Maine!

The week before Memorial Day DH and I traveled to Maine to visit our son in Gorham. Gorham is just outside of Portland in Southern Maine. It’s just a wee bit different up there in Maine! Locals told me that it was the dreariest May in about 15 yrs-I don’t know if that’s true but it was overcast, cool, and drizzly the entire 6 days we were there, save a few hours of sun. But hey, I’m from the upper Midwest so that kind of weather doesn’t bug me that much.

This was not a fiber-filled kind of visit-we were there to visit with our son who is pursuing his Masters in Nursing at USM. I did very little shopping and spent the briefest moments in a gallery or two. However I did have a 3 hour window of time in the Portland’s vibrant  Art District. The Portland Museum of Art was showing the William S. Paley Collection of modern art and I was able to spend one precious hour there.

Mr. Paley spent decades as head of CBS and started collecting modern art in the 1930’s. This 61-piece portion of his collection included works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin among others. I was fortunate to have seen the collection at a moment when there were very few visitors so my view was up close and personal. What a lovely, inspiring, soul filling (and too short) hour that was!

I did find some peculiarities about Portland. For one, you don’t see Starbuck’s everywhere. I’m not a Starbuck devote nor do I drink coffee, but Starbuck’s was noticeably absent. I Googled it and there are only 25 Starbucks in the entire state! Apparently Mainers strongly prefer Maine-owned businesses and that makes for a robust local economy and some pretty cool stores.

Also, I learned that you don’t bring your cute little platform sandals to Portland! The city was first settled in 1623-the streets are cobblestone and the sidewalks are actually a bit wobbly with missing bricks to trip on. So my cute little California sandals sat around all by themselves and lonely. A pretty small sacrifice to visit a historic town. On my next visit I hope to get a better understanding of the history of the area.

I found this sign amusing. Tim Horton’s is a famous donut place and they are everywhere in Portland. I found this combination particularly amusing: donuts and ice cream-one stop shopping-and drive through to boot! I chuckled that if this were California they would try to outlaw that many fat and sugar calories in one location!

One of my goals while visiting Maine was to have lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I met my goal! My son is an avid outdoor adventurer and he says that while kayaking farther north, the water was thick with lobsters- so much so that it would have been difficult to walk the bottom and not step on one-how cool is that?

Okay, ready for some photos?

We spent a good deal of time in and about beautiful Casco Bay. The bay is littered with islands and we took 2 ferry rides to visit some of them.

I am not sure which island this is but it is typical of the islands in Casco Bay. There are virtually no cars on the islands-uh, why would you need one? Life on the islands is pretty simple the locals told me.

The largest island in Casco Bay is Peaks Island. Peaks is the most populous island and is a popular summer destination. There was no one on the island the week we visited except for locals and most stores were closed. We learned many words of wisdom from the locals on the ferry ride. One of their sayings on the island is “if we don’t have it, you don’t need it”!

The shore line at Cape Elizabeth was wild and rugged.

We hit the shore at low tide and there was much exploring to do.

Texture galore!

I love the color of this lichen growing on the shale.

Who thinks up these colors?

I love this photo at Ft. Williams Portland Head Light. Our boys are 18 months apart and this photo just seems like it could have been our boys about 20 years ago.

We discovered this local eatery, Salty Dog, in Gorham and I loved their signature art piece as you walked in-made from bottle caps! And the food was great also with many gluten-free options. Most Portland area restaurants offered lots of gluten-free options-a nice treat!

My son told me we had to visit the LL Bean Flagship store in Freeport. It seemed the largest store ever-like 2 Wal-Marts or something, with every single outdoor item possible. And notably, “The World’s Largest Boot”….

and home to “The Final Charge”. In 2006 a resident of New Sweden, Me found the remains of two bull moose whose horns had locked in a deadly battle. LL Bean partnered with the land owner and others to bring “The Final Charge” to their flagship store. It’s quite a sight-and huuuuge.

What a wild and different place Maine is! We hardly made a dent in Maine’s 3500 mile shore. I’m actually glad to have visited off season before all the tourists (like us!) hit.