Maine in February, by car at night

I went up the week of the cold snap. Nobody recommended this. There is a kind of trip you take in your thirties where the discomfort is the point, and Maine in February is that trip taken seriously.

Naples in summer is a tourist town. Naples in February is a town where most of the lights are on for nobody. The cruise boat that runs Sebago Lake all summer was tied up against the pier under sodium lamps, and the only sound was the ice creaking against the dock.

Driving at night

I had not done a real night-drive trip in a long time. The car becomes a small room you are taking through a country you cannot see. The dashboard becomes the entire visual field. The navigation screen becomes a second window.

Portland Head Light, two in the morning

I had thought I would photograph the coast at sunrise. The actual photograph I wanted was the one I did not plan: the lighthouse at two in the morning with the stars over it, the kind of dark you only get in February when the air is dry and the tourists are not around to light their phone screens at the rocks.

On the way home I stopped in Ogunquit, which is a different post.