Me: Let’s go to the Ossippe Valley Music Festival! A celebration of all things bluegrass, strings, and roots music.

Who cares that it’s Wednesday. It’s summer!

We secured our fairground-field, horse-manured, plot of 93-degrees-plus-humidity happiness.

Looking forward to the weekend lineup of AJ Lee & Blue Summit, the Travelin’ McCoury’s, and Della Mae, in addition to the forecast of ridiculously high temperatures and the chance to be flooded out of our site at any moment.

More on that later.

Husband: People who work care that it’s Wednesday. (Note, I work but have summers off. He has the luxury of actually making money at his job but with less time off. It’s a good trade).

Me:  There’s a co-working space in Portland.  You work, and then we can festival.  Go festivalling?

(Festival is now a verb).

But first, work.

We headed into Portland for the day, so that Jeff could co-work at a place called PelotonLabs, which has the gall to not offer desks attached to spin bikes.  This was disappointing because that meant we’d have to squeeze in time to run later, probably in the rain and the heat and those are not my favorite three things.

Bug Light

I proceeded on a self-guided lighthouse tour of Portland. I started at Bug Light, which is only 26-feet tall, and has Corinthian columns as its primary ornamentation. We sure do like our Greek columns on the East Coast. I also met some lovely people from Kansas who invited me to spend the day with them.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

After I satisfied the folks from Kansas’ relentless quest for Instagram-worthy lighthouse shots, I then went on my way to the Liberty Ships Memorial.  I love historical memorials, and I usually take the time to read every single bit of information about them. I discovered that the Portland area built 236 Liberty Ships for the United States starting in 1941— and also that I am the only person that reads every single bit of information on a historical memorial.

As I read, I overheard the following conversation:

“Do you want to go see the Liberty Ships memorial?”

“Nah, it’s just a lot of reading”.

“But it’s about the area.  Don’t you want to know why there’s a giant ship memorial?”

“Probably because it’s the ocean or something.”

So much for historical literacy.

At Spring Point Ledge, you rock-hop a massive breakwater about 900 feet out to the lighthouse. 

Then, you take wind-swept selfies and rock-hop 900 feet back to shore.

It was my favorite lighthouse of the day.

Portland Head Light

I was not quite lightoused-out yet, so it was time to head to Fort William Park to see the most popular one in the area: Portland Head Lighthouse, with an actual visitor center and obligatory lobster-roll food truck. It was gorgeous and busy, and I couldn’t wait to learn about the fascinating history of the historic shipwreck that happened at the site. 

It was here that the Annie C. Maguire, en route to Quebec from Buenos Aires, Argentina, crashed on the rocks on Christmas Eve in 1886. Side note: that must have been an excruciating trip in 1886. According to Google, the fastest flight I could find was still more than 19 hours. And that’s in the comparative luxury of a middle seat with 3 meals and a bathroom, never mind on a boat with livestock and several people with questionable personal hygiene.

The heroic, and heavily under-appreciated lightkeeper rescued the 15 crewmen, captain, and others from the freezing coastal water. To thank the lightkeeper’s family for saving their lives and sacrificing their Christmas dinner, the crew pillaged the ship of anything and everything of value, caused unnecessary trials and tribulations for the family, and took advantage of the lightkeeper’s hospitality for the week until New Year’s. They even attempted to murder the ship’s cook! Bunch of ingrates.

No good deed goes unpunished.  

To that point, learning about this fascinating history cost me $23. Not because there was museum admission, but because that is the price of the parking ticket you must pay if you don’t feed the meter when leaving your car. In my defense, there was a parking app that I had no internet service to acquire, so I took my chances with the parking gods. 

I lost. 

Carb Overload

Lunchtime brought me to Bissell Brothers Brewing because— brewery. And, bonus: air conditioning. And because bagels weren’t enough, after a beer lunch I needed more round food, which necessitated a stop at The Holy Donut for donuts made from riced potatoes.

They’re deservedly famous. I ate one immediately, but because it was now 96 degrees out, I saved the other five for later. No need to go crazy.

With two working hours remaining, I was ready for a break from lighthouses, and from walking, and from the oppressive and sweltering heat, so I drove up to Fort Allen Park. 

Happily, you do not need an app to park here, so I sat in my car with the air conditioner running and watched a sailboat race while I contemplated a sweltering, donut-and-beer-fueled afternoon run.

At the end of the day, after confirming for sure that Jeff did not spend the day on a Peloton, we decided we needed to tick off our training run. That’s what we do now, despite my best efforts.

Run with Me

The good people of Fleet Feet Sports suggested the Back Cove trail, which conveniently runs (no pun intended) right behind their store.  I bought a new pair of socks to thank them for their advice, and then we ran 3.6 miles around Back Cove, with a view of the Portland skyline.

Luckily, it had cooled off to only 91 degrees by then, and I did not throw up any donuts.

Celebrate the small victories.

It’s fun to not work in Portland. To tally up my 10 hours in Portland, Maine, that’s:

• 1 coffee house
• 1 historical monument
• 1 brewery
• 2 bakeries
• 2 parks
• 3 lighthouses
• 91 degrees

And one parking ticket.

Happy trails!