Chow Maine

We woke in Portland on Thursday morning to a steady rain, not heavy, but not a mere drizzle either. We were both glad we'd visited downtown Portland last night. Today, we'd planned to lazily head up the mid-Maine coast, sticking our noses into inlets and gaping at towering lighthouses. That didn't sound so appealing in the rain. (I know, I know. Wimpy Californians.)

Instead, we let Google Maps route us to the Interstate, and spent the hours listening to Stephen King's Salem's Lot spin dark tales of the Maine woods just outside of Portland. The rain, and the dark woods we drove through made the story more believable. This is the lighthouse at Hendricks Head Beach in Southport.

On this trip, we'd been arriving at our destinations at 5:30 or 6:30pm. At noon we pulled up to our hotel (the Ocean Gate Resort just outside of Boothbay in Southport) and Kathy convinced me to see if we could check in early (even though our reservation said 4pm). The resort had just opened on Memorial Day, and so it wasn't yet high season, and they let us go to our room. After we unpacked, the rain stopped and fog rolled in. We were hungry, so we decided to explore and then go to town for lunch. It was low tide and the rocks stood out in all of the bays. In the morning, they would be gone beneath the water.

When we got to Boothbay Harbor, the sun was peeking out, and we went searching for lunch, parking in front of an old 1894 house overlooking the harbor. 

We walked halfway across the harbor on a footbridge, turned back and settled on pizza for lunch. One of the disadvantages of eating late is that I'm so hungry that I always order more than I can eat. We ordered a 16-inch pie and ended up leaving two pieces in our hotel room when we left

We wandered around town for awhile. Boothbay Harbor is fairly small and wasn't nearly as busy as Portland was yesterday.

After our late lunch, we drove back to our hotel and wandered around the grounds, admiring the new growth of spring. This is Maine after all, and spring comes very late here. We went to bed at 7pm and read.

What a difference the sunshine makes. This is the same view from our balcony on Friday morning. It looks so cheerful.

We packed up before 9am and had a great breakfast of (real, not powdered) scrambled eggs, thick apple -wood-smoked bacon, maple sausages, blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup and hand-squeezed orange juice.

Friday's trip was going to be a little longer than Thursday's (and prettier without the rain). Google Maps mercifully routed us up Route 1, down small country roads, and through charming little hamlets. One of the larger ones had a Dairy Queen and so we stopped and I bought a root beer float, which I love. Along the way we crossed the Penobscot Narrows Bridge with the Fort Knox Historic Observatory. We stopped and took a picture but didn't take the elevator to the top. I tried to convince Kathy that this was where the US Strategic Bullion Reserve was stored, but she made me ask Google, which informed me that the gold was stored in a different Fort Knox, in Kentucky.

We got to Bar Harbor early again, (about 1:30) but this time we couldn't get into our room. So, we decided to head down to the tip of Desert Island to Thurston's Lobster Pound for lunch. Our guidebook said that this was a very popular spot with lines stretching down the block. I figured that if we went mid-afternoon, we might beat the crowds, and we did. 

At a lobster pound, you pick your lobster and pay by the weight. Small lobsters (one pound) were $15.95, medium (one-and-a-half pound) were $16.95 per pound, and large (two pounds or over) were $17.95 a pound. 

Here are before and after photos of the lobster that we had for lunch. It seems kind of barbaric, doesn't it?

Along with the lobster we had clams, crab cakes, coleslaw, corn, and blueberry cake for desert. This was the first "real" lobster dinner I've ever had. It was very good, but I think that maybe, once in a lifetime is probably enough.

After our lunch-dinner, we drove around the Bass Harbor at the southern tip of Mount Desert Island, and hiked down to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.

From the wooden stairs you can see across to Swan's Island. On the way back, we drove a portion of the Acadia National Park Loop Road. In the morning, we're going to rent electric bikes and try out the Carriage Roads. The Carriage Roads and stone bridges in Acadia National Park were created by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., between 1913 and 1940. There 57 miles of roads free of motor vehicles.