Getting’ Down in the Downeast, Pt 4

Dinner was in Bar Harbor at a restaurant that used to be a house. We sat at the bar in what used to be the parlor and ordered more locally brewed beer and more excellent food from what used to be a boy.
The very knowledgable bartender was doing a good job of fetching drinks and grub for the assortment of patrons bellied up around his little domain. He WAS doing a good job until a waitress (from another bar/restaurant) arrived and ordered “the same beer I had last time”. They were out of it, he told her, and put so much emotion into the phrase that I expected to see him wipe away a tear. She came back with, “Oh, I really liked that one…” Long pause. He tried to think of something so say. More pause. “Well, what do you think I should have?”. He started naming different options (their beer selection was extensive and he really was very knowledgable) while she looked at him blankly. She asked him what each one was and he gave thorough explantations.

In the mean time, while this little exchange was going on, my beer was dangerously low in my glass. My Better Half was done with his and the man to our left had finished his martini and was toying with the olive pick. The Distraction finally settled on something. Our man poured with care and consideration, obviously overcome with the gravity of the situation. They began to chat lightly of this and that; speaking of parties, of people being too drunk to find their way home, of mutual friends who had drank away their rent money and had to move in with other mutual friends. I thought that for all the imbibing she claimed to be doing she may have been the worlds most persnickety drunk.
I had expected that our formerly attentive drink-slinger would glance over to our little corner every once in a while but, no. I drained my glass and banged it on the bar. He was telling her an engaging story of how he had almost run over a bicyclist who was “checking her out” on Tuesday when she was walking to work. It was clear that The Almost Running Over was intentional, not accidental. I held out my glass: “Excuse me, can I have another beer?” The Distraction glared at me like I was interrupting a private conversation, which of course, I was… The Distracted seemed to notice that he was actually supposed to be working and Hopped To.
I’m all for budding romance and flirting and stuff but please don’t try to get laid while my glass is empty.
After dinner we bought a bottle of wine at a handy wine store next door. This bottle.

Dragon wine.
Notice the quaint wood stove in the background. Notice the rustic quilt.  We didn’t finish the wine.

Because it has a dragon on the label, of course.

We had the long, dark, desolate drive back to Dog Pee Heaven to look forward to. I felt that wine was in order to help me see the humor in the situation. We drove back and drove. And drove. The visions of spending another night climbing in and out of the bed valley (and then another night after that, which is what we had planned) made me feel cranky and anxious. I blame these feelings plus the following incidents on what happened next.
We got to our humble accommodations. The small parking lot was filled with giant SUVs. The Other Guests had arrived. Good thing the car was small. We maneuvered it behind Something Really Big and next to Something Even Bigger. We went inside and climbed the stairs to our room. All the other bedroom doors were closed. There was Someone in the bathroom. My anxiety increased. We borrowed a corkscrew from the kitchen downstairs. It had been raining on the drive home but had since stopped. I thought we should sit on our deck in the outdoor chairs and enjoy our wine. One chair was soaking wet and the other had a Major Hole in the seat. I perched myself as best I could away from the hole. It wasn’t very comfortable. My Better Half chose to stand. We sipped our wine out of plastic cups. Every time someone flushed the toilet it was audible from the pipe that was positioned at the edge of the deck. There was a lot of toilet flushing.
I suddenly had a Nervous Breakdown. I couldn’t stay any more. I wanted to pack up and drive to Portland and sleep at the airport. I wasn’t relaxed, this was not how vacation was supposed to be, vacation is supposed to be relaxing. I can’t take this. I want to go to Mexico or anywhere else where I can relax. I don’t want to spend my birthday here. I can’t take it. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow. And WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO IN THIS GOD-FORSAKEN PLACE?
My Better Half took all this quite calmly which is pretty remarkable since I sprung it on him without warning, while quite possibly speaking in Tongues.
We decided we would leave in the morning and just catch whatever flight we could back to NYC. Could we catch a flight to Mexico? I became a little more calm. The absurdity of what I was saying was starting to hit me but I didn’t care. I just wanted Out.
I took my turn in the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I believe I held my breath the entire time (out of necessity). In that place and at that moment nothing was absurd except sharing a 2 foot wide bathroom with strangers and a bedroom with spiders; I felt I was the most rational person on the planet for insisting we leave.
In the morning we got up early, I hadn’t slept much and so neither of us slept much. Better Half went downstairs as I finished putting stuff in the suitcase. He came back up, “they don’t take cards; cash or check only”. He left, found the only ATM on the island and handed over a huge wad of cash. He had said that there was a minor emergency which made it necessary for us to return to New York (which wasn’t a lie; I was my own emergency).
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I even skipped free breakfast of cold cereal, et al. The flight we were trying to get on left at 4 something so we had a lot of time to kill.
We drove back to Portland on the freeway because it was raining and grey skies and grey water and grey trees weren’t much fun to see. Also it was faster…
Portland in the rain wasn’t as much fun as Portland in the dry. There were still hoards of cruise ship passengers to contend with. We walked in the rain without an umbrella; I had gotten the idea that I wanted to buy some candles. I looked on Yelp. The was a shop that sold candles about 3 blocks away. This shop also sold blindfolds, nipple clamps and fuzzy handcuffs. Shopgirl explained that the candles could be used as massage oils, too. Interesting, but not the type of candles I was looking for. We left to explore other options and walked by a couple gazing in the window. She grabbed his arm; “Oh look! Penises!”
The next place yielded less exotic but more practical results: a balsam scented candle and a bayberry scented candle. Hand poured in Maine, claims the label.
We went back to the pub we had visited on our arrival and found that they had inexplicably changed the names of their beers. We sat and watched the rain make the harbor even wetter for as long as we could. We looked at the time; 2 hours before we should even think of being at the airport. We looked at the harbor. We looked at each others half-finished glasses. One can only drink so much beer before one starts to feel constantly full and irritable. I toyed with my phone, looking for places to stay in Mexico. My Better Half looked at the available seats on the flight. Down to two empty and someone was ahead of us on the list.
We left in search of a coffee shop where we could pass some more time. Up a couple of blocks and to the left was a place with fair-trade organic coffee. They also had a lot of people sitting in their comfortable chairs, using their free wifi and generally taking up all the space. We ordered coffee and sat next to a man who was asleep on a couch. He looked like this may be his home. Every once in a while he woke up to ask if it was still raining. An ironically hipsterish dude who seemed to have been writing a screenplay assured him it was. Neither of us finished our coffee, we were too full of beer and anxiety to pack anything else in.
We walked back to the car, jumping over puddles. Rain poured off my hat when I looked down. Water was beading up on my borrowed coat. Thank goodness for my borrowed coat…

I navigated us back to the airport in an altogether different way than we had come. The airport seemed to have moved a good 15 miles beyond where it was when we left it. We drove past historic sites, important houses, parks full of fountains and statuary. I was afraid we were driving to some other Portland International Jetport; say, in Portland Oregon or maybe Nova Scotia. We did find our way eventually, dropped off the car, and walked to security.

Security was notable in that it was so unusual. Let me give you background information: my Better Half is a Seasoned Traveler. He Does This For A Living and it’s always the same: if he is In Uniform he can walk through the death radiation machine metal detector wearing his shoes and all things that he has to wear to do his job. If he is Not In Uniform he has to strip down like everyone else and pay tribute to the TSA. However, no matter what, with a Crew Badge he gets to walk past the guys checking boarding passes and IDs. His badge is Both in One. This time, though, he was delayed when he showed his Badge to the ID-checker. The guy didn’t want to let him through without a boarding pass. He actually had to call his supervisor over and double check. Don’t get many Pilots in Portland? First day on the job? Forgot to study the Process And Procedure Manual? Usually I’m the one getting the TSA stink-eye. In Newark they always tell me that I have to stand in line with everyone else and I can’t sneak through behind a crew member. My Better Half has to assure them that I am traveling with him and I’m not some crazy line-jumper looking for a good opportunity.

There are two perks to being a Pilot. The first is that you can fly free-ish if there are seats available (and no one senior to you wants them and the moon is in the correct phase and the gate agent takes pity on you and you dress nicely and are polite to everyone and everything). The second perk is that you and the people with you are able to jump the line in security. I’ve gotten death-stares many times because we just sidle up through the crew line and save time by not doing the old roll-aboard shuffle through the twisting, turning elastic ropy area. However, you passengers with actual seats aboard an actual plane, please note that the benefits are limited to these two things and what seems like a Really Good Gig is, in fact just a big pain in the ass.

We got to out gate and waited. We didn’t get seats so we had the privilege of waiting around for 3 more hours for the next flight. At least they had free wifi. Oh, and rocking chairs.

We discussed our options. I decided that I just wanted to get back to our apartment and Mexico, while fun, would be more of the same experience that we were having at the moment (the watching-the-plane-take-off-without-us scenario). We got on the next one and made it back to NYC about 11 pm.

I can look back on this now and laugh but it seemed a lot less funny at the time.
The really great news – birthday wise – was that my actual birthday day was so much fun!
Next post will have much less psychotic behavior, I promise!

Gettin’ Down in the Downeast, Pt 3

My bright spot was Acadia National Park and I have plenty of documentation to prove it!

Now we’re talking!

We drove to Bar Harbor (which, if we ever return, will be our number 1 place to go) and had lunch at a lovely cafe which had locally brewed beer AND blueberry pie!

You can Harbor your Bars of Gold at Bar Harbor Bank.

This place made up for the previous two meals and restored my faith in Maine gastronomy.  We were able to sit outside in the sunlight as we enjoyed our beer and sandwiches.  And the pie!  Oh my, the pie!  If I had known about the pie I would have skipped the sandwich and just ordered a whole pie for myself.  My spirits were lifted and my tummy was full.  However, as fun and cozy and comfortable as we were, we couldn’t spend the day lounging around on the deck and eating; we had a National Park to go see!

This is what was waiting for us after lunch.

Back in the car, we navigated to a park entrance with help from the map on my trusty iphone.  There’s a two-lane, one-way loop that runs around the perimeter and we drove on it.  And drove.  And drove.  I looked up the Rules Of The Park on my phone.  One of the Rules was that you must have a permit to be in the park any time you’re in the park.  Ok.  Where do we get one of these Permits?  Answer: at a gatehouse.  Ok.  Where are the Gatehouses?  Answer: on the road.  We drove some more on the road that was conspicuously Gatehouse-free.  I tucked the $20 fee in the sun visor – ready to wave it as proof of our good intentions if some ranger were to pull us over with flashing lights, brandishing handcuffs and fines and threats of jail time and trespassing violations.  Our brush with The Law the night before had rattled me.

We drove some more and began to get annoyed.  We are used to California where you are charged a fee before you even get to the boundary of the Park.  “You there! You can see our Beautiful Scenery and are breathing our Fresh Air; that will be $27.43 per person plus 8% tax.”  And, of course, there are additional fees to actually get into the park, and for the privilege of using the restroom and hiking on a trail and taking a picture…

I had to pay a fee to take this picture in the Sequoia National Park.
This is not a true story.

This super-secret, must-have, invisible park Permit was a little unnerving.  Doesn’t Maine and the National Parks System want our money?  Are we being set-up in an elaborate plan that catches visitors unawares then imposes fines so even more money can be made?

We finally made it to a gatehouse and realized how it works: gatehouses are guarding the stuff that people want to see.  There were no spectacular vistas or crashing waves or dizzying cliffs where we had been driving.  Got it.  We got in the slow-moving line with the Chatty Ranger and paid the fee. Phew…  I felt better immediately.

Chatty Ranger told us that the place we had picked out on the map was no good and possibly closed.  Oh.  “Go down this road a ways until you get to Sand Beach*.  There’s some good hiking there”.  He said this because we told him we wanted to Hike.  I think he also said this because he saw our little Wimpola car and figured we were Yuppie Types who had no real ability to actually Hike.  Whatever, Chatty.

Driving down the road a ways we found Sand Beach.  We pulled into a lot that had 50 tour busses in it and about 500 cars (or so it seemed).  There was an empty parking space next to a beat-up SUV with a couple who were pulling out a veritable wardrobe of different types of Outdoor/Survival/Hiking clothing from the back seat.  They eyed our car.  I eyed their zip-off pants.  I came to the conclusion that People Who Wear Zip-Off Pants Are Hardcore.  The Man was doubly Hardcore as his pants zipped off at shorts-level and at capri-level.  I decided that I definitely did not want this man to do any sort of pants-conversion.

I grabbed my camera and camera backpack.  My Better Half grabbed his sunglasses and handed mine to me (as I get older I’m becoming more forgetful…).  We walked down the gently sloping stairs to the sandy beach area that was covered with people.  Through magical knowledge (or maybe because he had read a sign) my Better Half told me that we should look for a stone stair off the beach that leads to a hiking trail.  Ok.

We went to the right.  There were little boys throwing rocks into the water.  No stairs.

We went left and eventually came to a stream that cut through the beach which was forded using some handily placed rocks.  As I was walking across on the rocks an older couple on the far side shouted at me to be careful.  They kept shouting until I got to the other side.  Their animation and general demeanor distracted me so much that I almost fell in, which may have been their goal.  The woman said that she took her shoes off and tried to walk across but fell in anyway.  Hmmmmm…  While we were talking with them about the merits of testing each rock before actually putting all your weight on it, Hardcore Couple passed by heading for The Stone Stair.

We followed them, though not too closely (hiking is one of those things that is Not Fun in groups), up the steps that were cut into the rock.  It was beautiful scenery to be able to look through the trees at the mountains, the beach and the islands beyond…

The trail was well-marked with blue dashes that pointed the correct way to go.  Some of the dashes were on trees and some were on the rock trail.  I was initially annoyed that someone had painted on the trees until I figured out that they were trail markers.  Oh. Sometimes I’m not very bright.

We came to a place where the view was spectacular but only about 5 minutes away from the start of the trail.  Above us, on a ledge, were Hardcore, eating their lunch.  Huh.  I amended my previous conclusion: Zip-Off Pants Make You Look Hardcore.

We hiked on.  A woman came huffing down the path and told us in no uncertain terms that we should take the LEFT hand trail at the top of the mountain.  “The right hand path is very hard and we had to double-back and now I’m just completely exhausted.”  This was the type of Hiking we were looking for!  We took the right hand trail.

The Map of the park clearly shows the parking lot.

The trail was beautiful, running along sea-side cliffs with waves crashing against them, through rocky meadows, through birch forests.

There were some places where I had to scramble, using my hands, but this is because I’m so thoroughly Non-Hardcore that I was hiking in tennis shoes.  I was also wearing a jacket that belongs to my Better Half throughout this trip. Historically I’ve been more interested in clothing that Looks Good instead of clothing that Serves a Functional Purpose.  Don’t judge.

This is how little girl in Gotham rolls when Hiking.

I kept hoping we would see a moose.  That would have made my Maine experience complete (you know, the stereotypical trifecta of Lobster/Blueberries/Moose).  I talked so much about moose (and imagining that I heard one rustling in the underbrush) that I had the badness scared out of me by a chipmunk.  Yes – and stop judging – a Scary Chipmunk.  We heard a really loud yelping noise and I must have jumped a foot in the air.  The noise was coming from a little brown bastard sitting on a rock to our right.  He then broke into what sounded like laughter and we had to laugh, which made him laugh more.

This is not Scary Chipmunk or, maybe, it is…

He was our guide on the trail for about 100 yards and kept trying to scare us again.  I was wise to his antics, though…  (I have a minor phobia-thing about squirrels and have always imagined they’re Out To Get Me.  Chipmunks have always seemed cute and harmless.  This little guy was a practical joker and, for 1 second, was more scary than any squirrel in the lower 48 states).

We made it back to the car without any further mishaps and continued on our one-way loopy road.  We passed the sign for Thunder Hole (a big attraction with lots of tour busses lining the road) and the sign made me laugh so hard that I was crying.  Thank you, whomever made that sign.

Thank you for taking this picture. I would have taken my own but I was incapacitated by laughter.

We drove to the place where you can get tea and popovers.  It is, in fact, the only place to get anything to eat in the park but it’s famous for tea and popovers.  We didn’t partake in this ritual so it’s purely hearsay on my part.  There’s a lawn area that looks over a pond which reflects the Bubble mountains.**

Gettin’ Down in the Downeast, Pt 2

There are no pictures in this post.  I didn’t document these events; you will just have to take my word for it.

Our accommodations were far, far removed from civilization.  The drive from the main road took us 45 minutes and there was probably another half hour to of any population center of appreciable size.  We were stuck in a town with no stop-lights and, as will be described, two options for food.

We were  in a bed and breakfast-type place which looked Victorian-charming on the fancy, music-playing website but, in fact, was run down.  It had a decidedly dog pee smell.  Our hostess was an ex-hippie from California – she arrived in Maine in 1973 in a school bus that had been converted into living quarters – who seemed a little too eager to hear news of the outside world.  We looked at the bedroom upstairs; ours was an attic room with a deck and a view of some street lamps and a tree (though it was possible to glimpse the harbor through the branches of the tree).  Nice enough.  A few spiders were in residence in our room but they were small and pretty high on the walls.  However, the bathroom (that was as wide as my shoulders and three steps long) was shared with the 3 other bedrooms.  A shared, dinky tiny bathroom with, potentially, 6 other people.  What?  What?  I either didn’t do enough research or the fancy, music-playing website glossed over this fact.  To be fair, there was a colossal bathroom on the first floor that had once been a bedroom.  This, too, was shared.  As an added consideration one had the privilege of walking down the stairs and through the dining room to get to it.  Sanitary.  Private.  Fun.

Ok.  Stuck with no other options for miles if we even knew where to begin to look.  Also, we are Roughing It, right?  Rustic Charm and all that?  Also, we were the only guests that night so I filed the bathroom problem in my mind under the heading of Things to Deal With Later.

“For dinner, we have two choices”, said our hostess.  “There’s the upscale place or the locals joint.  The fancy place has very good locally brewed beer and excellent food; I suggest you go there the first night”.  Seeing the wisdom of what seemed to be sound advice we opted for Fancy.  Beer sounded like something that would help the situation immensely.  I actually could have used something with a higher content of Let’s Remember That Roughing It Is Fun but, beer would do.

We walked toward the Fancy place, stopping to watch the activity at the warehouse where boats were being unloaded.  We passed a little jetty-type thing with a monument.  We read the inscription on the lobster fisherman statue (it read something like: This is a statue of a Lobster Fisherman).  Neat.

“Upscale” has never been more loosely used.  The restaurant is situated in a large, square building, up a flight of crooked wooden steps.  Half the building was devoted to Groceries (as well as bait, lobster traps and beer, according to the signs in the windows) the other half was the Fancy Place, the front decorated with neon signs and sticky letters noting their hours.  They closed at 8:30.  It was 7:30.  We looked at each other and remarked that it was good we had chosen to dine early.  We opened the door and went in.  A man was in the foyer area waiting to be seated.  What appeared to be a hostess was doing her busy best to arrange coffee cups and saucers into a pyramid by the coffee machine.  A waitress hurried past, shouting greetings to a group of 3 women who had come in behind us.  “We know our table!”, they bellowed back.  Apparently the Fishemen’s Wives have regular dinners here at a regular table.  I peered over the divider and saw a group of maybe 10 women, gussied up in their going-out best, who looked like they were going to do some serious damage to the food and drink offerings.

Eventually the man in front of us was seated.  We waited.  I began to worry that we were running out of time.  The waitress said she would be with us shortly.  The Hostess was still working on the Great Coffee Cup Pyramid.  We looked at each other.  There was no place else to go because, after-all, if this was the Fancy Place…

We were seated in the back by the windows that looked out onto the built-on deck.  Also, we were seated by the bar where a group of local Toughs had gathered, drinking strong things out of plastic cups.  Our waitress handed us the menus and asked if we would like a drink.  “Yes!”, I must have shouted because that’s how I felt.  I looked at the beer list.  Lots of stuff on tap and I chose something at random.  “Oooh, sorry, we’re out of draft beer.”  All of it?  Ok.  My Better Half ordered something from the bottle list.  “Oooh, sorry, we’re out of that.”  Ok.  He tried again.  Same response.  Turns out they had Michalob Ultra and Bud Light.  NOT what I had in mind.  I was tempted to order one of the Something Stronger things I could see being poured into plastic cups.

We looked over the menu as the other patrons looked us over.  Lunch had been a lobster roll so we weren’t hungry for that, plus, we really weren’t very hungry since we normally eat dinner 2 hours later…  They were also Out of a lot of things on the menu, which narrowed our choices for us.  We settled on cups of chowder to start.  It tasted like Cooky had dumped a gallon of cream into a pot, added some under-cooked potatoes, some fish parts and, for good measure, thrown in a handful of sand.  We saw lots of Lobster Dinners going by: a huge steamed lobster accompanied by fries and melted butter and bread and maybe some sad iceberg drenched in creamy dressing.  This was for One Person.  However, that was one less person who would be staring at us as they tucked into their feed…  We felt conspicuous.

Instead of the feast of a Lobster Dinner we had chosen to share steamed clams and mussels.  We had also chosen Traditional Style (with Butter and Broth) for the preparation.  Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Do NOT choose Traditional Style.  The bowl arrived.  The bivalves were mostly dry.  Another plate arrived containing a small metal dish of melted butter and a bowl of milky white liquid.  We were confused.  We looked at each other.   Rubes that we are, the “broth” was actually sea-water that was released from said mollusks as they steamed.  No seasoning.  No dried parsley sprinkled for color.  The dish consisted of: Clams.  Mussels.  Water.  Sand.  Sand was an important ingredient.  What appeared to be pepper in the bottom of the dish was actually sand.  The clams had so much sand in them that we figured they hadn’t been rinsed after being pulled from their quiet homes in the tide flats and thrown into the steamer pot.  I tried washing one in the “broth”.  Sand, after being steamed, is sticky. We did our valiant best.  We ordered more beer.  I tried not to be a snooty New Yorker.  I grew up on a farm.  I can Do This.

It must have been a perverse masochistic streak that made me order dessert.  The sign in the foyer had listed Blueberry Pie (along with such unusual offering as Tollhouse Pie, Toffee Pie and Grape-Nut Pudding). Maine = blueberries.  I’ve heard they are good and I’m always game to Try Something New.  Of course, they were Out of blueberry pie and our server offered me Tollhouse Pie as a substitute.  As he (original waitress had been absorbed into the crowd at the bar and was doing Tequila shots) went down the available list I heard blueberry/raspberry crumble.  That would do.  It has blueberries in it so it might be kind of the same.  There was a reason they weren’t Out of blueberry/raspberry crumble.

The Bar Scene was increasing in vigor as cooks, dishwashers, Pyramid Hostess, fishermen, Fishermen’s Wives, sons, fathers and daughters crowded ’round to belt back stiff ones.  The ladies had martini glasses for their drinks (or shot glasses) but the men-folk stuck with plastic.  No one was drinking beer.  There were lots of trips outside to smoke on the built-on deck.  There was loud of talk of boats, engines and winches.  One waitress talked to a girl she went to high-school with about her 2-year old daughter’s potty-training problems.  The Don Juan of the bunch was putting his best moves on a girl in very tight pants, his Hooters t-shirt a glowing orange.  A daughter had to intervene after her father nearly took a header into the bar, tripping over his rubber boots; she asked for a refill of his drink and gave him her bar stool.  I flagged our waiter down after he did a surreptitious shot by the dirty-dish pan.  Check please.

We walked around the town.  It took about 10 minutes and the full moon was very bright.  Suddenly a blinding light shown in our eyes: someone had called the only Policeman in town to drive by slowly and blind us with his spotlight.  With his stare he let us know that he knew we were Up To No Good and we had better Cut It Out.  Feeling dangerous and sneaky, we returned to the relative safety of our accommodations.

Ok.  Pee-smelling, spider filled, dinky bathroom home sweet home.  We made do as best we could.  The bed was decidedly hammock-y and I spent most of the night either trying not to roll down the hill or hauling myself back to the top.  It was very quiet.  We could hear some sort of bouy or fog bell every few seconds but that was it.  The quiet, however, did not improve my sleep.  I dreamt of spiders.

In the morning there was the dinky-tiny bathroom to look forward to; the shower stall was so small that I banged my elbows on the walls as I was washing my hair and couldn’t actually get out from under the water so I felt like I was seconds from drowning the whole time.  The shower caddy fell down and the 7 industrial sized bottles of various shampoos, conditioners and body washes (complimentary for guest use) tipped out onto the floor.  My towel smelled like mildew.  I’ve had better bathing experiences.

Breakfast was cold cereal, yogurt and english muffins.  My Rustic Adventure needed a bright spot.

Gettin’ Down in the Downeast

My birthday was last week and we were on vacation.  We try to plan a special vacation during this time because kids are in school, the weather is usually beautiful and it’s my birthday (duh…). I even celebrated a Big One in Paris a few years back so I’m pretty committed to this whole birthday/celebration/travel thing…

Yup, that Paris.

This year we took a trip to Maine because

1. it’s close

2. it’s Fall and the leaves are changing

the leaves are changing; it must be fall

3. we had always talked about going there

4. it’s less expensive than, say, Denmark or Amsterdam.  (Recent events have put a strain on our checking account that are sending shockwaves through my heretofore wonton spending habits.  My attempts at frugality are only proving painful and not actually showing appreciable results as yet.) 

So, in an attempt to be spendthrifty we hopped on a plane to Portland with our flight benefits (having a Pilot for a Life Partner Better Half is only fun when there are seats available; otherwise the free flights are usually overshadowed by the sheer irritation of it all).  We rented a Fiat 500 – an “economy” car that was really, really Fun to Drive and set off on our Downeaster Adventure. 

Fiat 500. Good for driving. Not good for hauling.
My carry-on suitcase and 1 itty-bitty backpack filled up the trunk.

The sun was bright as we tootled over to Downtown Portland. 

I’m guessing this is what Portland used to look like since it was painted on the side of a building.

A beautiful, salty city with lots of history and interesting things; it was also overrun with lots of cruise-ship passengers of a geriatric nature. 

I love this narrow building!

We walked at our normal clip, weaving in and out of the slower movers, trying to get out of the crowds (New Yorkers walk appreciably faster than most of the rest of the country).  But, alas, we realized they were everywhere and seemed to spring up on all sides as we stopped to look at something or take a picture, too eager not to miss something. 

I took this picture. I was in a crowd.

This exasperated my Life Partner Better Half. I detected a certain spirit in the air of Not Having Fun.  We stopped at a Pub and soothed the irritation with the best salve I know: alcohol. 

This is what it looked like before I drank it.

By 11am our empty glasses were hitting that copper-topped bar.  A basket of fried mushrooms was ordered.  A second round was ordered.  Then my Life Partner Better Half realizes that we are not in NYC and we actually have to drive to our destination.  Oops.  Slow down there, Suzy. 

We walked back to the car and charted our drive.  Destination: a small town on a small island off the coast.  Our way: as near to the coastline as we could make it.  Sounds fun, right?  It was!  The drive was lovely and we saw loads of interesting things

We stood in line for about 1 minute. I did not come all the way from NYC to stand in line; I can do that here.

and beautiful little towns and very pretty boats.

This was in a harbor in a town that started with a “C”. It’s not a clue, I just don’t remember…

It took a while and we had to stop a few times to stretch our legs.

Make of This Picture what you will…

I found out that my iphone is worthless in some areas; I had an oddly irrational feeling of panic when I couldn’t “find” us on the map.  What do you mean, No Service?  We aren’t in a Subway tunnel we are Outside!  (How quickly one forgets – the No Service thing used to happen to me all the time in rural Ohio). 

I need a Young Bridge and an Old Bridge! I need a Young Bridge and an Old Bridge!

However, no major mishaps and we arrived at our destination just as the sun was setting.