None too early in the morning, I get on the road to North Carolina. I am going to spend the night with my parents in Lumberton. My brother arrives at their house in the evening, just a short time after me. He comes in from Wilkesboro, NC. We have a nice, home cooked meal by mom of roast beef and vegetables.
As I watch television with my parents that night, I hear a thud out on the front porch. Dad and I exchange looks.
“That’s the cats,” he says. “They’ll jump off a chair after a frog or something. Sometimes it scares us good.”
The next morning, September 13, all of us pack our luggage into Mom and Dad’s Nissan Altima and ride up to Garner. My uncle, Dad’s brother, lives there and drives us to Raleigh Durham International Airport. We fly Southwest Airlines to Baltimore for a brief layover, then on to Portland, Maine.
We arrive late in the afternoon. My Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet (Uncle Jerry is Mom’s brother), will be coming in later tonight, also from RDU. We rent a maroon Town & Country Chrysler minivan for the trip up the Maine coast and into Canada.
We check into the Comfort Inn that afternoon. I have not eaten anything all day except for the airline peanuts, so we all head out for a meal. Uptown Portland is where we first look for a restaurant. There are plenty of places, but nowhere to park. All of us are so hungry at the present that we do not desire to struggle with this. I want a nice place to eat, with no fuss. On the way to uptown, we passed a restaurant that I had never seen before called “The Sea Dog.” It is close to our hotel, and we head back there.
“The Sea Dog” is a great restaurant. I learn that it is actually a small chain, with two or three other locations in Maine, and also a couple in Florida. I order a sort of seafood pot pie. Mom has New England Chowder, the best New England Chowder that she has ever had in her life, she says.
It is such a late lunch that mom and dad are satisfied just to have snacks for dinner, a few hours later. I want to go out somewhere, though. My brother accompanies me to Buffalo Wild Wings in Portland. It is my first time ever going to this chain restaurant. I am impressed with the number of big screen televisions all over the place. Tons of college football games are on, along with major league baseball games.
The food is so-so, though. It certainly is not a healthy place to eat, as basically the place just serves wings with a large variety of sauces, and fries or onion rings.
I smile at one of the women sitting at a table next to us. She is with a group of about four or five other people. After my brother and I have been there a while, they leave.
“Did you notice anything unusual about the table beside us?” he asks me.
I look over at it and shake my head.
“None of them ever said anything. They were all using sign language.”
“Huh. Neat,” I say. “A place like this would be nice for them, then, to watch all the action on the different TVs and not be bothered by the noise.”
After finishing our meal, Adam and I take the minivan out to the airport and pick up Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet.
Sunday, September 14.
After checking out of the hotel the next morning, we head to Freeport, Maine, just a little north of Portland. This is the location of the LL Bean store that Uncle Jerry really wants to visit. By far, most of LL Bean’s business is done through on-line ordering, but this store is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There are some surrounding outlets and restaurants in Freeport as well. For the first time in my life, I order a lobster roll. The Linda Bean Restaurant in Freeport also has a small stand just outside the main LL Bean store. This where Adam and I enjoy them. The bread is hot and buttery, but the lobster meat is actually cold. I think that I would like it better if the lobster was hot, but it is tasty, nonetheless, and makes for a nice late morning snack.
Later, the family enjoys a lunch at Amato’s in Freeport. I have a plate of spaghetti with Amato’s custom sauce.
After Freeport, we head northeast on Highway 1 to the town of Ellsworth, where we check into the Hampton Inn.
I want the family to enjoy a good, authentic Maine meal. On the hotel clerk’s recommendation, we visit the Union River Lobster Pot restaurant in downtown Ellsworth. Cauldrons of boiling water set outside of the restaurant, along with large tanks filled with lobsters.
I order “The Lobster Pot,” the featured meal of the restaurant. A whole lobster is brought to me inside a blue metal pot, along with steamed clams and corn on the cob. I have never eaten a whole lobster before- only lobster tail at the chain restaurant, Red Lobster (and I have not seen a single one of those restaurants in Maine).
It is also the first time that Mom or Dad, Uncle Jerry or Aunt Janet have had lobster. The waitress brings us bibs, shell cracking instruments, and an instruction sheet on how to break apart and eat a whole lobster.
All of us just sort of stare at the creatures when they are presented.
Dad is a little bothered by the fact that they are boiled alive, and so am I for that matter. I wonder how much pain a crustacean feels, how much suffering is involved when they are placed immediately into a vat that is boiling hot. I realize that this lobster in the pot in front of me was alive probably less than minutes ago. The tail is curled up underneath its body, like it is in the fetal position.
“The soul has not even left the shell yet,” Adam says.
The meat is extremely tasty, though.
It is actually quite easy to get the meat out of the tail and the claws. I peel the rest of the shell off and taste a small amount of some grayish meat before I realize what it is.
“Is this the brain?” I ask the waitress. She nods.
“Are you supposed to eat the brain?” I ask.
“I don’t,” she says, and makes an “ick” face. “I see people who do, but I wouldn’t do it.”
The size of the brain of the lobster is much larger than what I thought it would be, which also makes me wonder about the suffering. Lobsters often visibly respond to me when I walk up to look at them in the tanks.
I finish the meal with the best slice of blueberry pie that I have ever had.
After the meal is over, we all get back into the minivan.
“Wasn’t that the best meal that you’ve had in Maine?” I ask Uncle Jerry.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” he responds. “I had a bowl of cereal this morning.”
You can get live lobsters everywhere in Maine. There is a tank of them for sale in the Walgreens across the parking lot from the hotel. A bright red lobster, in a tank by himself in Walgreens, seems to wave to me with one of its claws when I enter the store and pass by him. Perhaps years from now, people will look back at all this slaughter and boiling and be disgusted at the holocaust and hellish type conditions these creatures were put through. Or perhaps not. I hope they do not feel much pain or suffer. I hope the death is instantaneous when they are placed in the boiling water.
Monday, September 15.
From Ellsworth the next morning, we drive south to Acadia National Park.
As I make my way up stairs to the park’s visitor center, I notice small piles of stones, with one on the top of each pile that looks like an arrow. These are cairns, used to mark trails.
Inside the visitor center, I review their collection of field guides and discover perhaps the best guide to plants that I have ever come across. It is called “Plants of Acadia National Park.” Filled with colorful photographs and a couple of useful identification keys, this book catalogues almost 900 species of plants that can be found not only in Acadia, but all over New England.
From there, we head to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Depending on the time of year, one can be the first person in the Western Hemisphere to see the sunrise from this location. The top of the porphyritic granite mountain offers a great view of Bar Harbor as well.
It is cold and windy on top of the mountain. With my binoculars, I can see a lighthouse in the ocean to the east.
After coming down off the mountain, we continue around the loop road of the park. I enjoy a turkey sandwich for lunch at the Jordan House inside the park. It offers a great view of Jordan Pond, which is more like a lake.
While in Acadia, we also take in locations called Sandy Beach, Thunder Hole, and the Wild Gardens of Acadia.
Sandy Beach is quite small, but it is what passes for a beach in Maine, whose coastline consists almost entirely of granite.
Thunder Hole is a place where the granite meets the ocean, and during a storm the waves crashing into the rocks creates a thundering noise.
The Wild Gardens of Acadia contains all sorts of plants and flowers native to the park. The plants are all meticulously labeled. This, along with Cadillac Mountain, is my favorite part of the park, though dad tells me that he is more impressed with the frogs on the lily pads in a little stream that runs through the garden. I do not think either of us have ever seen frogs literally on lily pads, the way they were portrayed in cartoons and children’s books when I was growing up.
After leaving Acadia National Park, we drive into the town of Bar Harbor in the late afternoon. I really like the town, and would spend the night here if I was traveling alone. The pubs and taverns look like they have some character to them, and I think that I would meet interesting people inside.
The family splits up for an hour to go shopping, but I use the hour to walk down historic West Street. The houses along this street are gigantic and old, some now divided up for nonprofits or inns. I also come to a place on the water that has a stone bridge leading to Bar Island. The tide is up at present, though, and the bridge is under four to eight feet of water.
That evening, I convince my family to return to the Union River Lobster Pot in Ellsworth. While I really enjoyed my lobster meal there, as did my brother who ordered cedar plank salmon, the rest of the family is not interested in eating lobster again. They all order something different this time. I have a plateful of clams both steamed and fried, along with some homemade crab cakes.
Tuesday, September 16.
We head out in the morning, up Highway 1 bound for the Canadian border at Calais. The road begins to follow the St. Croix River, which divides the U.S. from its northern neighbor.
We stop at a Dunkin Donuts shop in Calais just before crossing. I ask the lady behind the register how to say the name of this town.
“Callous,” she says, “like you have a callous on your hand.”
At the checkpoint, the Canadian Border Patrol agent greets us in both English and French. Mom tries to take his picture, but I warn her not to do this.
They ask the agent if he minds if they take his picture.
“Actually I do,” he says, “for several reasons.”
The town on the other side of Calais is St. Stephen, but we quickly find that Highway 1 turns into a sort of interstate in Canada, a very empty interstate. The quality of the pavement is great, but there are hardly any vehicles on the road, in either direction. This is the farthest east that I have ever been as well. Once we cross into Canada, we enter the Atlantic time zone and lose an hour.
We zip up to St. John. Along the way, Adam spots a bald eagle perched in a tree along some open swampland. He points it out to me.
In St. John, after checking into the hotel, we have lunch at Wendy’s. There is some confusion over the exchange rate and the amount of change given for American cash. Uncle Jerry did not expect to receive change in Canadian money, but Adam buys it from him as a souvenir.
We drive around St. John, which got its boom as a ship building town. We visit the Reversing Falls, a place where the tide comes in so strongly that it reverses the flow of the St. John River and creates a sort of rapids. While observing these rapids, I also spot a seal swimming in the water.
That night, we eat at Vito’s, a nice Italian restaurant that has been in place for a number of years. I order spinach lasagna.
Wednesday, September 17.
After an early morning run on the treadmill in the hotel workout room, I walk outside and take in the brisk Canadian morning air. Beside the hotel is an open field of New England Aster and goldenrod flowers. In the distance there appears to be a granite quarry.
We get on the road south and head back to the United States. In Orono, Maine, we visit the University of Maine, first having lunch at “The Family Dog” Restaurant. I have a nice chicken sandwich. The owner of the restaurant tells us the best places to visit on campus.
We take in the hockey rink, where I note that the school’s hockey team took home NCAA national championships in the same years that Florida State (where I went to school) won national championships in football: 1993 and 1999.
We also see the football stadium and walk onto the baseball field. It is artificial, but not Astro turf. The plastic grass actually has bits of sand and ground up rubber in it, making the surface softer than Astro turf.
I go inside the University library while my family waits outside. The library reminds me a lot of where I went to undergraduate school- Western Carolina University. Some of the desks along the walls are designed like bunk beds, with students able to climb ladders and study in a desk mounted over a person beneath them. I also note that the library does not appear to have air conditioning.
At the University bookstore in the Student Union, I pick up a history book that is required for one of the classes on campus, Changes in the Land by a historian named Cronon. I take a few minutes to read some of the pages, and I am so struck by how illuminating this writing is that I decide to order a copy of the book for myself.
I also make a brief visit to the planetarium on campus. It is brand new, and not yet open for business. Boxes line the walls, but the director of the planetarium points out the telescope to me, the largest in Maine. It has a computer system that will let the scope know when the sky is clear rather than cloudy, and open up the lens for observation.
My brother is a big Stephen King fan, and knows that the author lives in Bangor, just a little to the south of the University. While in the library, I go to a computer and quite easily find the address of his house. We punch it into our GPS and ride there. Adam is rather surprised that I could so easily get the address. The house has an iron gate with a spider web design in the center and two bats with wings spread, mounted over the hinges.
We return to Ellsworth to spend the night. This time, we eat dinner at Helen’s Restaurant. I have a seafood platter with stuffed Haddock, along with another slice of blueberry pie for desert.
Thursday, September 18.
In the morning, we drive south on Highway 1 and stop in Camden. This is a nice little town on Penobscot Bay. We eat lunch on at the Camden Deli, where I have another lobster roll.
Farther south, we head to Boothbay Harbor. The family drops me off at the Botanical Gardens of Boothbay while they continue on into the town.
The Gardens have an incredible and beautiful display of plants and flowers. I try to make note of some of my favorites: The Blue Lace Larkspur, the Knockout Mystic Illusion Dahlia (Dahlia Hybridia), the Shrubby St. John’s Wort, The Southern Star, Artist Blue Ageratum, the T. Rex Stonecrop. If I had to pick one that was my favorite, at least for what was in bloom at this time of year, it would be the Bat Faced Cuphea.
When the family returns to pick me up, they all talk about how much they enjoyed the feel of the town of Boothbay. Mom found a great Friends of the Public Library used book store, though they were only open for another 15 minutes when she arrived. She manages to buy one book that she wants before it closes.
We drive on into Portland, and have dinner at the Sea Dog again. This time, I have a delicious plate of mussels and linguini, along with a coffee cheesecake for desert.
I am having trouble getting the rest of the folks to enjoy dinner like I do. Adam orders a brownie with ice cream so that I do not eat desert alone. He offers some to Mom, who says that she is too full. To my amusement, though, when we get back to the hotel, Mom eats a granola bar with some coffee.
Coffee is what she needed, she protests to me.
The Sea Dog offered coffee, I point out to her, it just had Jameson whiskey in it is all.
Friday, September 19.
The weather in Portland this morning is as cold as it has been all week. The wind is blowing and the temperature is in the 40s or perhaps low 50s.
As we wait along the harbor to board the boat for a lighthouse tour, Adam spots an artistic display. We walk up to it and discover that it is a piece of the Berlin Wall. It is obvious from the graffiti and the government signs remaining on the wall which side was the west and which side was the east.
The trip out onto the water is cold and windy, but also enjoyable. The Portland Head Lighthouse is the most impressive sight. We get rocked back and forth pretty well when a huge cargo ship speeds past us out to sea.
Adam spends the entire ride up on the top deck, where the wind is the strongest. Dad stands at the bow of the boat for most of the trip, taking in the sights and the elements.
That night, we have dinner at one of Dad’s favorite restaurants: Cracker Barrel. These are all over North Carolina and the southeast United States. I have a nice meal of rainbow trout, corn, pinto beans and cheese grits.
After dinner, we go to the planetarium at the University of Southern Maine and watch a show on IBEX, a satellite in space that is mapping the outer edges of the solar system, or the heliosphere. The operator of the planetarium also gives a talk and demonstration of what the night sky looks like that evening.
The next day, Saturday, September 20, we fly back to North Carolina. During the layover in Baltimore, we pass a large group of WWII veterans dressed in the same blue t-shirts. Most of them are in wheelchairs. My brother guesses that they are going to Washington, DC to see the WWII memorial in the Washington Mall.
When we get back to North Carolina, Uncle Ken, my dad’s brother, treats us to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, Ragazzi's, and we arrive back in Lumberton in time for me to watch the Florida State and Clemson football game on television.
The air is much warmer in North Carolina than it was in Maine.
I am appreciative of the time that I got to spend with my family on this trip. It was relaxing, and I enjoyed some nice food. I am glad that everyone was healthy enough to enjoy it with me.
