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Published: October 31st 2007
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Obfuscator writes: Lying theft aside, the Motel 6 in Portland was a pleasant enough place to sleep. So, you know, feel free to stay there for a night, and just make sure you chop off the hands of the useless front desk foreigners as compensation for their theft. We were happy to have spent the night indoors, as a quick glance out the window in the morning showed us that there had been significant rain overnight. The forecast I was able to get from a pirated WiFi connection predicted rain all day and through the night. We decided that with weather that poor, we weren't going to be able to enjoy much outdoors, so we figured we'd check Portland out a bit more thoroughly before we left it.
The downtown in Portland has a big statue of Longfellow, who lived there. They also have his house preserved and used as the site of their historical society. We dropped by the public library for some advice on what to see, and that turned out to be a wise move. Two extremely helpful librarians made a slew of recommendations to us both in Portland, and in the surrounding areas. Some we ignored
(like the Portland Art Museum and the Historical Society, both of which wanted to charge us $10/head for admission), and others we took (like the drive up to Bowdoin College in Brunswick).
Bowdoin College is a lovely campus with many pretty old buildings. It boasts that it once had Joshua Chamberlain as its president, a man who accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender Appomattox Court House, played amazing basketball, and was a notorious womanizer. Truly a renaissance man. But they weren't all great times for Chamberlain. He was also known for selling out the Czechs in Munich. Bowdoin's also home to what claims to be one of the best College Art Museums around. We were able to get in for free, (though I think that it is always free) and it was well worth the zero cost. The Walker Art Museum has amassed quite the collection of art, including original works by many of the masters, and sections of ancient Assyrian reliefs. The Walker Museum is also a great work of neo-classic architecture with lions in front. Bowdoin College also has a vast collection of artifacts from Peary's expedition to the North Pole in a little museum nearby. Unfortunately the
museum was mostly closed for renovations, and so we couldn't see very much of it. Downtown Brunswick had a few interesting looking restaurants, and so we stopped in at one of them for some traditional German cuisine. I think we were both at least vaguely disappointed by it, and the price was not really worth it.
We drove on, following Highway 1 along the Maine coast, toward Bar Harbor. It might have been a pretty drive, but we couldn't really tell through all the rain and fog. The only thing worth noting is that evidently when Maine does construction on Highway 1, they rip the whole thing up, and leave you a little patch to drive on that is about 95% pothole. So if you're driving along, you're going to go from about 60 to about 5mph in short order, because any faster than that will probably break you or your car.
We arrived in Bar Harbor, booked a motel with our necessary amenities, and walked downtown. In a local theater, there was a Halloween festival, so we stopped in for that. We were treated to a performance about Harry Houdini, featuring some of traditional types of acts
he performed with at various stages of his career, including Belly Dancers, jugglers, prestidigitators, and escape artists. Mostly they seemed a bit amateurish, but at least one of the escape artists was pretty good, and it was a fun time. The theater itself is rather historic and is worth stopping into if you're into that kind of thing and in Bar Harbor.
After that, we found a place for some late dinner, where I was able to eat lobster. Really, who's going to go to Bar Harbor and not eat lobster? It was ok, but I guess I'm just not a lobster person. It still struck me as an overpriced and overrated dish. When we were all done there, it was either sit in the bar and watch the Sox, or head back to the motel to work on uploading things and doing laundry. Ever the practical ones, and not being fans of baseball, we opted for the latter. (Onaxthiel adds: Not fans? I friggin' hate baseball. The national pastime should have been changed to football years ago, when it became clear that it was the true American sport.)
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Jeff
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bar harbor
Think lobster. Think deep-sea fishing. Think eclectic boutiques. Now you're in the Bar Harbor groove... Just don't try this with vegetarian friends.