I took the train from Connecticut to Maine via Boston and back again over the weekend. Living in the UK helped me appreciate how fantastic train travel can be for seeing the countryside. For the entire trip up the East Coast I gazed out the window at the beautiful New England landscape - coastline, boats, birds and even a wolf. The one unexpected component of the trip was the train from Boston to Portland, Maine was actually a bus. But a luxury bus so that was OK. 
Sharon, Dee-Dee and Jamie showed me a good time and continuously attempted to entice me to move up to Maine. It was tempting, at least for the summer but I've been to Maine in the winter and that's another story.
The entire coastline is beautiful. We had a picnic lunch on the beach Saturday and then took a stroll out to a lighthouse that was lost in the fog. 
There we met a fantastic retired professor, Bill Thomson who had written a book about the history Maine lighthouses Lobster. He was so pleased that Sharon and I studied photography in school and encouraged us to follow our dream and to use our network to make it happen. That's what he had done to be able to write and publish his books and become the authority on lighthouses. 
We also got girlie and had our nails done at a salon. I went all out and had a French manicure and even had little flowers painted on to one nail on each hand. You can kind of make it out in the photo.
Saturday night we Barbecued with neighbors. Each of us out-did each other with our dishes. Scallops wrapped in bacon, baked garlic, spinach salad with candied pecans, skewered veg, shrimp and chicken and then Dee-Dee's amazing cookie fruit torte. We migrated over to Jim and Kevin's house for marshmallow roasting around the fire pit. Here's Jamie with his wacky hat toasting up some mallows for us.
Sunday Sharon and I walked along a nature trail overlooking the coastline and of 
course I somehow got poison ivy from our one excursion into the deeper woods to see a pet cemetery. We capped off the 
weekend with Lobster dinner at a shack out on the water. So scrum-dely-icious. 
It would be so amazing to purchase a barn/farm/house for my retreat center dream. Maine is filled with them and many are for sale.
