Maine Revisited Part III

Maine Revisited Part III

Sunday July 13, 2008

We left Belfast for a slow journey down the Coastal highway

to Portland.

· Stopped to shop in Lincolnville

For a couple of years now, I’ve wanted to return to Lincolnville. There’s no reason the masses would blink more than twice at this sleepy seaside village. The town consists of a seafood restaurant beside the sea, a ferry, a volunteer fire house hidden behind two craft stores, and a post office. In addition, the town has a small parking lot beside the road with a couple of nice benches overlooking the ferry and the community beach.

I slip into another place when I sit on the bench overlooking the beach. My mind wanders into the water and to Islesboro Island beyond. I imagine what it would be like to live on that island like my wife did when she watched a couple’s kids for a summer when she was in high school.

On this day, the wind was way up and the water was blown into frothy white-caps. Traveling to Islesboro would have been a bumpy proposition. My one regret from this trip was that we didn’t have the time to visit that island.

• No Moody’s

While at the Comfort Inn, a Maine couple pointed us to blueberry pies at Moody’s Diner on our way to Freeport. So we looked forward to that the whole way. We found Moody’s and pulled in to the almost empty parking lot. This struck us as odd, since the couple told us that this place is extremely popular.

It turns out that the high winds had knocked out the power and the restaurant had been forced to close. Alas, no blueberry pie made by local ladies for us. I was deeply saddened.

· Stopped to shop in Freeport…LL Bean, etc

Freeport is a amazing construction. It’s an old-fashioned Maine town that has been taken over by outlet stores and L.L. Bean. We parked out car and wandered around.

I quickly discovered that there really weren’t any great, great deals. Polo shirts at Ralph Lauren were about $35. Dress slacks were in the $75 range. Soon, I tired of the shopping experience. I began to get that same feeling I get when I get trapped in “Lowe’s/Home Depot Hell.” That’s a sense of feeling trapped in a dizzy building with no hope of escape.

So before I got completely cornered in Banana republic, I bolted outside and sat on a rock wall. As my senses returned, I noticed that I wasn’t alone. As far as I could see up and down the street, lone middle-aged men sat in front of store after store. All of us were sitting quietly with dazed looks on our faces talking to no one, doing nothing.

· Lunch/Dinner at Corsican Restaurant

We discovered that finding a meal in the retail world of Freeport, Maine is a difficult assignment. After wandering the length of the town, we found only three restaurants and two ice cream parlors. Luckily one of the restaurants was The Corsican. With dinner in Portland still to come and the hour growing late, we ate light but our food was excellent! My son and I had a delicious meatball subs while my wife and daughter had humus-wrappy things. Without a doubt, this restaurant was a lifesaver.

· Arrived at our friends’ home in Scarborough, Maine at about 5:00

We made it! Our friends had moved to their home two summers ago and we had helped them pack and make the trip. We really looked forward to seeing them again and getting to know their two very young children again.

Monday July 14, 2008

• Cabela’s

Early in the morning, the guys and my friend’s youngest daughter went on an exploration of the new Scarborough Cabela’s outdoorsman store. We spent a great deal of time looking at guns and fishing gear. They have a “gun museum” where they sell really old rifles for really high prices. But the highlight of the trip was the big game display. Actively posed on a huge crafted mountain in the middle of the store were a flock of wild North American mammals: moose, deer, badgers, and the young lady’s favorite-skunk. There was even a very out of place polar bear. In addition to that was an exhibit in another section of the massive store. In that scene, African big game are posed in snarling reality.

• Visited the big chocolate moose at Len Libby

Nothing is quite like a big chocolate moose. Our friends took us to visit this unique, massive creature. He occupies a large portion of the candy showroom at Len Libby, business home of the famous Maine confectioners. Keeping the 13 year old chocolate moose company are two chocolate bears. While we were at the candy shoppe, I gorged myself on free samples of Maine taffy. It tastes like those Kraft caramels I used to crave when I was a kid except these were dipped in powdered sugar.

• Toured Lighthouses, earthworks, and Portland

We decided to take a tour of the Portland area. Apparently, this is the regular tour that our friends take their visitors on. We drove to the southern edge of Portland and toured the Portland Head Light area. These days the lighthouse is a tourist draw, but the old World War I and II earthworks and pill boxes draw all sorts of people who do all sorts of things that shouldn’t be reported in respectable places.

At one pill box, we walked into an extremely narrow corridor that ran underneath and inside the box from one side to the back and out the other side. This corridor was about two feet wide and pitch black. Panic was welling up inside me when we finally broke out on the other side.

From the top of the pill box, I watched a guy catch a five pound striper on the rocks below. Then inexplicably, he began bashing its head with his booted shoe.

The lighthouse, itself, is a stunning relic. It rests on land that juts bravely out into the beginning of Portland’s harbor. This lighthouse is a picture on the earth.

• Dinner at Flatbread Co in Portland and touring the downtown

Rumor has it that Steven and Liv Tyler frequent Flatbread Co harbor-side in Portland. We decided to go there for an early dinner in the hopes of catching a glimpse. The restaurant has a delightful 70’s flower power atmosphere. A huge stone oven lords over the dining area tended by a man with wild hair and a tye-dyed shirt. Very relaxed young waiters serve their guests with casual confidence. All of us tried variations of flatbread pizzas. I surprised everyone by trying the vegan pizza. It had no meat or cheese, just tomato sauce, mushrooms, and olives. I enjoyed. My wife and her friend had a spinach based flatbread pizza. The kids stuck to plain cheese and chicken flatbreads.

After we ate, we spent a couple of hours just strolling the downtown, doing some shopping in the clever specialty stores. My home city of Roanoke could learn a few lessons on how to properly stage a successful downtown marketplace. We never did catch a glimpse of Steven or Liv.

Tuesday July 15, 2008

· Went on The Lucky Catch lobster boat in Portland Harbor

Continuing to step out of the box, we decided to take our friends’ advice and go for a ride on The Lucky Catch. This is a functioning lobster boat that is geared for tourists. We joined in with a couple of other small groups and voyaged out to the harbor with the owner/operator and his trusty assistant to tend his traps. We ended up pulling eight traps, collected keeper lobsters, and baited the traps before plopping them back in to the harbor.

It was a crystal clear day and the whole Portland skyline formed a delicious backdrop to the action. I enjoyed watching the young kids take charge of the traps and bravely touch the foreign looking crustaceans. In the end we gather about ten keeper lobsters or so. In fact our friend purchased two of them on her way off the boat.

We also spent some time admiring the harbor seals as they played around seal rock in the middle of the harbor.

· Left Scarborough at about 4:30 pm

Regrettably, we left Scarborough for the first leg of our journey home that that afternoon before having the opportunity to feast on our captured lobsters.

· Arrived in Danbury, CT at about 9:30pm

· Ethan Allen Hotel

A unique hotel is what we found in Danbury. The Ethan Allen Hotel is located at the corporate headquarters of the Ethan Allen Furniture Company. According to the front desk clerk, the hotel had been used exclusively for their corporate executives when the came to town for meetings. Then a few years ago, the hotel was opened to the general public as a hotel and conference center. So for an incredibly small amount of money considering where we were in the United States, we stayed in a beautiful suite with real furniture. I wish we could have stayed longer to explore, but we were on a mission to get our son back to Charlottesville in time for a swim meet.

Wednesday July 16, 2008

• Left Ethan Allen Hotel at 7:00am

Hauled and stopped infrequently.

• Arrived in Charlottesville at 2:45pm

• Dropped off son

• Ate at Bodo’s Bagels are good.

• Arrived home in Roanoke at about 5:30pm