Recently we visited Chuck’s parents up in Portland, Maine. It was my first visit up there and I thought it was gonna be a lot cooler in temperature. Surprisingly it was about 85 the whole weekend.

The trek was pretty long, and my back was in a state so it wasn’t the most fun of car rides, but listening to some Comedy Bing Bong on the ride was pretty good.

After arriving, people drinking their coffee, and getting situated we went for a walk around the town. On weekends out by the water they do live music and food trucks. The view was wild, like nothing I’ve ever seen. So many tiny island in one place.

I guess we didn’t get the full sunset experience that Maine normally gets, but it worked for me.

This was the view overlooking part of the city

This is also that view. It was a nice walk back, and on the way Charlotte’s Dad attracted a stray cat who wouldn’t leave him alone. We almost had to take him back to their home, the little butthead.

The next day we trekked up to Wayne, Maine. Charlotte’s family friends live up there, and it was around there that she spent a lot of summer time in her childhood.

After a long winding gravel road we reached the home, which was beautiful. The beach side lake once again featured many tiny islands. To me, as someone from one big ass island, this is very strange and in a sci fi kind of way mystifying.

We soaked a tiny bit of sun up, met the local dogs and then prepped ourselves to go out in kayaks.

We were told there was both an Osprey’s nest and Bald Eagle’s nest somewhere around the lake which got me quite stoked.

Out on the water, very cool shit. Beautiful water that was awfully blue. Charlotte saw an eel. That’s cool.

The lake had an island in the middle of that shit so we had a goddamn picanick.

Here is a view from the mini island.

We had to try and get a shot of us in the rock circle on the island. Go a little too much of the tripod-rock in the foreground but I think the idea is there.

This was us using our binox to check out the swooping Ospreys. Prettay, prettay ya know.

Back at Chuck’s parent’s place later. I noticed this framed drawing she did at age 9 of her cat Walt. One of the best parts about it is his little kid interpretation of her dad’s artwork, a study of a fragmented tiles.

This old house was right in the middle of the town, where we ate some bomb breakfast.

After breakfast we went out to the old lighthouse in what I think was southern Portland. There were some old houses and forts scattered around. This is the inside of one of em.

I can’t remember what this is a view of but it was on the coastal path heading toward the old lighthouse

Oh hey bees

Charloot and Garhoot

On the drive back I noticed Portland has got that PMA.

It was a semi- short trip, but a good one overall. I’m very interested to see it in the winter as well because now having a summer experience I can’t even imagine it under 2 feet of snow.

This is from our annual trip to Mecca, known to many as L&B.

Yes we do get to go more than once, but I feel as if I’ve taken this same photo of Charlotte for years now ever August.

Got together later in the month with Brendan and Matt to do a short little session on the boards. Brendan mentioned not having skateboarded in a long while so this was a warming back up for him.

One of my favorite parks simply for the location

Big ollies from Bren

Lots of footage taking and instagramming all day

I think he was describing the process of what happens as he tried to get off the ground?

Overall a good day but the two seconds I put on my skates I messed my back up something fierce. I kind of decided I have to quit unfortunately. Almost everytime I roll I get fucked up for two weeks. That sucks. Gotta stick to riding the board poorly.

A few snaps from one of the vocal sessions. Not much going on there. Time tickin by.

I got Andre to do this famous pose.

me drums

Probably the best part of this session was snapping this photo of Drew holding this ginger ale bottle that looks like wine.

Last month was my birthday month, and I decided I wanted to go check out some National hot spots. The first one was Great Falls National Park in Paterson, New Jersey.

Going in we were aware that it wasn’t going to be much to see, but the images on the net were pretty fuckin cool, and it was on the way to our later destination, so we figured why not make a stop.

The view was definitely beautiful, but unfortunately construction limited our access. So for a quick and free pit stop I’d give it a B-. The idea behind Paterson is actually pretty cool Alexander Hamilton wanted to set up the first industrial city in America and chose to do so in Paterson thanks to its centralized Water Fall. It was a large display of flowing agua for sure, but apparently if you visit after it has rained it is a much better display. Well, it was cool for a few minutes. We then went to the cleanest and most beautifully designed Burger King in America to pee. Pretty good. Onto the main show, the Delaware Water Gap.

The Delaware Water Gap is a National Park that exists not in Delaware, but in-between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It is about 35-40 miles end to end and is cut down the middle by Delaware River.

The reason I wanted to check it out is that it’s part of the Appalachian Trail, which I’ve always wanted to hike parts of. We drove about two hours from NYC, so it was not a bad trek to get there. We were greeted by some kinda nutty religious dude who claimed to be a volunteer. At first I was pretty bummed to be talking to him, nice as he was, but then he actually gave us some useful information about the marking of the trail and a faster way down. We headed on our way up the mountain and were greeted by many beautiful views and a bunch of really cool critters. For example these little frogs about the size of a nickel. Some deer too. The exciting thing was getting to the overview of Mount Minsi.

It was a long and semi grueling hike but it was all very worthwhile once we reached this fine precipice. The funny thing was we had asked another, more serious looking hiker if they had noticed it and about how much longer away was it. This dude was so worn out from the trek he had been he sort of muttered “oh, I don’t know I may have passed it somewhere back there – I have to get to town.” Yikes, ok dude.

The view was really stunning but it wasn’t quite a cut out area to look out. Perhaps there was another section we missed, but at least there was a fairly large stone to stand on to elevate and get a better view and shot.

What was truly amazing was once up there and the taking in the view a raptor sailed calmly and gracefully by our eye level. Realizing just how high up we were might have given us both a short spell of vertigo, but we were both really too excited over the siting that we got over it quick enough.

We pulled out the ol’ binox and spied (what we believe was) a golden eagle. The ruffled edges of its wings seemed to give it away. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. I snapped a photo or two, the best I could with the lens I had, and hoped the pictures would give us more evidence.

Hard still to tell with the grain of the film, either way it was cool ass shit.

The overlook was just really breathtaking and it wasn’t until the sun took too much of our energy that we decided to turn back

Remembering what the christian volunteer guy told us we took the fire road down and killed about 45 minutes of the trek. On the way back we saw this little symbol of our love, how very appropriate and cute.

We got back to our rental vehicle, much appreciative of the fact that no one had broken into it (there was broken glass all over the parking lot) and headed to another section of the park. This was a little beach area by the river. A few locals, and a few out of towners swimming so we didn’t stay too long as we were looking for a more quiet area.

After we’d had our fill we decided the sun was going down enough that we might need to head to the hotel I booked in NJ. On the way through there was a little trail we decided to take one last look at. The trail led to a stream or creek or whatever. That lead to the want to get our “waterproof” boots on and take a walk through. Thats me on the bridge up there.

The water felt really amazing on our ankles as it completely flooded our boots and we walked inside of what felt like some sort of jam filled shoes. Squishy boots and slime covered rocks make for a perfect combination.

The setting sun made for some soft light and as per usual the lady Charlotte looked heavenly

A little bit of slow exposure made for a really nice photograph. I loved the rushing water and low laying bridge in the background.

Oh hey

My lady

Back on that trail, not much to see really except for tons of wild flowers.

One of the last things we saw in the park was this miniature spider web nestled inside this circular vine. It was about the size of a the bottom of a coke can. Pretty awesome.

On to the hotel and then to Philly the following day.

I loved Charlotte’s little tip doodle. That dude looks stoked

This is the only photo I took in Philly of this fake door / window combo. Basically I wanted to do a few things: get some records, get a warter ice, and get a chicken cheese steak. I think I got 2 of 3? I did end up finding Wool’s ‘Box Set’ LP/7″ set which I’ve never seen, and found a cool comic shop where the helpful clerk found me a bunch of Adam Warlock issues from the 60s and 70s. Very stoked for that.

Back home on Harlem River Drive… one of a swirly cloud I took while driving (oops). Good weekend.