It's Maine, it's March, it's 75 degrees

The abnormally warm weather prompted our family to take a day trip to the midcoast. Plans included lunch in Camden, hiking, visiting the Owls Head Transportation Museum and the Owls Head Lighthouse.

The hike was our 5 year old son's first "real" climb on his own. Mt. Battie seemed a perfect starting point. The vertical rise on this mountain is 600' which doesn't seem like much, but you get winded pretty quickly! Once you get out of the deciduous trees, there's a lot of red and white pine, and then you emerge from the forest onto the ledges, through low scrub and then up the "castle" for the best views of the islands, looking through the fog for our favorite, Swan's Island.

Legend has it that Edna St. Vincent Millay was inspired to write her poem Renascence from the top of Mt. Battie:

ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line	5
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.	10
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small	15
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I’ll lie
And look my fill into the sky.	20
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;	25
I ’most could touch it with my hand!