Personal Story: Maine, Days 1 and 2

Stories

Aug 30

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So it's going to take a couple of posts for me to tell you about our Maine trip, and to get it down to two long posts took some self restraint! Pretty much everything we saw and ate came from someone's referral. As a small business we choose to completely rely on you referring us to your family and friends. We wanted to hear from YOU what you thought we should do and eat in Maine... and now we are going to report back! David is becoming quite a foodie and local beer man so the food portion of the trip was important. We stayed in a cheap hotel (which was nothing special, just fit in our budget way better than the bed and breakfasts we dreamed of, so no referral there) in Freeport and traveled from there every day.

Let me also take a moment to note that these posts are a mixture of images from our pro camera and our point&shoot. Also David and I took turns with both cameras so you've got both of our perspectives mixed in.

The first day we headed to Bath, which reminded us of many of the coastal towns we have grown up with on the NC coast. We got a late start this first day because, well, we slept in. And it felt awesome to sleep in... especially since it was rainy. Bath was cute but really the main attraction there, other than the beautiful view over the water, seemed to be shopping so we moved on after about an hour. We headed to Popham Beach which was beautiful, and then spent time exploring around Fort Popham...

The weather turned rainy as it came close to dinner time so we headed back to Freeport to eat at Linda Bean's, which is right across from THE LL Bean store. Linda Bean's was a referral... and a good one it was! David enjoyed the clam chowder as I enjoyed a crab roll-- we recommend stopping by there if you are in Freeport. One thing we always love about visiting New England states is that they have such pride in the products from there own state. They make it very clear on the menu that some part of every item comes from Maine. I love that.

Day two's weather was just gorgeous. Occasionally on the ride up and down US 1 I would pull out my camera and just shoot as we drove (as seen in the next two images)...

We headed to Rockland thanks to a referral from Dana and Darren's Day Zipping article reporting from their trip to Maine. We stopped for an early lunch in the downtown area of Rockland where we decided to eat at The Brass Compass. We sat outside on their cobblestone patio and enjoyed a huge lunch of delicious Maine seafood at a great price. This restaurant was not referred to us by anyone but we refer it to you with two thumbs up!

(Thank you Rockland, we did EAT EAT while we were in Maine!)

After lunch we took on the adventure of exploring the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. As you can see below, this involves the 7/8 mile walk down this breaker to get to the lighthouse. Sure, below this looks like no big deal, but you have to watch your step or you could break your leg. No joke.

This seaweed with the pods on the end looked like Cousin It to me. Right?

I am not sure how far we had made it when I decided to show the direction we had come from...

And where we were headed...

So close, almost there...

Enjoying the view of sailboats passing by and resting up for the walk back (which was strange on this narrow breaker with the wind whipping against you and you're constantly making sure you don't step in between rocks and break your knee).

After making it back to the car we decided to try to beat the crowd and get an OH SO famous lobster roll from Red's Eats in Wiscasset right on US 1. Several of you told us we HAD to eat at Red's, that there was no better place to get a lobster roll that was this huge and tasted so good. We got there at 4:30 and still had to wait in line almost an hour, but it was totally worth it. There is a reason why Red's has been featured in a billion magazines, websites, food network shows, etc. It reminded me of the Big Oak Drive In, which I grew up eating at the beach, where you walk up to this little free standing building, order your food, then sit on a picnic table in the back to eat it. This image was taken with David's cell phone (there is a roll under that lobster, promise):

The view is beautiful as you eat this amazing meal... here's what we saw as we walked from Red's to the car...

My first photography love was macro flower images. The coast of Maine is covered in Queen Anne's lace, every where you go, so I had to make sure I took time to appreciate such a delicate flower :)