst possible time!

We decided to take a Mule (like an ATV or golf cart) and drive up to the South Peak and start clearing the hiking trail that runs between the South and North Peaks. It was a pretty long, steep climb to the top but the Mule has 4-wheel drive.

The hiking trail wasn’t in too bad shape but the part we cleared looked a lot better.





We had been out about an hour and were getting quite a lot accomplished when Scott (the park manager) called to let us know there was a big storm coming and we should get off the mountain. He said that if we could only make it as far as the Adirondack shelter (about half way down), that would be better than being on top of the mountain.

We made it about 100 yards down the mountain when the storm hit. Unfortunately, the Mule has a severe fuel filter problem and would only go about 50 feet before stopping! By the time we got to the shelter, soaking wet, it wouldn’t run at all.



It didn’t look like it was going to stop raining so we called one of the rangers to come get us.



It looks like it's going to rain the rest of the day.

Mystery solved!

The unknown Canadian sign means Scenic River Valley Drive.

Thanks Carolyn!

Grand Falls, New Brunswick, Canada

For our day off we decided to make a trip over to New Brunswick.

Some of their highway signs are a little different than ours.




Does anyone know what this sign means? This isn’t a quiz, we couldn’t figure it out. If you know, please send me an e-mail. We saw this sign several times on Highway 2.

Our destination was Grand Falls. The city of Grand Falls has approximately 6,000 people (New Brunswick has approximately 750,000).

Although the Falls didn’t have a lot of water flowing over them, they were still quite pretty. The Falls are 75 feet high and the Gorge is about a mile long. The St. John River is 450 miles long.




To help with scale, the Visitor Center is the building on the right, way above the gorge.



The Dam was finished in 1928 and is 579 feet long with a flow of water of 400,000 gallons per second (compared to about 90% of Niagara Falls).



There is also a zipline that you can take across the gorge. We didn’t take the time to go on it this trip but while we were there we saw several people zipping across the gorge.


They are a little hard to see but there is an adult and a child on the zip lines.

The rocks are limestone and sandstone. These deep holes are called “Wells in Rocks” and some of them are 27 feet deep and 15 feet wide.




The Ron Turcotte Bridge crosses the Gorge.
Ron Turcotte is a thoroughbred race horse jockey best known as the rider of Secretariat, winner of the US Triple Crown in 1973. At the age of 36 his career ended in 1978 following a tumble from his horse that left him a paraplegic. He lives close to Grand Falls.


St. John River

Job Duties

In addition to taking care of the bath house, here are some pictures of other activities we have been asked to help with.


Saturday morning bird walks.


Saturday evening nature presentations.


Painting the flagpole.


Cleaning fire pits.


Cleaning campsites.


Being a presence in the park.
(Mark - hard at work!)

Maine Facts

Mark has been hit hard with a cold and hasn't been able to go through the pictures from our vacation.

In the meantime, here are some interesting facts about Maine:

- Produces 90% of the country's toothpick supply.


- Has 6000 lakes and ponds.


- Has 5500 miles of coast line and about 2000 islands off the coast.


- Has 60 light houses.


- Has 542,629 acres of state and national parks.


- State Berry: Wild Blueberry
Maine has the largest wild blueberry crop in the nation, raising 99 percent of all wild blueberries in the US and is the single largest producer of any blueberries (wild or cultivated) in the US.


- State Bird: Black-capped Chickadee


- Almost 90% of all American lobster are trapped in Maine.
- Is the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi.
- Is where Chester Greenwood invented earmuffs in 1873.
- Has 41 persons per square mile.



Hopefully, Mark will soon be back to his old self and I'll have plenty of pictures to share from our fabulous vacation. Keep checking back!
Teri