Wow, this has been a crazy month. There's a lot I want to talk about here!
At the beginning of the month, I visited Block Island with some family. We stopped at one of my dad's cousin's job sites first on the way down. It was super cool to see the inside of a new jazz venue in development!
Here are three pictures from the actual island. First is one of David's rock sculptures that I got to see him construct live! After that is a picture of the lighthouse on the southeast corner of the island, and then finally a picture of a shoulder on a road in front of an assortment of trees that I thought made for a pretty photo.
Shortly after returning from Block Island, it was time for me to say goodbye to Amazon. I was ready to close the book on that chapter of my career, and I'm so excited to be figuring out what's next for me. After I got out of work on my last day, I biked down to the cruise terminal and watched some planes land.
I visited my parents and the cats. One of the cats was recovering from surgery. He's doing much better now! I also have this picture from one of my bike rides in Duxbury.
With all of my newfound free time, I decided to go on a solo hiking trip to Maine. Back in May, I had taken a week off of work to give myself a break, and I considered doing this trip then, but I really just needed the time then to lay low and recover from work stress. So, this was the perfect opportunity to make use of the plan I came up with back in May.
When I was 14, I went on a trip with my parents up to this particular region of Maine northeast of Portland known as the Midcoast. I absolutely loved it there. There isn't really anywhere along the US east coast where you have mountains right along the coastline other than the area between Brunswick, ME and Acadia National Park.
So, there was always a part of me that wanted to go back and explore farther northeast, and I realized that a solo hiking trip would make a lot of sense. I didn't even really give much thought to focusing on hiking in Acadia National Park because I knew it was going to be busy and there are so many other mountain hikes nearby that I just felt it wasn't worth it. That's not to say I don't want to visit it properly eventually though.
First up is the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. It's a pretty big suspension bridge kind of in the middle of nowhere, and it has an observation room at the top of one of the towers. I love this thing.
Here's that same bridge, with Alamoosook Lake in front, from near the top of Great Pond Mountain.
These are some views from the top of Schoodic Mountain. In the first picture you can see Acadia National Park in the distance. In the third picture, you can see Schoodic Bay. Despite being called a bay, as far as I can tell, it's a lake. There's a beach on this bay/lake called Schoodic Beach that you can visit on your way down from the top of Schoodic Mountain.
Here I am at Schoodic beach:
Here are a couple of photos from Indian Point Blagden Preserve, which is on Mount Desert Island but technically not a part of Acadia National Park. The August 2025 photo on the main page is from this place too.
The hike here was a little over a mile through the woods before coming out to the shore. I just so happened to get out to the shore right as the sun was setting, and it made for a truly stunning sight. As spectacular as the mountain views are, I think ultimately this rocky sunset beach view was my favorite sight of the trip.
Finally, the day after getting back from the Maine trip, I got to go up in the Prospect Hill Tower, which is only open on special occasions. I walk through Prospect Hill Park regularly, so this was a nice opportunity to do something I had always been curious about.
