Visiting With Florida Friends………In Maine

One of the many nice things of the RV park we stayed in this past Winter in Florida was that we were surrounded by so many experienced RVers.  It seemed everyone there had years and years of RVing under their belts.  We received lots of advice for this year of travel.  When we mentioned that would be heading through Maine this year, someone noted that a couple just a few sites from us works at Acadia National Park in the Summer.  So what better source could there be to get advice for that part of our travels.   Well, it wasn’t just that they had worked there – that had worked there ten of the last twelve years.   They were happy to give us campground recommendations, advice on the route, and encouraged us to contact them when we arrived.  Well, that is just what we did.  Here we are with our friends from Florida, Charley and Dorothy.

They day we got in, we met up with Charlie and Dorothy for dinner at a wonderful restaurant they recommended,  And what did we have for dinner – Lobster of course.  In this case it was “Lazy Man’s Lobster”  meaning they already had extracted the meat from the lobster and served it up in a dish of garlic butter.  The next day, they took us on an introductory driving tour of the Acadia National Park and the Island that houses it, Mount Desert Island, and its major town  of Bar Harbor.  Charley missed his calling.  He should be giving history and nature tours of the Island.  We stopped for lunch at our first “lobster pound”.  There are many lobster pounds in this area.  It is basically a lobster shack, just a small building with live tanks for the lobsters and other shell fish in a streaming tank, and picnic tables.  And after a lobster dinner, what did the two women of our group have for lunch – lobster of course.  And this time it was whole lobster in the shell.

We met up with Charley and Dorothy again a couple of days later for dinner with them and several of their workkamping  colleagues who all have sites in a small campground behind the national park headquarters.  And what did, Dorothy, the tiniest member of the group have for dinner?  Yes, lobster again and this time the lobster roll we reported on in a couple of our earlier posts.

So, what does Acadia Park look like.  Here is just a little taste of what the shoreline looks like.  There are mountains, one over 1,500 feet high, the tallest ocean side mountain north of Brazil.  There are lakes, trees, carriage roads, animals and birds.  We are still working on our exploration and will have more to tell soon,

We will meet up at least one more time with Charley and Dorothy for, you guessed it, some more lobster.  By the way, they have been full timing in motor homes for 15 years now. 

Southern Maine

We have been in Maine for the last week.  We rolled out of Foxboro, MA mid morning, took the outer beltway, and avoided any serious Boston traffic.  We passed through New Hampshire and were welcomed by a “Live Free or Die” sign at the border.  We passed into Maine and spent our first week in Maine in the southeastern costal region.  We were camped near the town of Saco.  We are still a bit ahead of prime season and were able to use our Passport America half off camping card for all our nights.  Saco was a very central location for exploring Portland, Kennebunkport, and the beach town of Old Orchard Beach.

In Portland, we took in another minor league baseball game.  The Portland Seadogs are the AA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.  We like minor league baseball as it is a lot cheaper and the games are usually a lot more fun with fan activities between every inning.  The stadium has its own version of the “green monster”  a high wall in left field because of a short left field foul line.  We were lucky on tickets again as we were in the front row behind the home team’s dugout.  I had another ball tossed to me by one of the coaches which I gave to a young boy who was thrilled to receive it,  We also explored the downtown and wharf front areas of Portland and continued our seafood tour with some Lobster risotto for me and Lobster macaroni and cheese for Gary.

Kennebunkport is the home of George Herbert Walker Bush or Bush 41.  His home on a fabulous property on its own peninsula into the ocean.  There are a lot of other very upscale properties on the Kennebunkport waterfront, but it is not nearly as pretentious as Newport, RI. We had a very nice leisurely round of par 3 golf at a very short course of holes only 30 to 80 yards long.  Gary had some blackened haddock tacos with fresh avocado slices that were fantastic.  I had a crab salad/havarti cheese sandwich.  Our seafood tour only seems to be getting better.

Old Orchard Beach is a classic throwback Atlantic Ocean beachfront town.  It has an old beachfront amusement park and a pier full of tacky touristy stores and bars.  The beach there is a sandy one several miles long.  This part of Maine has some longer sandy beaches compared with the very craggy coastline on up the coast.  Gary actually dove into the ocean, just to say he had been in the Atlantic in Maine.  At least he got out before he turned blue. He also had another chance to try out his metal detector, but the bounty of drink can tabs and bottle caps was disappointing. The seafood tour also continued.  We went to a little sandwich shop that once was featured in the Travel Channel’s show, Man Versus Food.  Adam Richman had taken on the “Manimal” eating challenge.  And in this battle of man versus food, man was the winner.  But we weren’t about to take on the Manimal challenge.  I had my best lobster roll yet.  Gary had deep fried lobster roll, very interesting, but the deep frying took away from that delicate lobster taste. They were both very good sandwiches though and very reasonable as well.  Just take a look at all of that lobster in the roll.

From here we are headed to the Bar Harbor area and Acadia National Park.  It is nice now to be away from the big cities.

Trailer Park Lounge and Grill?

As long as we are posting funny pictures (well, at least funny to us), here is one we snapped on a street in New York City – The Trailer Park Lounge and Grill.  We especially liked the plastic pink flamingos. Note that it says it is open all year.  We didn’t take the time to go in, but we did have a good chuckle at their store front.

Prestigious Law Firm In Cambridge, Mass

 

Just a quick post about something we forgot to include in our prior posts about the Boston area.  While we were in Cambridge near the campus of Harvard University, we happened upon a prestigious law firm.  We were able to get a picture of of one of their windows showing the roster of illustrious partners of this firm – Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe. 

Boston and Rhode Island

Boston was perhaps our favorite major city of our east coast tour. Its historical charm blends well with its modern financial district.  Our campground here was in the suburb of Foxboro, where the New England Patriots play football.   It was the most expensive campground we have stayed in yet even after a bunch of discounts, but then everything is expensive in this area.  The campground really was a destination in and of itself with four pools, hot tubs, saunas, workout room, fishing pond, etc. 

We utilized public transportation again taking trains, trolleys, subways, and buses.  We had heard the horror stories of driving in Boston and  didn’t want any part of it.  The people here were very helpful.  It seemed every time we pulled out a map someone stopped to ask if he/she could help us find something,  We walked the Freedom Trail and took in such historical sites as the Old North Church – one if by land, two if by sea, Paul Revere’s home, Bunker Hill, and the USS Constitution – Old Ironsides.

We visited our second Presidential Library.  This time the JFK Library after having visited the Clinton one in Arkansas.  We wasted way too much time taking in the Samuel Adams brewery one afternoon.  We also went to Cambridge and strolled around Harvard and Harvard Square.  We finally had a bit of the seafood part of our “cities and seafood” tour.  I had some lobster bisque and nice piece of haddock and Gary had some Boston clam chowder and a lobster roll (chunky lobster salad on a hoagie bun).  We are really looking to forward to the seafood in Maine where we are headed next.

 

We drove down the east side of Narragansett Bay and then back up the west side and thereby took in nearly the entire state of Rhode Island – well almost. On the east side we toured Newport. It is known for its mansions which were “cottages” for the wealthy of the late 1800s, but Newport also contains many colonial buildings. From Newport we drove into Providence and had dinner in Rhode Island’s capital city.

We had generally dreary weather for our week in the Boston area.  We had intended to spend a day a beach down on Cape Cod but we never got there as the weather turned too cold and wet for us to make that trip.

Fenway Park and Cheers

We keep  track of our Detroit Tigers and were aware that they still would be playing in Boston when we arrived in that area.  We found some tickets off of Craigslist and went to the final game of the series.  Gary was really excited to go to Fenway.  There are only two really classic old ballparks left in Major League Baseball.  One is Wrigley Field in Chicago where Gary saw his first ever pro game exactly 50 years ago.  The other is Fenway Park with its classic “green monster” left field wall. It could not have been much better.  The rain held off.  It was a good pitching matchup between Josh Beckett and Max Scherzer.  The lead see sawed back and forth.  And the Tigers won the game – their only win of the four-game series.  Fenway is a mix of a classic old park supplemented with some very modern technology such as two huge high-definition LED video boards.

Before the game, we had a bite to eat at that place that for years told us, “everybody knows your name"”.  Yes, we went to the location that inspired Cheers.  The exterior of the property as exactly as used to be shown on the TV program.  The inside is not exactly the same and all the shots from the bar were actually on a sound stage anyway.  Naturally, they have a large gift shop with all kinds of Cheers trinkets and trash.  But it was a fun place with lots of tourists cycling through including other Tiger fans going to the game.

A Visit With A Former Boss

In all my many years with Ford Motor Company, I always had nice bosses – very smart and professional people who always treated me with respect and appreciation.  As we were in the Boston area, I knew that my next-to-last boss with Ford, Dennis Ross,  was now a senior executive with State Street Bank in Boston.  We were able to secure a short meeting with him in his office.  It was very nice to see him.  He was I think genuinely and keenly interested in what we are up to in this full timing life.  Gary also knows Dennis from his days at Ford and he asked us a bunch of questions about our lifestyle and we had a good laugh during many of them.  It was fun to catch up about family, friends, and colleagues and we were very glad he was in and was able to share some time with us.  We meet tons of new people as we travel about, but it is especially nice to see some people whom we have known for years.