Belfast and Portland, Maine

After a week of travel through America's Hat (that's Canada), and one night in New Hampshire, we headed to Maine for Nick and Jessie's wedding. We arrived in Belfast in the afternoon and checked into the cottage where we were staying. After a little exploring, we ate our first lobster roll (lobster pizza would come later).

The Seascape cottage (#12)

Then all of a sudden it was Saturday, the big day. Try as I might to take center stage, the day belonged to Nick and Jessie. They had a beautiful wedding outdoors at Moose Point State Park.

The glowing bride and groom
Moose Point
Another good-lookin couple

Onto Portland we went, with Erin "Buddy" Boyle in tow. We only really spent the afternoon wandering its streets, since we were so tired from the previous day's festivities.

Downtown Portland
So if you're reading this, thank you, Nick and Jessie, for ruining Portland.

Lake Francis State Park, New Hampshire

We found another nice park with a quiet lake in New Hampshire, after successfully crossing the border. First we stopped at a small grocery store that sold "generally everything" to pick up dinner supplies and some good Vermont beer. This campground was a bit different from the Canadian parks. We had a neighbor who played some fun acoustic guitar on into the night. Also, every campsite other than ours seemed to have a dog. In the morning we packed everything neatly in the car and are headed towards Maine.

Parc National du Mont Orford, Quebec

Since we were unable to find a place to stay in Quebec City, we went out into the wilderness again. We found another Canadian national park a couple hours outside of Montreal and got a campsite. We got there with enough time to walk around the lake for a couple hours and then made dinner. We had a pretty nice fire going and cooked some brie dogs. We are going to camp again tomorrow somewhere in New Hampshire before getting to Maine on Friday.

Montreal, Quebec

Leaving Montreal today. A small hiccup means that we won't be heading to Quebec City, but instead we'll camp another night before crossing the border into Maine.

Montreal definitely felt the most European of all the cities we have visited. I am sad I won't get to see Quebec City, but don't mind going back out into the wilderness after another night in urban environs.

Parc National d'Oka, Quebec

After leaving Toronto, we ventured into Quebec. BL gave me a crash course in French. "Je voudrais une crepe."

To our surprise, the campsite we booked in Oka required a ferry ride. The site itself was much more densely wooded than the last place we camped, but equally nice. We walked down to the beach, where we met some rascally foxes. But, sadly, no bears.

Toronto, Part Deux

Well, another tough game. The Rays almost became the victims of another no-no. Evan Longoria broke up the no-hitter in the top of the ninth, but the Rays still lost 1-0. What a heartbreaker.

After the game, we walked around the Distillery District. It had some cool galleries and was a great place to relax.

Rays at Blue Jays, Rogers Centre

What a tough day to be a Rays fan.

First, we got stuck in about an hour of traffic trying to make our way into Toronto. We listened to the first two innings of the game in the car, anxious to be rooting for the Rays in the Rogers Centre.



Then, things got worse. "Big Game James" Shields was having a really off day. He gave up six homers in the first four innings. Thayer gave up hits. Qualls gave up hits. The Jays scored in every inning. We left mid-8th; the score was 17 to 7 in favor of the Blue Jays.

It made us feel better to know later that the Rays bounced back with some runs in the ninth to make it 17 to 11. But the damage had been done. The Rays have now lost four in a row.

So, we consoled ourselves with a really amazing dinner at Susur Lee's restaurant. Then a nice long walk down Queen Street.

And we decided to try to go to the game again today. We are Rays fans.