Cool as a Moose - Maine - September 2011

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Well, we are sure that Maine is a wonderful state (we have heard many, many great things), but unfortunately our time in the state was just way too short since we were only passing through on our way to Canada.

First stop was Portland. We have some friends that live here so we met up with them for breakfast. They love the state, because they love the outdoors and this is a very outdoorsy state. We met them at Bintliff's (a local legend). We had the orange French Toast and Louisiana Bayou Benedict. Both meals were fabulous and what a brunch/breakfast should be. Definitely highly recommended. FREEPORT is just up the road and famous for the headquarters of L.L. BEAN (massive store selling outdoors gear). I believe the store even has its own zip code. We walked around, dreamed of all the camping trips we will take one day and even managed to get some shoes on sale. LL Bean also attracted a bunch of other stores so FREEPORT FOR OUTLETS is also an option to spend your day. After a good breakfast and shopping for half a day we were back on the road on our way along MAINE'S RUGGED COASTLINE through the little town of ELLSWORTH. Not much to do in Ellsworth so we passed right through. We stopped all along the way at little inlets and just got out and took pictures of the coastline and the setting sun. As most of the time - we had no agenda or timeline (all we knew is that eventually we wanted to get to Prince Edward Island, Canada). The FOLIAGE also just started to happen so there were some really pretty stretches of colored leaves - not the full blown leave-changing yet, but it was definitely noticeable. That evening we stopped at Elmer's Seafood Shack in Columbia. A definite coastal seafood shack, but it was all that was available at the time and we were hungry so we decided to test it out. Nikkie had the lobster dinner and I had the fish and chips. Off course they brought Nikkie a whole lobster and she had no clue what to do with it. She put-on her little "bib" and starting eating the fries, but not touching the lobster. Funny thing is that neither of us has ever really eaten a whole lobster so I was eating my food (Nikkie was also eating my food) while the lobster was just chilling on our plate. Well the owner of the place had to see that we were in a pickle so she came over and in true coastal style offered a hand. She grabbed it, a crack here and a pull here, twist here and a twist there and all the eatable parts were laid out for Nikkie to feast. Thank you owner at Elmer's Seafood Shack. Afterwards we ordered the freshly home baked blueberry pie (because we only realized a couple hours back that this was blueberry country) and absolutely devoured it - it was really good.

As a side note on our way back later on we stopped at Mateo's Hacienda in Bath, because a friend of ours use to own the place so we figured we'll go and try it out. Nikkie had the bean burrito and I had the steak quesadilla and neither was really that great. So probably won't be the worst food you'll ever eat, but I won't go out of my way to go there.

On our quick trip through Maine we actually managed to cross-off 2 things from our list - L.L. Bean and Maine's Rugged Coast. So 171 down and 5,610 to go.

Til next time from whole lobster country

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Photos

Main Coast line
Beautiful b&w picture over the main coast

Main Coast line
more of the same

Maine Coast line
More of the same

Maine Coast line
If you can't eat it... play with it.

LL Bean store
MOOOOSSSSEE!!!

Freeport
Could not resist taking a picture of this

Maine
The leaves were changing

Maine
more leaves

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Too bad you didn't have more time in Maine
Maine is beautiful even though it is snowy. They need to teach you how to crack a lobster!