You had to know I would be the one to point out there are meteorological and astronomical ends of summer.  “How do you come up with this shit” should your first thought.  The mind works in curious ways.

So yes, this is the end of the meteorological summer – the 3 months of June, July and August, technically ending tomorrow, August 31^st.   In New Hampshire, summer is the third Tuesday of August.

In contrast, astronomical summer is based on the rotation of the earth, and ends somewhere around September 22nd.  Remember: it takes the earth 365¼ days to circle the sun, so dates get moved around a little bit every year.  For us, summer is any day warmer than 72 degrees.

So much for this lesson of needless information.  More importantly, you have undoubtedly been asking what extraordinary places have we traveled to this summer?  If you said nowhere, that would be 98% correct, disregarding our trips to the supermarket, Home Depot, and Petey’s Summertime Seafood for takeout.

We did a tiny amount of entertaining – or being entertained is probably more to the point this summer, but all socially distanced with a very finite number of friends.  I played golf (if you can call it that) with some dear friends through most of the summer, which was fantastic.  And I won’t lie – we did throw some lobsters and haddock under the bus, so to speak, this summer.

And if you want to know what 50% of Dottie’s time entailed, well, here you go – staring down a chipmunk hole.  For hours.  The other 50% was eating and sleeping.

We did take a long weekend camping trip to Acadia National Park in and around Bar Harbor, ME, but that was just to relieve the stress from retirement.  You know how pressure can build up when you have a doctor’s appointment AND need to return a book to the library IN THE SAME WEEK!

If you enjoy biking (or hiking), Acadia National Park is extraordinary.  There are miles of carriage roads that are open to biking and hiking.  Our new electronic bikes helped flatten the inclines, but with or without enhanced bikes these gravel roads are beautiful.  Because the national park campgrounds are closed, we stayed at a private campground (Somes Sound View Campground), which actually was really nice – would go back there in a heartbeat.

Maine is known for its’ blueberries that come out in August, and Karen found the Blueberry Capitol of the World in Cherryfield, ME.  If you research the blueberry capitol of the world, I think there must be one in each state, so don’t schedule your next summer vacation based on our flimsy information.

We drove up there – maybe an hour north of Bar Harbor, so we were getting kind of “up there” in Maine.  When we entered the town there was a sign saying welcome to Cherryfield, blueberry capitol of the world.  Find a blueberry stand?  Yikes – not a one!  We had to drive about 10 minutes out of town to find a blueberry stand.  It was self-service, but I don’t think this was an outgrowth of the Covid thing.

Full disclosure, there are a couple of blueberry processing plants in Cherryfield, but we were kind of thinking that around every corner there would be some blueberry-related stand or shop, where you could buy blueberry knick-knacks, pies, or blueberry designer underwear to put in the kids’ Christmas stockings.  Sorry, kids.

And why is the blueberry capitol in a town called “Cherry”field?  Your guess is as good as ours.  But trust me – small Maine blueberries are exceptional!

According to research (I don’t know if this is true), but blueberries are supposed to improve your immunity, and reduce diabetes, obesity and heart disease.  Sounded good to us, so we ate our share of blueberries, coated with fresh whipped cream to make sure we got those health benefits to all our body parts.  Feeling healthier already!

With no further ado, here are some photos from our summer.  Most of the photos have been taken while out riding our bikes around the area.  The bikes have been a great means of getting around this summer, what with parking and other restrictions.  And the bikes are just fun!  So here goes, no particular order…

Breathe soft ye winds, ye waves in silence rest.

Hoping your summer was great.  Be kind.  And safe.