10 & 20

Nope, not running miles but birthdays and anniversaries! 💗🎂🍻

Tuesday morning, it was up and out into the dark mugginess for a run on Highland Green Road and Canam. No views, no sunrise, no nothin' 😉 (6.0 miles)

Wednesday morning dawned with no running, replaced with morning birthday presents before sending the now 10-year old off to school for the day. Crazy how time flies!!

Happy Birthday, Samantha! We love you!!

The afternoon was spent at a XC meet, surrounded by her teammates and her biggest fans 💕 How lucky is this one?!

She had a great race too! So proud of this girl. It is fun to watch her run 😃 Faster course too, running 8:42. Nice!!

Then it was off to Otto to meet up with Sarah and Tom and celebrate the day and the kiddo with some delicious pizza and gorgeous and yummy homemade cake made just for Sam by Sarah! 😍😍😋😋 What a great way to end the day!

Got up and out early on Thursday for yet another dark and muggy run, this time on the cart paths. (6.0 miles)

With Mom and Dad in town, Ryan and I had made plans to go away for the night to celebrate our 20th anniversary. As it falls the day after Sam's birthday, this day is often overlooked but 20 years is 20 years and surely needs a celebration! So, after work, we headed up to Rockland for the night. The 250 Main Hotel is a funky new(er) hotel at the edge of town and was the perfect place to stay!

Room...

...with a view 😃

We had a delicious dinner at Miranda Cafe, followed up by drinks at Fog. Yum!

Cheers to 20 more! 🍻

And then spent Friday exploring the area together. Lots of fun!

We started off with a short run on the George's Highland Path in the Thomaston Town Forest. The trail was rather rooty and technical with lots of twists and turns and short ups and downs, but the woods were looking very pretty with the fall foliage and there were some nice views along the river. It was slow going but nice to get out exploring some new trails with Ryan! (3.8 miles)

Eeekkk!

Split rock

Love all the colors 🍁

We headed back to the hotel and got showered and packed up. But not before reading the motivational messages in the stairwell. Love it! 😊

We walked to the other side of town for a very yummy brunch at the Home Kitchen Cafe and then meandered our way back, stopping at the Farnsworth and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art along the way. The Farnsworth truly does have a lovely collection, and had a fun exhibit on display of Slab City artists, which we really enjoyed.

Camel, Bernard Langlais 

The CMCA is a much smaller, but neat open, space, but we really enjoyed the Birds We Know exhibit by Ann Craven. Very colorful and whimsical images. 

More motivational message, this time on the wall at CMCA

Then we headed out to Owl's Head Lighthouse. Very cool lighthouse with some wonderful views and a neat beach. I should have turned on my watch to see how much we walked, but regardless, definitely worth the side trip!

Views enroute

Shoreline vista

The sumac offered some lovely color at the edge of the woods

Saw an eagle swooping by above the edge of the cliff but wasn't fast enough with the camera!

So pretty. So Maine 😍

There was a ton of this gorgeous magenta flower blooming down by the beach, mixed in with the rose hips. I commented that it looked so much like jewelweed, and turns out it IS jewelweed, just an invasive species, unlike the native orange jewelweed we see more often. But glorious color!

Google maps routed us out and around Rockland as we headed back to Route 1, taking us by this really cool wide open marsh area. I had been really wanting to get some photos of the bright purple aster that were blooming all along the roadway, and there was a parking lot with a view out into the marsh, so we stopped there. I got my aster photos, and we took a short walk through the woods out to a viewing station overlooking Weskeag Marsh, which is apparently a good spot to see migratory birds. Really neat.

Many thanks to Mom and Dad for hanging out with Sam so we could spend the day together! And Happy Anniversary to Ryan! I couldn't ask for a better partner in this crazy thing called life! Cheers to 20+ more years of laughter, love and adventure 💖