FLORIDA : Key Largo Winter Weather.

Key Largo was beautiful today with temperatures in the mid-70's and mild ocean breezes.

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Expect the next several days to be sunny and bright.

MAINE : Mainers Brace for Severe Storm Conditions

"COLD ENOUGH FOR YAS?"
... Winter Storm Warning remains in effect from 7 am Wednesday to 1 am EST Thursday...Snow will overspread the area Wednesday morning and become heavy at times during the day on Wednesday. The snow will mix with sleet and freezing rain and change to all rain along the immediate coast Wednesday evening. Snow accumulations around an inch can be expected. This storm will have a moderate impact on the warning area. Heavy snow and sleet will cover roads and reduce visibilities making travel difficult.Please report snow, sleet, or ice accumulations to the National Weather Service by calling toll free... 877-633-6772. Stay tuned to
NOAA Weather Radio...your local media... or go to http://www.erh.noaa.gov/car/for further updates on this weather situation.


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The National Weather Service advises residents to brace and prepare for the biggest snowstorm so far this winter, and to expect heavy snow and near blizzard conditions. A foot or more of snow is predicted in many places before the cold front moves into New Brunswick on Thursday.
Forecasts call for almost two feet of snow in the western mountains and foothills, 12 to 18 inches in other interior regions and 8 to 14 inches along the coastline, where a change to sleet or freezing rain is likely late by early on Wednesday.
{Many Maine communities have announced parking bans in advance of the storm.}
The U.S. Coast Guard issued warnings to mariners to be prepared for 40-50-knot winds and 20-30 foot seas in New England waters and the Gulf of Maine by Tuesday.
Coast Guard units along the New England coast are issuing safety broadcasts to warn offshore mariners, and all coastal and offshore cutters as well as search-and-rescue stations have elevated their readiness status to "high".

{Mariners should closely monitor channel 16 VHF-FM for updated storm warnings and information.}

FLORIDA : WYLAND in KEY LARGO -PHOTO UPDATE !!

BLOG UPDATE: 4-Sided "Whaling Wall" Completed in Key Largo

*Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau

Marine artist Wyland unveils a mural in Key Largo that features Castaway, the dolphin. But just before he snipped a ribbon, he revealed that sometime after Feb. 20 he would “quietly add a few more fish and a stingray to honor my friend Steve Irwin.” Irwin, best known for his television series ‘The Crocodile Hunter,’ tragically died in September 2006, after being pierced in the chest by a stingray spine while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Wyland also announced that lighting would be added to illuminate the mural so the artwork could be appreciated 24 hours a day.

A panoramic 7,500-square-foot representation of the living coral reef that parallels the Keys, the Wyland mural wraps around a four-story, four-sided building at mile marker 99.2 in the median of the Overseas Highway that bisects Key Largo.

"This is a mural that is really the gateway to the Florida Keys," said Wyland, whose name is legally one word. "I’m a diver so I take all that inspiration and all that beauty and simply paint it up on the wall for people to enjoy.”

Wyland, who has residences in California, Hawaii and the Keys, has spent more than 20 years diving in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. He credits the Keys reef, the only contiguous coral expanse in North America, for inspiring much of his work.

The completed mural features islands, sunset, manatees, manta rays, corals, indigenous fish and bottlenose dolphins in honor of a stranded pregnant dolphin, Castaway and her unborn calf currently being treated at a Key Largo Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Center.
Like Wyland's previous walls, the Key Largo mural is designed to motivate environmental awareness and stewardship, particularly in children.

"Art is something that can touch people’s emotion," said Wyland, who began the Key Largo wall Feb. 1. "You can choose not to go into a gallery or a museum, but you can’t ignore a giant mural like this. If people see this beauty, I know they’ll want to get involved in protecting it.”

During breaks from creating the mammoth mural, Wyland painted separate canvases with kids, noting the importance of inspiring youngsters to preserve the world’s oceans.

Wyland, who began painting "Whaling Walls" in 1981, plans to continue his series internationally until he has completed 100 murals.

He intends to paint his last huge artwork, projected to be more than two miles long, in Beijing, with children from around the world, prior to the 2008 summer Olympics.
For more information, visit www.wylandfoundation.org.

MAINE : Maine's "King of Horror" has a Secret ,..and it's name is Joe.

"Joe Hill and Stephen King's secret is out!!"

Photo By Shane Leonard

Joe Hill's real name isn't Joe Hill, it's Joseph Hillstrom King. As in Stephen King's son, and you won't find this on the cover jacket of Hill's first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, nor is it in any of the press materials.

This reflects a very principled stance that Hill and his publisher have taken, a conscious decision not to milk Hill's patrimony for publicity, and which I am now helping to ruin. They are right to do this, and I am wrong to use it for the sake of a good opening paragraph. There are only two things worth saying about Hill's distinguished ancestry. One is that whatever King has, he evidently passed along to his son, because Heart-Shaped Box is a top-notch piece of horror fiction.

A lot of horror writers wind up revealing a sentimental streak in the end, but if Hill has one he keeps it well in check. This is, ultimately, a book about fathers and sons. A son who must come to terms with his abusive father, and with the avenging ghost, who is the father of another key character.

It's an appropriate enough theme for Hill, because every artist has to work in the shadow of his or her father-in-art, and symbolically, Oedipally overcome him, and in Hill's case his father-in-art is also his literal, biological father. Heart-Shaped Box isn't about appeasing fathers, and learning to love them, and seeing that they, too, are human beings and not monsters. It's not about that at all. It's about knowing your father, and finding him, and then killing him.

"Isn't that what the best artists do?"

adopt your own virtual pet!

FLORIDA : WYLAND in KEY LARGO

"Wyland" graces Key Largo with his presence.


This is Wyland's blank building that will be known as:
"The Wyland Whaling Wall # 95"

"Wyland", he is always cheerful, and a man with a mission !!

Wyland to Paint Final U.S. 'Whaling Wall'

Internationally acclaimed environmental artist and conservationist Wyland is to paint the 95Th 'Whaling Wall' in his planned series of 100 mammoth marine life murals, Feb. 1-12 in Key Largo, Florida.
The mural, the last Whaling Wall Wyland intends to paint in the United States, is to showcase North America’s only living contiguous barrier coral reef, which parallels the Keys.

The painting will majestically wrap around all four sides of a building located at mile marker 99.2 on U.S. Highway 1, and be visible to everyone driving into and out of the Florida Keys.

The top portion of this building will be painted bright yellow and orange, then the lower portions of the building will give an appearance of a deep reef.

“It’s my gift to the Florida Keys and all the great people who live and visit here,” said Wyland, a part-time Keys resident and avid diver.

Wyland's previous life-size Whaling Walls can be seen around the U.S.,Tacoma, Washington, San Diego, Ca., Japan, Australia, France and New Zealand. One of his wonderful murals is located in Key West’s Historic Seaport, and another fronts highway U.S. 1 in Marathon, at the midpoint of the Florida Keys.

Wyland is renowned for his life size murals as well as smaller paintings and sculptures that portray whales, dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, coral reef life and other ocean inhabitants. Wyland draws his ongoing inspiration from diving in the Keys and in other tropical waters.

“I’ve been diving in the Florida Keys for over 20 years, and this is some of the best diving in the world,” said Wyland. “The light and the pristine beauty, above and below, are represented in my paintings, my sculptures and even in my murals.”

For more than 25 years Wyland has used his art to increase awareness about the need to preserve and protect the world’s marine environment. In 1993 he established the Wyland Foundation, a publicly supported environmental education organization; in 1998, the United Nations declared him the official artist of the International Year of the Ocean.

The public was invited to visit the Key Largo mural site to watch Wyland paint, learn more about his environmental initiatives and view a comprehensive collection of his paintings and sculptures.
Wyland hosted a dedication ceremony at the site on Monday, Feb. 12, 2007.

For more information, visit http://www.wylandkw.com/galleries/#key-westor call (800) 469-3069 Monday through Friday.

The "Whaling Wall # 95" is really worth the trip down to Key Largo, and to find out about area accommodations, call the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce at (305) 451-4747 or (800) 822-1088, or visit the Florida Keys & Key West Web site at http://www.fla-keys.com/

MAINE : 'TOWN OF BAR HARBOR HISTORY'.

Originally incorporated as the Town of Eden, the original document signed by Samuel Adams in 1796 and a warrant calling the first town meeting are on display, the town's name was changed to Bar Harbor in 1918.

Bar Harbor's fascinating history as a summer resort began long before Champlain's visit in 1604. The Abnakis were the original summer people. In the 1850's, painters such as Frederic E. Church, Thomas Cole, Fitz Hugh Lane, William Hart and Thomas Birch popularized the area thru their exhibits of the island's beautiful mountains and seascapes. The first Hotel on the island was built in Bar Harbor by Tobias Roberts, the Agamont House in 1855. Alpheus Hardy was the first summer resident to build a "cottage" called Birch Point in 1868. More and more hotels and cottages were built as people "rusticators" came to the island by train and the Mount Desert Ferry to dock at Bar Harbor.

The land boom continued until the 1880's when such notables as Joseph Pulitzer, William Proctor, , Frederick Vanderbilt, George Vanderbilt and Evelyn Walsh McLean came and built magnificent "cottages".
{When you visit the museum library you can see pictures of these and many more of the summer "cottages".}

It was at this time that Boston native George B. Dorr worked tirelessly with Charles W. Elliot and later with John D. Rockefeller Jr. to bring about the National Park, which was organized in 1916 as Sieur de Monts monument. The name was changed in 1919 to Lafayette National Park and in 1929 to Acadia National Park.
George B. Dorr was the first Superintendant of the Park.
{There is a permanent exhibit of Mr. Dorr on site that is worth checking out.}

FLORIDA : Diving in Key Largo.

"Ever get that feeling you were being followed?"

If it's good fishing you're after, look no further. From hard-fighting, deep-sea gamefish like marlin, wahoo, sailfish and tuna, to backcountry favorites like tarpon and bonefish, Key Largo offers anglers of any skill a great variety and abundance year-round.

The variety of diving available in the Florida Keys matches both the skill levels and interests of the Scuba diving visitor.

Today's adventurer can experience the unspoiled hammock forest along nature trails and view the quiet beauty of herons, egrets and roseate spoonbills along the shore. Relaxing is part of Key Largo's lifestyle. Just kick back and enjoy a quiet afternoon under the tropical sun, sipping a tall cool glass of Key limeade, just a few steps from a cool splash in the ocean or bay!

There is much more to Key Largo than the legends of the past -- the splendors of this tropical paradise provide a life style unchallenged anywhere in the world.

Come and create your own legends, share the unique heritage of this island of history and enchantment...Legendary Key Largo!