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.