This summer my husband and I had a great time with our visiting grandchildren from Maryland. They range in age from 8 to 17 and, of course, have varied interests, but we managed, I think, to satisfy everyone and have a good time in the process.

A major highlight of their visit this year was the opportunity to explore the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse that is open every Saturday this summer subject to the weather. We lucked out – our Saturday, the day before they had to return to Maryland, was gorgeous, bright and sunny. We purchased our tickets from Linda Eastman who was sitting at the Fort Preble end of the breakwater and made our way out across the gigantic blocks of granite.

Then came the climb up into the Lighthouse – up a short ladder, turn your back to the Lighthouse and up another longer ladder until you poke your head through an opening in the deck and finally emerge out onto the lower platform. We entered the kitchen next – a cozy round room with a coal stove, a sink with a hand pump for water, and a small table with two chairs. Before the breakwater was built in 1950, the lighthouse keeper and his assistant lived in the lighthouse for a number of weeks and so many a supper was cooked in that little kitchen and eaten by kerosene lamplight.

Going up the curved staircase, we entered the keeper’s bedroom, now furnished as it might have been, with a spool bed (covered by a gorgeous quilt depicting the lighthouse and a sailboat – a beautiful, but modern addition) and a table/desk. Up another flight was the assistant keeper’s bedroom, which is decorated with panels explaining how the lighthouse works, how a fresnel lens functions, and some interesting old photos.

Then, for the brave and agile, up another steep ladder to the watch room and its deck for a wonderful view of the channel all the way down to Portland Head Lighthouse, the Portland skyline with its Observatory, the tankers at the Portland Pipe Line pier, the yellow-trimmed Casco Bay Ferries, and old Forts Gorges and Scammel – the whole intriguing panorama of our beautiful Portland Harbor. Here we met another volunteer, Edd Legere, who showed us the huge bell that the lighthouse keepers rang when fog obscured the light – of course, we all had to try it while Edd explained that the bell was from the Paul Revere foundry and wasn’t necessary after the light was electrified in 1934 and a fog horn installed.

Before leaving Spring Point, we walked out on to the newest addition to the Southern Maine Community College campus – the recently renovated pier that also offers a great view of the harbor and, as a bonus right now, a close-up look at the osprey nest situated on top of a pole in the water. It was a thrill to see a mother osprey and glimpse her three babies that are getting ready to fly from their nest sometime in the next few weeks.

Spring Point performance

Another treat was attending a performance of “As You Like It” at The Stage at Spring Point. Again, we lucked out with the weather, avoiding the many rainy evenings we have had lately. The stage, tucked into Fort Preble’s Battery Rivardi, is a series of wooden platforms painted grass-green, with green poles thrusting up in various directions to represent the glades and woods of the Forest of Arden. Over 100 green garden chairs are arranged in amphitheatre style around the stage, so that every seat has an unobstructed view of the action. The acoustics are excellent – we could hear every word despite the occasional fly over of airplanes.

We loved Michele Lee, a junior at USM, who played the sharp-tongued, witty and assertive Rosalind. But the star of the show for me was Mark Honan, who has also played for Portland Stage Company. He was perfect as Jacques, the melancholy and philosophical lord who delivers the famous lines about the seven stages of man.

Museum exhibits

Every year the whole family enjoys a visit to the Portland Museum of Art. My husband and I are members, but we take advantage of the free family pass that is offered by the Friends of the Scarborough Public Library for our Maryland guests. This year’s summer exhibit is a blockbuster entitled “Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late 19th Century France.”

Every one of us liked the full-sized painting of a charming lady dressed in an eye-catching pink gown with hundreds of flounces and an enormous bow cascading down from a black cummerbund that emphasized her slender waist. Carrying a pink ostrich feather fan, she glances back at the artist as she enters a room crowded with French society. Painted in 1885 by James Jacques Joseph Tissot, it allows us a glimpse of what life in Paris was like more than a hundred years ago.

Another favorite was a painting by Jean Beraud of Les Halles, the famous Paris market. We see two rows of stalls, covered with vegetables for sale – radishes, carrots, tomatoes and cauliflowers – two women stand in the foreground, one in a black dress with white ruffles, followed by her maid in white apron and hat, carrying a basket for their purchases. Again, it is a wonderful glimpse of life in Paris, this time of a daily trip to the market to buy fresh vegetables for the evening meal.

The exhibit on the fourth floor of the museum of works by Frederick Edwin Church was of particular interest to our daughter. She loved the large painting “El Khasne, Petra,” as she still remembers our trip to that fabled site in Jordan back in 1972. The glowing rosy stone of the treasury gleams from between the dark edges of the cliffs that frame both sides of the painting. Two Bedouin, carrying long barreled muskets, stand in the corner of the painting, dwarfed by the cliffs and guarding the entrance to that long-lost city of the Nabateans.

Every year, when we have houseguests or family visit, we marvel at the number of attractions Portland has to offer its visitors. And every year we have to make choices – shall we visit the Narrow Gauge Railway, the Observatory, the Victoria Mansion, the Tate House, the Longfellow House, the Portland Harbor Museum, the Portland Head Lighthouse? Shall we go swimming at Scarborough Beach, picnic at Two Lights, explore the Scarborough Marsh, walk at Gilsland Farm or around Mackworth Island? How about a ride on the Casco Bay Ferries out to one of the islands, or a tour on the Duck? It seems we are pretty lucky to live right here in this corner of the state of Maine.