Full Moon Troll Hunting

Date night!  Or… date day/weekend?
It’s been a while since we’ve gotten out for more than a few hours of activities.  Hawk & I did have theatre tickets for an evening show on Saturday, but nothing else solidly planned for our time together.  However, on this go around, we managed to fill the weekend just about to the brim!

My first suggested addition to the schedule was troll hunting…

I’d recently heard about an artist who builds huge nature-inspired troll sculptures with recycled materials.  The art pieces are scattered in various places around the world.  When I saw that one of the locations was at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, I set seeing this attraction as a goal.  The combination of unique art in what I expected to be beautiful surroundings, with walking paths and hiking trails, in an accessible location to us, gave it its appeal.  Ok, I admit, one of the biggest factors was the unique hike opportunity.  But truly, it sounded pretty cool either way.  And since we'd be up that way anyway for the play, doing it this weekend made the most sense.

First, though, I had to get to Maine.

I finished work a smidge early on Friday and, while traffic was already getting thick by then, I managed to beat the worst of it heading towards the Portland area.  I considered hitting a trail along the way, but decided I just wanted to get to Hawk's place without further delays.  This hadn't been a great week for me, between poor weather and schedule hiccups, and I had not spent nearly enough time outdoors.  I shot a request to Hawk that we go for an evening walk after dinner.  I guess technically this, not troll hunting, was my first suggested addition to our activity lineup.  Thankfully he was game.

Hawk decided we should go walk into town via the Eastern Promenade.  It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it's a nice enough spot along the ocean, and I'd get my walk in either way, so I went along with it.  It was good to get out, but what made me most glad that we did this was seeing the full moon rise over the ocean.  It was so gorgeous!  Huge and red with sunset hues, it floated on the horizon of Casco Bay, attracting attention from everyone.  There were other walkers, runners, photographers, and people just sitting and watching the sun set and moon rise.  It really turned out to be a beautiful night.

East End Beach

flower photo by Hawk

There's the moon!

Magnificent.

Yes, I probably annoyed Hawk by continuously stopping (as usual) to take yet another pic. LOL But c'mon, how can I NOT? Just look at it!

Saturday morning, after our usual routines, we packed the cooler and drove up to Boothbay.  I dressed in decent looking capris that could be rolled up for hiking, and a plain tee shirt that I could later throw a lacy vest over to look reasonably nice for the theatre.  I soon regretted that choice.  I expected the temperature to be cooler that much further north and right on the coast, but it was still nearly as hot as southern Maine.  I was wishing I'd worn a tank top after all within ten minutes of walking around.  But heat aside, it was a lovely experience.

The Botanical Gardens offer an impressive variety of sights and trails.  Along with several different styles of gardens, there is a butterfly house, beekeeping area, water features, fairy village, and more, as well as a cool children's area with all sorts of things to play on and with, including a percussion circle with hang drums, etc.  Needless to say I had to give those a quick tap as we passed through.  The property also expands beyond the maintained gardens, which are surrounded by a deer fence, and offer wilder hiking trails.  We explored a bit of this area too, and found more interesting features scattered throughout.  I was particularly taken by the paintings.

Of course the main attraction we were there for was the trolls!  The website gave the impression that it would be a bit of a hunt for them and that it could take many hours, but it turned out they were all pinpointed on the map and fairly consolidated within the garden.  While convenient, this was a mild disappointment for us as we expected more of a challenge.  Still, we fully enjoyed finding each troll, and taking in all of the sights along the way.  Excellent nature therapy! 

It's possible this tunnel was intended for shorter people. LOL But obviously that was not going to stop us from going through it.

Roskva, our first troll.

cool wolf sculpture

Lilja

She needed a hug.  Which one?  Either. ;-)

Birk takes up a lot of space!

one of the fairy houses

some cute guy in a gazebo ;-)

Gro appears to be meditating.

one of the pretty water features

I found a couch

"Mother Earth" sculpture

Soren is celebrating. We got all 5 trolls!

Why did the garter snake cross the road?

Another neat sculpture in the gardens.

Apparently it's disco time. Yes, of course I danced.

pathway in the meditation garden

one of the paintings on display along the hiking trails

There are many interesting bridges on the property.

another fountain

Hawk snapped this pretty pic while he was waiting for me.  He does that a lot.

Having quite a bit of time left after finishing our garden tour and troll hunt, we headed into Boothbay village to walk around there.  It's a typical Maine coast tourist area, quaint and friendly.  Nice place to kill some time.  We discovered an art gallery we hadn't seen before.  We enjoyed a refreshing ocean breeze out on the bridge dock.  And Hawk got an ice cream at a long established joint that was closing down indefinitely.  It was their last weekend open.  Sad.

Following our time in Boothbay, and grabbing supper, we aimed for Bath, where the play was being held at The Chocolate Church Theatre.  Nice place.  Of course we still had quite a while until showtime, so we did some more walking around that town too.  I certainly racked up a satisfying amount of mileage for the day!  

Not long into our Bath walk, we found a natural foods store that was still open, so we explored that.  Sigh, they had my Cado ice cream!  (Amazing allergy-friendly product, by the way.)  To buy or not to buy?  I agonized over that decision for a long while.  Although we had a cooler, ice cream would not stay frozen for the remaining hours we'd be out, and the Cado does not refreeze well.  I did not really need to consume an entire pint of ice cream, and I hate the idea of wasting food, and the stuff is not cheap either.  But it's a treat (and you'd spend as much going out for a cone), and man it just sounded so good.  I also remembered Hawk had spoons in his car.  And he was way too supportive of me going for it.  In the end, I decided I would indulge and just enjoy what I wanted and not worry about leftovers.  So… yeah… I ate the whole pint.  LOL  As seems to be tradition after hiking, I now say "so much for that calorie burn!"  Maybe that should be my blog post sign-off tagline? haha

Boothbay Harbor

I redeemed myself at least a little bit on Sunday.  Hawk & I got in a bit more exercise and time outside by going apple picking in the morning.  Later, after I returned home to NH, I joined Hummingbird and a yoga group for a hike up Pine Mt.  I did not stay for yoga this time, beyond opening meditation, but at least I knocked out a quick hike.  It helped burn off some frustration, and of course Pine is always lovely, even when the weather is iffy.  I hiked down alone and made my way back home, where I had a light dinner and hit the sack early.  It was a busy weekend!  Glad we were able to fit in so much.  Just as glad to be able to enjoy it with Hawk. 💕

obligatory pano on Pine Mt.

9/9 Eastern Prom, 2.7 mi, 1:05 hrs, 108 ft.
9/10 Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, 3.7 mi, 2:27 hrs, 269 ft.
    + Boothbay & Bath town walks 2.6 mi.
9/11 Pine Mt., 1.5 mi, 44 min, 299 ft.