Gonna See It In Color: From Portland....to Portland!

Here's my second post for the month! This one will be fairly quick and short, and about the Volunteerism conference I attended last week in Portland, Maine.
I flew last Sunday to Portland, arriving at midnight Sunday night....so late that the hotel staff locked the doors and I had to be let in by someone staying there with a key because the staff wasn't at the front desk at the moment. So late, and so tired. Let me tell you, 15 hours of airports and planes is not my idea of fun....anyhow, I got checked in and settled for the night. I actually didn't sleep super late on Monday, but took my time getting out of bed and out of the hotel room. I walked around for a bit, trying to get my bearings on the city in relation to where my hotel and the conference hotel were. I happened to stumble across a trolley tour opportunity at the right time, so I went on that before returning to take a nap, and then head to the conference. Best part is that the tour provided lots of history, and we went out to the lighthouse at Cape Elizabeth! Here are Monday's pictures...

Tuesday and Wednesday were dominated by the conference, with dinner each night with Washington colleagues. And yes, I did learn something, but it's boring stuff ;) Wednesday night's story is pretty cool....we found this place that seats bigger groups upstairs, so up we went. There was one lone gentleman there when we arrived, and someone apologized saying "We're going to ruin any idea of peace and quiet you had!" We invited him to come over and join us, and while he finished his meal we were working on ordering and explaining to the waitress we're from Washington (State, because no one east of the Mississippi knows we exist as a state) and how a couple of people had yet to choose their own lobster to eat. The waitress convinced the cook staff to let us choose our own lobsters for dinner, and we continued waiting for our food after the lobster picking adventure....meanwhile the gentleman left and we wished him well. Little did we know that he left $100 toward our meals, which the waitress later revealed when we were ready to leave, exclaiming that she'd been waiting for us to leave so she could tell us! Well, we couldn't just let that happen, so we ended up paying for our meals entirely, and leaving the $100 as a tip for the waitress and cook staff. Pretty cool to experience, as you often hear about those stories....
Thursday brought an end to the conference in the morning, but my flight wasn't until early (and I mean early) Friday morning. So, I again went wandering, but this time with plans. I had picked up some brochures throughout the week and decided to take advantage of the lobster tour, and a mail ferry sunset "tour," aka ride. It was fun, being able to see the traps get pulled up, then we helped change the bait and measure any lobsters that were caught. There's a tool they use to make sure the lobsters are big enough, and the one I measured was just barely big enough to keep! It's still early in the season there, so we were lucky to catch as many as we did, six or seven I think. Then I went on the mail ferry trip, which was interesting to see....they have giant bins with mail that get unloaded at each stop, and then the boat goes back to each place to pick up the empty bins for the night. You would have to time picking up the mail juuuuuuuuussssstttttt right. Here's some pictures....