Act 28: Maine Event

My parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided that my sisters and I needed some extra bonding time with them.  During our college years we each got two one-week long vacations: one with just mom and one with just dad.  My junior year, 2004, I had a fantastic vacation with my dad in New Orleans.  We listened to live music, drank hurricanes, learned about voodoo, and wrestled gators (kind of).

My mom and I planned an equally fantastic trip to Boston for that summer but unfortunately health problems (hers, not mine) prevented us from going.  After that I graduated college, real life got in the way for both of us, and we never made the trip.  Finally, 6 years later, we made the trip.  This past August we went to Maine.

The plan when we went was to rent a car and drive up the coast.  We flew into Portland (Maine, not Oregon.  I got asked about that a lot) and stayed there the first couple of nights.  We took a double decker bus tour of the city, a boat tour of the bay area, and saw the Portland Head Light which is apparently the most photographed lighthouse in the world though I don't know how they prove that.

After we left Portland we drove up the coast about 4.5 hours to Bar Harbor, which is on a peninsula with several other harbors and Acadia National Park.  We went up into the hills for some great views and went whale watching, though it was too foggy that day to see anything.

After a couple of days there we headed back towards Portland, making a few stops along the way.  One stop was in Port Clyde, Maine which is the home of the Marshall Point Lighthouse (which we saw along with 4 other lighthouses in the area).  Recognize it?

I didn't either, but when Forrest Gump is running across the country he runs down to this lighthouse and decides it's time to turn around.  So there you go! 

Another of our stops was Rockford, ME which is known for being the home of L.L.Bean.  They had about 5 different stores in town... an outlet, a regular store, a Bike, Hike, & Ski store, etc.  Their presence made the whole place a shopping destination though.  The main street in town looked like a smaller town main street but instead of your typical small town stores they had a Nike, Bass, Coach, GAP, and about 50 others.  It was a fun day of shopping spent there and all I bought was one pair of shoes.  Not bad!

When we finally made it back to Portland we celebrated with a spa day before we had to leave.  That was fantastic!  I had a salt scrub/body polish followed by a 30 minute massage.  I had no idea what to expect but the scrub was pretty nice.  I was all kinds of soft, exfoliated, and relaxed afterwards.

The rest of the trip mostly consisted of eating a TON of lobster (literally, lobster rolls for almost every meal!), going to see a couple of movies, and lots of good talks with my Mom.  I'm glad we finally got to spend this time together.  I think the trip was even more special now that I live farther from my parents and get to see them less.  And Maine was beautiful!