It was pretty late at night when we arrived in Portland, Maine yesterday so the next morning we took the opportunity to check out the city a bit. It has a pretty cool brick Old Port downtown. It's sort of like a nicer nautical version of St. Louis' Soulard.
Our first order of business was to check out the Holy Donut. Zoe's a good trip member because she does research and finds places like this. Sometimes traveling with other people is like carting grumpy children around and hoping they like what we planned.
This one was maple bacon with a handsome amount of bacon happening. We all agreed that these were better than anything available in St. Louis. Sorry Strange Donuts. Their secret ingredient is Maine potatoes.
Maine does a pretty good job of having a few foods that it does well and telling you about it. One of those things is blueberries. Wild Maine blueberries were advertised along the road and were additives in all sorts of dishes. I really had no choice but to have a blueberry donut.
The other big thing that Maine is crowing about at every opportunity is the lobster. A little restaurant that sells nothing but lobster is referred to as a "lobster pound". We popped into this one but I didn't see anywhere to actually eat. It was more just like a fish market.
My understanding is that they pump in sea water to keep the lobsters ready for their big day.
Yesterday at the jetport I made a solemn vow to the stars that I would make a pilgrimage to see Lenny, the world's only life size chocolate moose. Unfortunately Lenny lives in the opposite direction of everything else we wanted to see today, but only a little. It was totally worth it.
Lenny lives at Len Libby Candy Shop in Scarborough, Maine. He is big and chocolate. He weighs 1,700 pounds. The pond that conveniently saved the artist from having to learn how to do feet is blue tinted white chocolate.
Other than Lenny we got to see an extensive collection of Maine related tchotchkes, none of which we purchased. Onward!
Then we returned to our scheduled programming. Freeport was next, home of the headquarters and flagship store of L. L. Bean.
Lydia told us a sad story about when she was a kid, all the cool kids had monogrammed L. L. Bean backpacks. She humorously bought a Land's End backpack by accident, and has been haunted by her resulting uncoolness ever since. She was determined to finally get cool, and made a beeline for the backpack department.
I'd heard the legend of L. L. Bean's crazy lifetime return policy. Of people returning their dead dog's collar. Buying a tent for a concert then returning it the next day. Of buying old stuff at Goodwill then returning it. L. L. Bean is the heaven of returns so I wanted to take part.
Luckily my mom had an old coat with a hole in it. I was worried that such a storied return line would be a mile long and DMV-ish to punish returners, but it was fine. I asked the lady behind the counter what size she thought it was because I wanted to get the same one for my mom. "We don't make this coat anymore sir", she tersely replied. Lydia and I laughed afterwards. I want to say I got a $36 gift card from this 15+ year old coat with a hole in it. Success!
Well I figured my mom could just pick a new coat out of the catalog. I've learned that buying other people clothes is pretty much a suicide mission, so I figured I would just burn this store credit on something useful. Why not grab a pair of the famous Bean Boots?
They are pretty sweet-leather on top and rubber on bottom. And made in Maine. Grabbed a pair, left Lydia's backpack to be monogrammed, and got outta town.
Little chocolate Bean Boots.
Big non-chocolate Bean Boots. Bean Boots.
While walking around the little shopping areas of Freeport we met a lady with a pug puppy who of course the girls had to talk to. The dog had its own Instagram with more followers than all three of us combined. Stupid popular dogs. Got more friends than me.
Anyway so we continued driving north along the coast to Wiscasset to get away from that snobby baby dog. This was supposed to be the spot to get a lobster roll.
Red's Eats in particular was the spot I read about to get that sammy. Well turns out a lot of other people got that same memo. The line was crazy long and not moving. Sprague's Lobster was across the street with a shorter line and seemed to be selling the same damn thing so we sauntered on over.
Turns out lobster is expensive. We spent like $80 at this little roadside shack on lunch.
The lobster rolls were delicious and surprisingly basic. It was pretty much lobster meat on a roll without much else. It was also served cold which would not be my first choice but whatever.
I got a lobster roll but also just a lobster. They put my order on this clothesline and wheeled it over a few feet to a shack where the lobster boiling was taking place.
I washed down my sea creatures with a Capt'n Eli's Blueberry Pop.
Lydia ordered a roll but got the clam chowder too which was fun to taste. I'm sad to report that I prefer the Campbell's Chunky soup kind.
Zoe the vegan was grossed out by the alien autopsy I was performing on this big red sea bug. I was cracking its body parts and juice was spraying all over. Hey don't be delicious around me and I won't have to rip your arms off. That's the deal.
I assume this means that the snow gets so high here that they can't find the fire hydrants.
We barely found the place even with GPS. It was sort of like some kids with a tree fort in the woods all grew up and decided to make it into a brewery.
I was impressed by their beer street cred when I spotted this Orval beer sign. First time I tried Orval was in the parking lot of the Orval Abbey in Belgium. Check it out, player.
At a risk of ripping apart the very fabric of the spacetime continuum, here is our taste test of the lobster flavored Saison Dell'Aragosta a few days later at our St. Louis apartment.
Next up was the Pemaquid Point Light which is located in New Harbor, and marks the entrance to Muscongus Bay and Johns Bay.
Pemaquid is the lighthouse featured on the back of the Maine state quarter.
This is the shade I have to put up with on this trip when all I'm trying to do is educate someone on the fun facts found on the backs of state quarters.
The lighthouse itself is so narrow that only a few people can go up at the same time. A volunteer was on hand to give us a nice informative talk while we waited our turn in the base on the building.
I was very impressed by whatever the heck this mirror, magnifying glass, deathray looking thing was.
We popped over to Camden next to see what remained of the 2016 Camden Windjammer Festival.
I read about it but I still don't really get it. I'll just say windjammers are big ships with lots of square sails and leave it at that.
We had a pretty lackluster dinner at the Burning Tree in Otter Creek.
We finished the day's journey with a couple blueberry beers at the fleabag Belle Isle Motel in Bar Harbor and called it a night.
We pounded out a pretty good chunk of Maine's coast in one day's drive. All of that time in the car gave us plenty of time to work on our Maine puns. We discussed our "Maine objective", our "Mainedatory activities" and I insisted that Lydia address me as her "macho, macho Maine".
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