Day 14.337: Beach birds but no camera

I did get pictures - but only with my phone!

Loons diving in the lazy winter waves:

And long-tailed ducks doing the same:

On the beach - a lot of sanderlings that were quite obliging...

...en masse:

...in flight:

...and occasionally quite close:

Day 14.336: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #374

Exile #2 writes...

Our church braved another outdoor service today. Exile #1 even played guitar somehow despite having lost all feeling in his fingers! When we got home, it was definitely time for a large cup of tea, plus a hot water bottle... and a warm blanket.

Mid afternoon our neighbor popped by with a Christmas treat - a bag of homemade whoopie pies. They are a Maine speciality and judging by how fast they disappear our neighbor makes very tasty ones!

Day 14.335: Winter beach people

The day started with some wintery precipitation, but it turned to plain rain later - albeit rather cold rain.

Early in the afternoon, we took the opportunity of a mostly-break in the rain to go for a little walk on the beach in Old Orchard Beach:

No part of the beach is busy at this time of year, but the area near the pier is almost always the busiest part. We saw several people. One passer-by said something (I think) about "winter beach people" which I didn't quite catch, but I would be happy to have that phrase used about me.

Day 14.334: Snowier

There was snow still on the ground when I got home on Thursday evening. It had fallen on Wednesday and had been enough to trigger the first use of the shovels.

This morning we got a top-up:

My new winter tires seem to work quite well, but there will be more opportunities to test them I'm sure.

Day 14.333: I've seen the Earth from the sky

I'm home from my trip. I didn't have many photo opportunities - the vast majority of the picture I took were out of plane windows. Here's a selection of them: Portland to Philadelphia featuring Long Island NY and the Philadelphia skyline (as previously posted):

Baltimore to Portland featuring the sunset from the ground and from above the clouds, the Patapsco River estuary and the coastline of southern Maine.

Day 14.332: Sunset

Had a busy day today. This was the sunset I saw in between two appointments:

Day 14.331: Philadelphia

A little sightseeing tour business trip found me arriving in Philadelphia this afternoon. It looked like this:

So far, so good.