A long, long day..

For some reason, we got an earlier start today and left the Inn at 9:45. Sarah was feeling great and I was as well. My morning walks feel good. I get up about 5 am shower, dress and make it downstairs by 6am. I usually walk for 45 minutes to an hour. I stop and get a large hazelnut coffee at the local market come back to the Pentagoet and read the papers online, go over the day before expensive, look at mail, upload photos, read my kindle and blog until about 9am.
We decided to take a long drive day trip first to Pumpkin Island then further over the Deer Island Bridge down to Stonington. The drive is well marked with signs but the roads are narrow and two lane so it takes a while to get anywhere. That is the charm of these craggy inlets and the bay. We drove down an unmarked road toward Pumpkin Island which unfortunately we could only see from a short distance as it is only assessable by boat. Not that there is anything to do there but it would have a nice vista. We met up with a nice gentlemen named Jim from Baltimore who chatted us up talking about good places we should visit. He mentioned a mail boat to an island that had a wonderful place to hike and picnic. The boat goes out of Stonington Harbor once a day. We said our thanks to Jim and off we went.
Sarah handles the navigation, no small tasks with these roads and I just ask questions and drive. At Stonington, we park our car on the harbor. Stonington is not a harbor built up for tourism, the town has it's shops for such but not the harbor. It is still used as a commercial fishing and mostly lobster harbor. They do not call it Maine lobster for nothing. We stop and a small used book store and brick and brac place. Further down the street we recognize the place we had lunch on the dock last year called Seasons. I had a flavorful, salmon, mushroom and onion chowder and Sarah a sliced tuna salad. The weather began to change and started feeling cold on the deck so we left to search for the mail boat. After a few missed turns, we found it got a flyer and off we went Nervous Nellies......

To get an idea of all the inlets and islands...

Above two photos Stonington dock.

Pumpkin island.