Bangor
1 September 2023
165 miles
We were up before 7:00 AM this morning, and I walked down to the pond to admire the vista – the fog was rising from the pond, and it was beautiful.
We decided to go back to bed, since it was too early to do anything, and it was much too early to get on the road. We pulled out of our site around 10:45 AM and headed for Maine.
In the town of Earl, we stopped at LL Cote, which is an outdoor store that touts itself as a toy store for big boys and girls. Honestly, we’re not sure how to describe it – it was enormous and had the largest gun/hunting, fishing, and archery selections that we have ever seen. We didn’t even know what 3/4 of the fishing equipment was, but we know Bonnie’s dad would have been in Fishermen’s Heaven. We also stopped at their outlet down the road – the building doubles as a country furnishings store – but they had absolutely nothing!
It was a pretty drive – passing through the mountains along US Route 2, and there were so many small towns that the drive took four hours. We found the VRBO apartment in Bangor without a problem. There were two flights of stairs, which were a bit of a pain with luggage (no elevator). We are impressed with this loft conversion. The main area – kitchen, dining, living – is huge! The bedroom is rather small, but overall, very spacious, especially for the two of us.
The next task was to find parking – and it wasn’t easy! The best parking garage, which is just a block away, is closed on Sundays and holidays (Monday). This doesn’t make any sense to us, since it is all automated with tickets stamped on arrival and payment on exit. But we didn’t want to take the chance of not being able to get our truck, so we found another lot about 1/3 mile away. We drove there, but parking is free on weekends – as it is on the street. So, we decided that street parking closer to the apartment was a better option. As we write this, the truck is parked on Main Street under the streetlight and is visible out the front windows of the loft apartment.
Once all of that was settled, we turned our attention to dinner and decided on pizza. We are literally right next to the Portland Pie Company Pizzeria, so the decision was easy. We had very little to eat today and we were ravenous. We ordered a moose head pizza (sausage, pepperoni, onions, peppers, and mushrooms) on a thin crust. It was delicious – and we have leftovers! After multiple days of camping, it was really nice to have a hot shower. It felt amazing! We don’t have any plans for tomorrow other than to go to the grocery store. We want to cook and stock up for camping next week. We are thinking that we will make chili and beef stew.
Footnote: As we were leaving Coleman, the GPS wanted to route us on a secondary road, which turned out not to be a road at all, but a dirt track through someone’s field. The directions to get to the state park a few days ago were the same, but we ignored them in favor of the road signs. On the upside, we got to see an incredible house with a two-story green house on one end – totally unique! I wanted to include a picture, but thought that would be an invasion of the homeowners’ privacy.
2 September 2023
2 miles
We slept in this morning, which felt so indulgent! We made coffee and tried to catch up on email, comics and crossword puzzles. 🙂 We ordered brunch from a deli around the corner (Harvest Moon) a “feel like bacon love“ and a “steak me home tonight“ panini. We shared half of each for brunch and saved the other half for dinner.
Finally, around 2:00 PM– after the start of college football – we made our way 1/2 mile down the road to the Shaw’s supermarket. We bought all the ingredients to make chili, stew, and soup. We are planning to freeze everything to have home-cooked meals over the next week while we are camping. We cooked all through the afternoon and have multiple meals in the freezer as I write and, for anyone keeping track of our non-healthy eating today, we got a salad to have for dinner tonight along with our brunch leftovers. I will add the cucumber that I bought yesterday at the roadside stand on the way out from Coleman.
Also – and this will surprise no one – throughout the day, Markus had to re-park the truck three times. He is only comfortable if he can see the truck from the apartment!
3 September 2023
0 miles
We were up at normal time this morning and started to bake the pork ribs for chili. We had a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast and then set about our laundry chores. We had two loads to wash ($1.50 each) and one load to dry (also $1.50); everything was done by noon, except for the line-dry clothes. We decided to order lunch from harvest moon deli (again) – we had a “we got the beef“ and a “more than birds“ (beef and turkey). Are you seeing a pattern here? All of their sandwiches are a play on song titles. The deli is super convenient – literally at the corner when you go out the back door. We had half for lunch and the other half for dinner – same as yesterday!
This evening, we walked down to the USS Maine memorial at Davenport Park – it was tremendously underwhelming – but I took a couple of pictures, nonetheless. We were planning to stop for a beer on the way back, but there was literally only one restaurant open. So, we opted to return to the apartment for our own wine. We are planning an early night since we need to repack the truck and check out in the AM.
Footnote: we charged all of the Ryobi batteries today – for the fans, flashlights, and lantern. We are good for the next week of camping!
4 September 2023
55 miles
We took wonderfully hot showers this morning and once again got the truck loaded – this time with clean laundry! We didn’t have far to drive today, and we were out of the apartment by 10:30. So, we took a detour to Northeast Harbor, which is a really nice village. High-end and expensive boutiques, but a really quaint Main Street.
We walked down to the marina and shared a lobster roll from the Bucking Lobster Food Truck. It was absolutely delicious! Lightly tossed in mayo (not drenched) and served on a grilled bun. And did I mention huge chunks of lobster? The fries were pretty good too!
By the time we left the marina, it was past time to check in (noon) at the campground so, with a quick stop at the Otter Creek Market for beer and firewood, we arrived at Blackwoods Campground at 1:00.
We got our site all set up and popped a couple of those nice cold beers – totally awesome!
We had an early breakfast of peanut butter toast this morning, and we shared the lobster roll at lunch, so we heated some of our soup for the first course and then had chili for dinner. It was 8:30 when we finished and then we just sat by the fire for the rest of the night.
Footnote: Forgot to mention the traffic coming west on 1A yesterday (out of the park) was unbelievable – not sure how many miles the backup was, but at least 10+ steady line of traffic.