From the Lancaster Fair to Fort Foster ...

Pam and I had a busy Labor Day weekend.  We were up early on Saturday heading a couple hours north to the Lancaster Fair.  There were lots of animals, rides, food, events, competitions, etc.

We decided to watch the draft horse pulling competition.  I don’t know anything about the rules.  Turns out they follow the Eastern Draft Horse Association Rules.  I looked those up and they were pretty straight forward.  The teamster (person driving the team) would walk the horse teams to the sled and turn them around to get hooked up.

It was interesting to watch as every horse team would get really amped up in anticipation of the pull.  It looked like the moment the horses heard the noise of being hooked to the sled they charged forward.  Several times the teamster missed the hookup and the team lurched forward with no sled.  They would have to be backed up to try to hook them up again.  As each round was complete they added more weight to the sled and the remaining teams would go again.  Looks like the weight of the sled and length of the pull eliminates the teams until you have a winner.

We continued through the fair and stopped briefly to watch more horse competitions.

Later in the afternoon we headed to the Mt. Washington Inn to walk around and relaxed on the deck.  It seemed busy due to the weather, long weekend, a couple wedding parties, etc. 

There are beautiful views of Mt. Washington.  It is much more difficult to spot the Cog railway engine and cars going up and down the mountain without the smoke from the old coal engines.  They switched to electric engines several years back.  The new engines are able to make it up the mountain quicker.  Binoculars or a zoom lens makes things easier.  The clouds at the top had just started to break up so I took a picture of the observatory from the deck at the inn.  Using the ruler on Google Earth a straight line of sight to the observatory is 6.8 miles.  Interesting what you can do with a super zoom lens.

We headed home in the evening … lot of walking and fresh air makes one sleepy.

After church on Sunday we headed for Ogunquit, ME to the Marginal Way.  We parked in Perkins Cove and walked to the end and back.  The weather was  beautiful.  The approaching storm off the coast was creating large waves.  They would be bigger in the next few days.

With high tide and big waves the beach looked crowded.  There were lots of people in the water too.

I took a picture of this white sailboat out in the bay and coming back into the cove. 

 

We decided to take Rt. 1A down the coast and explore.  At one point I pulled over to take a picture and noticed a long pier out in the water.  We headed back and ended up finding the entrance to Fort Foster in Kittery.  They gave us a map which included 3 parking areas.  We parked and walked to the pier by Pier Beach.  From there we walked the trail along the ocean past Whaleback Beach continuing to Rocky beach.

There are several old towers used to guard the shoreline, tables and grills throughout for cook outs.  It would be fun to spend the day there.  It was kind of a find for us and will go back prepared to spend the day there.

From Fort Foster we headed to Portsmouth for dinner.  We parked the car … and yes more walking.  After dinner we headed home. 
 

On Monday, Labor Day, we relaxed.  I went to the range.  Nice easy day.  Had a fun weekend and the weather was great …