A Visit to Portland & the Portland Lighthouse

Here is one unusual thing about my travels through Maine: I love being here. Love the fact that it is mostly wilderness, and that it has many charming little towns and villages. Love that it is so picturesque, with a varied landscape of lush green forests, mountains, lakes and streams, all interspersed with those old New England towns and villages. It has an incredibly beautiful, rustic coastline, spotted with numerous lighthouses. And one of my favorite authors, Stephen King, is from there. Since he is also the father of Joe Hill, who has grown to be another favorite author, you might say that it is the home state of two of my favorite authors. Plus, Maine is a state where I have traveled to and from Canada, which I also love, of course. Francophone culture is not out of place here. So there is a lot to appreciate about Maine.

Yet, there is one city that, for whatever the reason, I never seemed to particularly enjoy during my visits. It is the largest city in Maine: Portland. 

Indeed, my luck there never seemed good. Unlike Bangor, which is a city I like to visit, and Augusta, which I similarly enjoy visiting and being in, Portland is usually a city I only occasionally stop in, usually on my way to some other destination in Maine. It is not a particularly attractive city, and hardly feels to me like Maine at all. Also, I never seem to have much luck there. I cannot remember ever having visited this city and just simply enjoyed my visit.

Unfortunately this year was no exception, even though, in fact, I finally managed to find the one landmark in the city that I have long wanted to visit: the Portland Lighthouse. 

Admittedly this time, it was pretty much my fault. After all, my son and I went down by the rocks during our visit to the Portland Lighthouse. And since I like to take pictures, it seemed like a good idea to go on the slippery rocks and take some pictures from the actual water. Unfortunately my left foot got wet, and even more unfortunately, this led to an accident. I was trying to carefully step onto a dry rock (at least it seemed dry), but my left foot (the wet one) must have slipped. 

The fall was fast and hard. Sometimes, you can sense yourself falling, you know you are falling, and perhaps can do something about it. This time around, I fell so quickly that it seemed one moment, I was standing and trying to take a step onto the rock, and the next moment, I was lying on that same rock, with some women nearby asking if I was okay.

Fortunately, the rock broke my fall. Unfortunately, it did not knock any sense into my head. But there was this bit of good news, as well: it sure let me forget about the nagging back pains that had been bothering me before this fall. In fact, I hardly felt any back pain at all for a couple of days after.

Yet, it was not immediately apparent that I had even hurt myself. Again, it seemed to happen so quickly, that I did not have any time to react. One moment I was standing up like regular, and the next, I was laying on my side on that rock, with those women asking if I was alright.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, I quickly told them that yes, I was okay. 

But then I tried to get up, and a bolt of pain that I had not really felt shot up to my shoulder. Nor was it just my shoulder. In fact, my left elbow hurt, as did my left hand, and my left hip. But far and away, the most intense pain was in my shoulder, which seemed to have taken the brunt of the fall. I do not remember hurting myself quite as much on any previous fall as this time around, although perhaps I have, and am simply not remembering it at the moment. 

When I got up, it immediately became clear that this was not just something that I would easily shake off and go about the rest of my day or trip with. It hurt, particularly (but not exclusively) my shoulder. While I could bend my elbow, and knew it was not broken, it took a bit of moving my left shoulder around to be sure that nothing was broken, or that it was not dislocated. Still, it really hurt. I had difficulty lifting it up, even. Trying to reach back (like for the seatbelt in the car) proved excruciating. 

My son and I left the rocky area and went back up. We continued our visit to the lighthouse, but it was impossible not to notice that my legs and arms felt wobbly and weak, perhaps from some minor shock from the fall. I would have to cut the visit to the lighthouse short, even though, in fact, I spent much more time than I would have wanted or expected simply sitting on boulders and later benches, nursing my injured shoulder and elbow.

After all, I had a lot of driving left to do, and after sitting around a bit during the lighthouse visit to recover from the fall, the time seemed to have vanished almost mysteriously. It was far later than I could have imagined, and I wanted to arrive to see my brother later in the day while it was still light out. Also, I was anxious to see how well I could still drive, and if my pained shoulder (and to a lesser extent, the elbow and even the hip) might alter or impair my driving abilities, but it seemed like it was fine. To be sure, there was some real discomfort there, but it was not going to actually prevent me from being able to drive. 

It was hard not to think that, despite finally having found the Portland Lighthouse, this city still seemed to translate to a bad experience for me. My son and I had planned to find a place to eat in Portland. After all, it is a city, and there surely are a lot of options. But I found myself just wanting to get out of the city after that, and we did.

Ironically, though, this was perhaps the best and most thorough visit to Portland in some ways. There was the lighthouse, after all. And despite the fact that some of these pictures, particularly the ones taken from the rocks on the beach, came at a high price, they did capture the rugged beauty of the place nevertheless.

Also, we had seen some interesting things on our way to the lighthouse, including some beautiful fountains in a park that I do not remember having seen before. Also, we saw some very nice neighborhoods, with lush gardens and beautiful architecture. The rich part of town, of course.

Still, we left, and pretty quickly after our abbreviated visit to the lighthouse. But again, it was a beautiful place worth visiting, and here are some pictures to prove it:

Here is the picture of the fountain in some park that we encountered somewhere in downtown Portland, on our way to the lighthouse.

 I believe that this is the picture that was taken just moments before I stepped off a wet rock - with my own bottoms of my feet wet - and had my little mishap.