goatee

°2025.10.27.Mon | Autumn Colors at Mt. Auburn Cemetery

Visiting Mt. Auburn Cemetery before Halloween is one of my favorite things to do in the autumn.

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a Golden Tree. — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

°2025.07.08.Tue | Train to Portland

We try visit Portland at least once a year, always by car. This year we took the Amtrak Downeaster. The benefit is we didn’t have to worry about driving, parking, and traffic. We did have to be a bit more patient in waiting for public transit, but that was fine: Amtrak was pleasant and three buses regularly run up and down Congress Street, Portland’s main thoroughfare. For example, on our last day we checked out of La Quinta at 11:00 am, walked 20 minutes to the train station, hiked along the nearby Fore River Park Trail, cooled off at the station, got on the train, got into Boston’s North Station, stretched our legs along the nice walk across the Charles River Damn and Revere Park to Cambridge Crossing, got dinner at Bon Me, then took the #69 from Lechmere to within a block of our building. We missed stopping at Fort Williams Park on the way back, but we got our fill of views and old battlements via the ferry to Peaks Island and Battery Steele. (BTW: the Wikipedia article on the latter still uses my photo from our 2015 visit!)

The most important thing, though, is that Nixie enjoyed playing fetch on the beach.

°2014.03.08.Sat | Fresh Pond

°2013.04.30.Tue | Wolfe’s Neck Park, Maine