RoadTrip48: Day 143 - Highway 1, Lobster Rolls and Portland, ME

After a night hunkering down against the wind and rain that had battered our little tent, we awoke bleary-eyed but dry. The tarp had done a great job of keeping the picnic bench dry, so we had a small, dry footprint to try to get packed up and on the road.

Putting away a wet tent has to be right up there on our least favourite parts of the roadtrip. Pitching in the rain would clearly eclipse this, but so far we haven't had that joy.

Our tent is waterproof, and stood the test of a night-long downpour. The damp in the air, however, permeates everywhere. We jumped into action, employing a cool technique we had developed whereby we can take the inner part of the tent down before the fly. Trees are a double-edged sword: they provide you with shelter during the heavy rain, but the next day - when the rains have passed - they continue to drench you with pseudo-rain every time a gust of wind passes through. Getting the inner tent rolled up under the protection of the fly was a must. Nonetheless, everything went into the tent bag with some level of wetness - and knowing that we were now not getting our camping gear out for a week made us very despondent.

We left the campground and headed to the village just outside - Otter Creek - for a much-needed coffee.

The tree tops were shrouded in a heavy fog. Blinking at the printed itinerary in front of us, we wondered how many of the scenic vistas we would actually see. We had two choices to get us to our next destination: skipping up onto the Interstate, or staying on the coastal Route 1. Sam's timely reminder that this was a road trip, and not just a means of getting us from A to B, guided us down the coast.

We stopped at Penobscot Narrows Bridge to take a look at the history of the 1931 bridge it replaced. We contemplated going up the elevator to the observatory - the tallest bridge observatory in the world - but given that we couldn't even see the top of the bridge through the fog, we gave it a miss.

Skipping Camden Hills State Park and the peak of Mt Barrie - probably delightful on a clear day - we took a quick break at Lincolnville beach before the arrival of a massive coach of elderly tourists set us on our way again.

In a reassuring reminder of home, we spotted many drivers obliviously driving through the fog with no lights on whatsoever. Every time we passed one, I gave them a hearty salutation not suitable for this blog.

We were in need of cash, so finally had the opportunity to use a drive-through ATM. Yep, you read that right. Over here you don't even need to get off your butt to get money from a cash machine.

I was probably a bit more excited about this than I should have been

Wallet filled, we continued down US 1 and then took an offshoot (State Route 32) which led towards the coast. We were on the hunt for a Lobster Roll, for which Maine is famous. Yes, it probably is a foody cliché but we didn't care.

Just as we were about to give up we found the tiny fishing village of Round Pond, and wandering down to the dockside we found Muscongus Bay Lobster. This was exactly the kind of place we were looking for: small, authentic and local-y.

Some of the lobster ("lob-stah") were huge and as sad as it was seeing them floating around in the tank unaware of their impending demise, this is the nature of the beast.

The rolls were not cheap, but they were truly delicious. We had a bowl of chowder too and left the place fully satisfied, and chuffed that we had come across something which didn't feel like a tourist trap.

Pushing further down the angry-looking coastline, we were soon at our next destination, Pemaquid Point Light. The North Atlantic coastline is littered with historic lighthouses, and despite it arguably being another Maine cliché, we paid our $3 each to take a look round the museum and ascend the spiral staircase to the light at the top. There was a guide at the bottom and one that took us to the top, and both gave us lots of interesting facts about the lighthouse.

After spending some time here, we had to hit US 1 again towards our next overnight stop.

We did have time, however, for a quick detour to Sea Dog Brewery. Regular readers will probably have realised that we rarely pass up the opportunity to visit a brewery we are going past, and having seen Sea Dog beers previously, we had to pop on in.

After just the one, we once again hit the road and headed for our destination, Portland.

Those with a good memory will recall that we were in Portland just over a month ago. But that was Portland, Oregon, and this was Portland, Maine; about 3,000 miles separates the two. This did in fact almost result in a bit of a screw-up when we were booking accommodation way back before the road trip started. Sam found a great little place for us to stay in Portland and we were just about to hit the Pay button when I realised the Portland she was looking at was the wrong one. A close call!

The two "main" Portlands are joined by about 30 other smaller Portlands. This is something we have been noticing on this road trip: a lot of place names are either stolen from Europe (especially in the North East - understandable given that's where most New World settlers came from - but they could have been more creative, surely?) or are just duplicated from other towns and cities in the US.

For example, Wikipedia states that there are 88 Washingtons, 41 Spingfields and 35 Franklins. There are plenty of Bristols, Dovers and Oxfords, but no Basingstokes.

We checked into The Press Hotel which is part of Marriott's swanky Autograph Collection. It was a really cool hotel housed in the former offices and printing plant of the Portland Press Herald, and had lots of artwork and little touches that referenced its previous tenants.

Cool keyboards at the check-in desk

After a quick freshen up, we hit the town. We were here two nights, so didn't worry too much about seeing much the first night and instead hunted out some cool bars for a few beers and some food.

First up was a basement bar called Maps, which was really cool. It had a chilled, dingy feel, walls and ceilings were covered in all sorts of maps (so I was in my element) and stacks of vinyl filled shelves.

They had a good beer selection and their toasted cheese sandwiches were amazing! How I managed to choose one that came with a French flag, however, I do not know. Still too soon (World Cup reference).

We then headed to another highly-rated bar, Novare Res. This is another somewhat hidden bar that we initially struggled to find, but once inside we chose a couple of beers from their expansive list of domestic and international beverages.