This is, I think, the fourth or fifth year we've taken the opportunity at the end of the year to look back and re-present some of our favorite pieces from the past 12 months. Week in and week out we strive to come up with things that you'll find interesting and enlightening and maybe just plain fun. What follows are the things that you clicked on most.

20 A lot of people will remember this past year for some major sports victories by the Red Sox and Patriots. Scott Baker's pictures from the Patriots parade and celebration in Boston provide a reminder.

19 We know people love pictures of cute furry animals, so our photo gallery from the Animal Refuge League's Paws in the Park event was a natural.

18 If you didn't make the Yarmouth ClamFest this year, Scott Baker was there to let you see what you missed.

17 Behind the Scenes at Pigs Fly Bread. I like this stuff even more now that I've met the folks that make it and toured the factory.

16 I needed an excuse to duck out of the office on a nice summer day and go climb Bradbury Mountain, so I turned it into a feature!

15 When we learned that the oldest working metal tugboat in the world plied its trade in Portland Harbor, we had to check it out. The Fannie J was built in 1870. It's no longer in Portland Harbor, but it is still working - up the coast in Rockland.

14 The Annual Balloon Festival in Auburn is a real treat for the eyes, and Scott's pictures take you there

Sometimes, we create something we love, and it just doesn't find the audience it deserves. We put this box here so we can make one more try to get some folks to look at the... Editors Picks It was our privilege and pleasure to meet James Sheppard and to hear him tell of his time as one of The Tuskeegee Airmen. There's so much to learn at the Portland Fire Museum that our piece, with all of its photos and video, just scratches the surface. It's always enlightening to get out of our urban surroundings and see life as it once was and still is at Saco's Last Dairy Farm. Eddie Driscoll was one of my childhood heroes, and so it was my pleasure to find out more about his life and career. Typically our features include text, pictures, sometimes video. But the audio documentary somehow feels more personal and can make a story really come alive. This piece on a Red Cross program teaching CPR to immigrant women really shows that. It also highlights a really important program.

Our friends at Portland Magazine allow us to bring some of their best stuff to the web and they'll be very happy to learn that several of their things made our top 20, including 13 A City Gone to the Dogs, which lists the most common breeds licensed in Portland.

12 Was either the first feature of 2004 or the last one of 2003, depending on how you look at it. The advice from a fitness professional in Fit for the New Year is just as appropriate today as it was a year ago.

11 Our association with Northeast Historic Film is ongoing. In February they shared some film about a 1917 German plot to blow up a Maine bridge during World War One.

10 Every year, our gallery of pictures from the Flower Show is quite popular. That's why we've done it for six years now.

9 Scott spends a lot of time exploring the web for interesting sites for our popular Site of the Day page. Periodically he'll assemble a collection of links around a theme like Explore ME: Essential Links for Summer Time in Maine

8 Portland Magazine strikes again. Their profile of actress Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz and spent her down time in Maine, caught the eye of many web users.

7 John Calvin Stevens is a name you hear again and again in the Portland area. This architect's name and style can add quite a bit to the purchase price of a home. Read more about this remarkable man and see a gallery of homes he designed here.

6 The Fryeburg Fair is one of the year's biggest, and a highlight is the Woodsmen's Field Day. We've got some video of some serious competitors and photos of the rest of the fair.

5 Maine Indoor Karting was a brand new business in Scarborough when we took our video camera to see what it was all about.

4 The deep freeze of January/February seems an appropriate time to unleash a collection of links to web sites for warm tropical Exotic Places.

3 The Oil Rigs that loomed above the Old Port for months are now gone, but before they left we wanted to check out the view. After all, if you could see them from all over town it only made sense you could see a lot of town from on top of them.

2 Harmon's Lunch is an institution. It must be because I was shocked by how many people clicked on this story about the venerable hamburger stand in Falmouth.

1 Those folks at Portland Monthly copped the top spot with last winter's feature on waterfront property at the top and bottom of the price scale, Do We Hear $13 million?

There you go, your favorite features for 2004. What will this list look like next year? I have no idea, but If you have a suggestion for a story, I hope you'll send it along.

Thanks for looking at our stuff, and Happy New Year!

-Chad

aroundmaine.com by Chad Gilley and Scott Baker (and various partners, collaborators, and contributors) December 21, 2004

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The Top 20 of 2003
The Top 20 of 2002