Family obligations keep me homebound nowadays, but I can do day trips, so I finally loaded my canoe on my SUV and drove down Old County Road, which sounds like the road that Andy and Barn would tell you to take to reach the fishin' hole. It's a pretty road too, with red maples arching over it.

What Mayberry doesn't have is blueberry fields and here's one I passed.

I had passed this little stream many times and always wanted to paddle it. I saw from Google Earth that it led to a little lake. There's even a place to park a rarity in Maine!

Here's what the stream looks like from the road.

Off I go. I brought along Manny, my mini-Schnauzer. It was his first canoe ride and he did well.

I had seen from Google Earth that there were four lines across the stream before I'd reach the lake. I discovered that they were beaver dams and I stopped photographing to negotiate them. The highest one scared Manny a bit as the canoe slid down the face of the dam. Finally, I reached the lake!

It looked a little like the Canadian lakes I love so.

Those lily pads were full of chain pickerel and largemouth bass. I caught fish on my first, third, and fifth cast and at one point, caught four fish on four casts, but they were all small, with the bass ranging between nine and fourteen inches. They were fun, but Manny was a little scared of them. Here's Manny arguing otherwise.

We circled the lake and started back. A little sunshine burnished the leaves. You can see the first beaver dam here, the low one. After this, I got busy dragging the canoe over them.

No more damn dams and now it gets turbo pretty.

Turbo!

Twin turbochargers!!

Triple turbochargers!!!

Hey, it's my car.

Hope you enjoyed going along on my little paddle. Manny is glad you took the time and he wants me to emphasize that he's NOT afraid of flopping fish.