GENEALOGY DAYTRIP3

This past Thursday's Genealogy Daytrip was a special one. My Aunt
Dorothy and her daughter, my Cousin Diana, were on their way up to
Bethel Maine to attend Dot's reunion at Gould Academy, and my sister
Cheryl and I were driving them up from Boston to Portland to pick up
their rental car. So I was busy for the last few nights before Thursday
trying to print up some family sheets from the new discoveries I'd
made researching the Barker and Ellingwood families and fighting with
drivers, printers and paper jams right up until Wednesday night.

Thursday morning Cheryl picked me up here at 6:45 and we set out for
Boston. Now it seems there's always a GPS story when Cheryl and I
take a roadtrip and this was no exception. Dorothy and Diana were
staying in a hotel on Mt Vernon Street in Boston and the GPS guided
us perfectly to Mt Vernon Street in Charlestown in the shadow of the
nearby Bunker Hill Monument. The only problem was, it was a dead
end street in a residential area with no sign of a hotel. A quick cellphone
call to Diana and another to the hotel revealed that there is another Mt
Vernon Street in Boston, this one in the Dorchester Bayside area.
Fifteen minutes later we pulled up in front of the hotel and picked up
the ladies.

The drive up to Portland was a good one. Dorothy and I talked genealogy
for a bit but there were other topics discussed besides. Once we got to
Portland and got the rental car, we looked for a place to eat and talk for
a bit, and ended up at a place called Marcey's Diner which had good food
and reasonable prices. While we waited for our orders, I gave Dorothy
and Diana the material I'd printed out, which included another interview
with Uncle Clarence from a Maine newspaper.(I'll go into that further
in a following post). We sat and talked for an hour, took a picture of each
other and said our goodbyes.

It was only about 1pm and Cheryl suggested we find out what attractions
there were in the area. She got some brochures and we decided we'd
take a boat tour of the Casco Bay lighthouses given by the Portland
Discovery Land and Sea Tours. We had a few hours to kill before the
cruise so we found a dockside restaurant right next to the boat slip and
had shrimp cocktail and drinks while we waited. The weather was sunny
and a little cool but it was nice to just sit and talk until it was time to
lineup for the boat.

Now I'll be honest about this: I was a bit worried about the cruise. It's
been a very long time since the last time I'd been out on deep water and
while I've never been seasick before I was a bit worried about whether 
meds I'm on would not sit well with the motion of the boat. I'm happy to
report there was no problem and we had a great time. Cheryl used my
digital camera out on the bow to take pictures while I shot mine from
my seat by the stern using my old Canon AE1 SLR. We were out
on the Bay for ninety minutes and the narrator told us the history of the
various lighthouses, forts, and residences on the islands. I recommend the
experience to anyone who is visiting the Portland area.

After we returned to land we went to a restaurant called Dewey's and
had souvlakis(sp?) for dinner before heading home. There was a beautiful
sunset just before the big harvest moon rose and we made very good time
home.

All in all, it was good to see Dorothy and Diana again and to spend time
with Cheryl. Thanks, sis, for a  great day!