The Maine Attraction
July 10-17, 2022
After time spent in White National Forest, James and I made our way to Maine. I think Maine has to be officially one of my favorite states, with the caveat that I have only ever visited in the summertime. But it was so beautiful there!
If I had to imagine what Maine would be like in October, I feel like this song is the folky fall vibe:
(PS, if you’re into folky fall vibes, I made a playlist on Spotify!)
Anyway, back to summer of ‘22. We started in a small town called Hallowell, Maine—a town with a population of 2,573. The goal was actually to visit Augusta because we wanted to see the state capital but we couldn’t find any places to stay there. I’m actually kind of glad it worked out the way it did. Hallowell was such a lovely little town on the Kennebec River, only a 5 minute drive to the Maine State House in Augusta. We had the cutest Airbnb that had fancy automatic blinds—future house goals—and a brand new bathroom complete with a shower with glass panes and no door… we saw several of these throughout the trip. Why are doorless showers trendy? Neither of us could figure that out. Someone please let me know.
The sun rises EARLY in the summertime in Maine, so we made the most of the days we had there. Hallowell had some cute shops on their main street and it looked like there was a lively arts community. I saw flyers for pottery classes at an art studio and wished we were staying longer so I could join. We happened to be there on a Tuesday, when they have Rock on the River live music in the summer. We got ourselves some ice cream (obviously) and walked down to the concert. One of the best things about Maine is that every single car stops for pedestrians when you’re crossing the street. Wisconsin could never. In fact, I just wrote an email to my neighborhood alderman because there have been several instances when we haven’t been able to cross the street safely in our neighborhood in Milwaukee. Fingers crossed they’ll get one of those blinking pedestrian crosswalk lights eventually. Maybe in 2024. One thing that Maine and Wisconsin do have in common is that the people are extremely nice. But Mainers officially win in the driving department.
Mostly we just hung out in Hallowell, worked from “home,” cooked at the Airbnb, and walked around (and up and down hills) to enjoy the nice weather. We checked out the State House in Augusta, walked along the river, and did some window shopping. It was a short stint but it was a pretty cute area! Not sure Augusta is much of a destination but if you’re on your way to someplace else in Maine it’s a nice stop. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it up to Bangor, where Stephen King is from, but I think I’d like to get acquainted with more of his work before visiting anyway. I think that would make it much more fun. Maybe in a future October we can plan a spooky Halloween trip to Bangor and Salem, Massachusetts, which we also skipped on the ultimate road trip of 2022-23.
Rock on the River in Hallowell
The fancy blinds at our Airbnb. You can hear James say “you should show your face” because I had a most excited dorky face while recording this. It was such a cool Airbnb.
We left Hallowell on a Wednesday and made our way toward Acadia National Park. We took Thursday and Friday off work and made it a long weekend. On our way to Acadia, we stopped in a (slightly larger) town called Ellsworth (pop. 8,531) for lunch and we worked from their public library. It was another cute town that we just found on the map and stopped because we needed to take some work calls and fill up on gas. Sometimes those unplanned stops are the best ones.
Acadia National Park was absolutely one of my favorite parts of the trip. We weren’t there for a long time but it was so much fun. I just love the National Parks and we were living our best lives last summer. We set up camp at the Schoodic Woods campground, made a bonfire, some dinner, and a full moon playlist, then slept under the stars. We made a friend named Beth who was staying at the campsite next to us AND was from Wisconsin!
The next day we did a program with a park ranger about bird watching, did some hiking, picnicking by the ocean (or I guess the Gulf of Maine if we’re getting specific about it), bird watching and sight seeing in the park. We drove the Park Loop to see all of the “maine” attractions… sorry, I thought about deleting that one. That was a bad joke. We had a good time but unfortunately, on our way to the Park Loop I had to swerve to try to avoid hitting a squirrel in the road and was not successful. We then had to pull over so I could cry for a few minutes about killing a squirrel. After that traumatic experience I was able to laugh it off by going to the ridiculously named attraction called Thunder Hole.
Because we booked our camping reservations so late in the game, we had to move to a different campsite on the other side of the park. It was a pretty significant drive but it was nice that we got to see more of the park along the way. Misfortune struck again when we had to pitch our tent in the rain and one of the tent poles broke. So, we had to drive into Bar Harbor and find a hardware store for some new tent poles. You can imagine my joy and positive attitude about the entire situation! Of course, the new ones were not the correct size but after the crying and bickering and rain and cold that day we just decided to say fuck it and just use the wrong sized poles. It worked well enough. And we’re still using the wrong ones with that tent to this day.
Despite all of this, we still had a great time at Acadia. We hiked Cadillac Mountain, the first place in the US that sees the sunrise. We attempted to get tickets to drive up to the top for the sunrise both mornings but they sold out pretty quickly (read: 10 seconds). And since we aren’t super confident in our hiking abilities, we opted to wait until the sun already rose to begin our hike. But it was still an awesome view and an amazing hike. We felt very accomplished after that and rewarded ourselves with some moon pies from the gift shop at the top. Then we did some more hiking and sightseeing, spent a very small amount of time in Bar Harbor, which was in peak tourist season, and then made our way to Portland, Maine.
A great picnic spot
Gorgeous views at Acadia
Thunder Hole!
Portland was absolutely adorable. It was so picturesque and everything I hoped it would be. We stayed in a cute little Airbnb downtown in what must have been a 100-year-old building. Unfortunately, the Airbnb listed that there was a washer and dryer for laundry but there was not. So all our stinky camping clothes would have to remain stinky. I realize that I’m not making this sound very fun because if something unlucky could happen to us this week, it did. Must have been the full moon! But even with the mishaps we had such a fun time in Maine. Imagine how much I would have liked it if we had a luckier week! We might have even considered moving there. Nah, just kidding. I need some time away from snow.
Portland is where I had my first ever lobster roll, at Luke’s Lobster. I got to a certain point in my life where I still had never tried a lobster roll so I decided that I’d save my first time for Maine where I know it’ll be the good stuff. And it was! We also tried a fancier lobster roll at Even Tide Oyster Company, a restaurant recommended by James’s aunt and uncle. Plus, we obviously had to get some oysters; both were delicious. We did lots of walking around the harbor, piers and shops in Portland and we checked out several art galleries. I’m so grateful that James lets me drag him along to art galleries and actually enjoys it! ☺️
We had lots of fun walking around the city, the waterfront, and the Eastern Promenade. I kid you not, we ran into Beth from Wisconsin that we met at Acadia National Park while we were there. Sure makes the world feel small sometimes. To cap off a blissful weekend in Portland, we spent a good chunk of time at a brewery called Banded Brewing Co, whose Portland location is now closed (sad!), writing postcards to send to loved ones. We were really bad about writing and sending those. If you didn’t get one and were expecting to, maybe one day we’ll write you a postcard and send it to you randomly just for funsies. We have a bunch! Just another one of those things that we’ll get around to eventually… kind of like this blog. Thanks for reminiscing with me!
