We started the day with a tour of the Blaine House in Augusta. This is the governor's residence. It was donated to the state in 1919 by the family of James G. Blaine, a Maine representative, senator and US presidential candidate in 1884. He lost to Grover Cleveland. We were the only two people on the tour. The upper floor is the residence and the lower floor is the public area. One of the interesting items was James Blaine's seat from the US Senate and a pass signed by Abraham Lincoln on April 7, 1865, just a week before the assassination.

Next stop was Acadia National Park. The weather wasn't very good, so we decided to have a go at driving around the loop road and checking things out for future forays. The coast is mostly rugged big rocks. We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain the highest spot on Mount Desert Island, where the park is located.

Today's photo is of three silver pieces from the USS Maine which was sunk by an explosion in Havana Harbor in 1898. That gave the cry of "Remember the Maine" which helped usher in the Spanish American War. Turns out that the real cause of the explosion likely an internal problem possibly brought on by the type of coal in use. The silver set was recovered when the Maine was raised. That is pretty cool. If you look real closely, you can see it has a pine needle and pine cone motif. Our guide told us that it was very difficult to polish.