Saturday, August 02, 2008
Posted at 2:39:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Maine lobster rolls, in chronological order: (top row) Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster, Maine Diner, and Portland Lobster Company; (second row) Fore Street, Mac's Seafood, and The Lost Gull. Which one was the yummiest? Stay tuned for my complete day-by-day reviews! :-)
Friday, August 01, 2008
Finished my Maine Food Pyramid! That is, Laura's Maine Food Pyramid--i.e., foods eaten by me while we were in Maine. It's pretty well-balanced, don't you think? I'm particularly fond of the Lobster Level.
Posted at 9:27:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It's so beautiful out today. Blue and fluffy, and Suder blueberries! Also, perfect, red, ripe, heavy Suder tomatoes. At last! I think I moaned when I saw them. I feel extra-happy and relaxed from Maine. Must work on my Maine Food Pyramid.
Posted at 5:26:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 12:07:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We're back from Sunny Maine (as of last night)! I made ten thousand notes on my Treo and e-mailed them to Blogger to save as drafts (very nifty feature, that), so a full report will be back-posted soon. I just need to edit the drafts and add pictures.
I also desperately need to update my Weird Foods I've Eaten list, as a direct result of this trip!
P.S. I love Maine!!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tango was waiting for us when we arrived at Oxford Aviation, touchups complete and new flippy wingtips installed. They're pretty cute. Dean thinks they look bird-ish. They're supposed to improve performance [Dean's edit: Specifically, increase cruise speed 2-3 mph, improve rate of climb 40-70 ft/min, increase stability/handling, reduce stall speed 2-3 mph, & reduce take-off roll]. Here's a photo, but the difference is pretty subtle. It's cooler looking from inside the plane, like in the flying-home photo below. They're more contoured than before and there's a little flipup on the end, near the aileron.
Posted at 3:01:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Before we left Oxford, but after we checked out Tango, we zipped over to The Lost Gull for one last lobster roll. Yeah. :-) It's really close to the Oxford airport, and I'd had one there last August, but didn't have my camera with me at the time. It's a tiny shack (not quite as tiny as Mac's Seafood) and there were a bunch of fishermen there getting food, so you know it's good. The Lost Gull's is a very moist and tasty classic Maine lobster roll. (Here's a side view.) Buttered and grilled New England style bun, very very light mayo (not noticeable), no lettuce or celery. Paprika on top (not a noticeable flavor either). Excellent lobster, but Maine Diner still wins. Maine Diner's exceptionally buttery tasting roll can't be beat. (Even so, my overall favorite lobster roll ever remains Kimball Farm's in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.)
We had to dodge a bunch of thunderstorm/heavy rain clouds flying home, but it was really neat and beautiful being up there with all those huge clouds. At one point we had to go through a mean one and I got to see what "moderate turbulence" feels like. It was raining really hard and was pretty bouncy and I had to tighten my seatbelt to stay in my seat. Exciting! The controllers were looking out for us, guiding us through the clouds and allowing us to divert around the tallest ones when possible. We went through cool tunnels like this when we could, to get through the thick clouds to the clear sky on the other side.
When we landed at Brainard, the lighting was so pretty, and I snapped a nice shot of the tower with Hartford in the background. One of those hangars to the right of the tower is ours.
One last coffee shop before we checked out of our hotel, then we stopped at the India Street Amato's to get Dean a veggie Italian. He brought it to Mac's Seafood in Auburn to eat with me while I had my breakfast lobster roll. Mac's was not only 1) on the way to the airport, but also 2) recommended to me by the nice Oxford Aviation guy who gave us a ride to The Lost Gull when we visited Oxford last August to plan Tango's paint job.
Posted at 1:49:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It was raining when we got to Mac's, a tiny joint on the side of the road, and I thought at first that we'd have to eat in the car because the picnic tables were all wet, but there was a small counter inside, and the Mac's guy said it would be fine if Dean ate his Italian there too. We were the only customers. I got to choose whether I wanted the lobster with mayonnaise, plain, or buttered (I went for mayonnaise) and he asked me if I wanted my roll toasted (of course). As we waited at the counter, I could see him cooking it a few feet away on the griddle, a smusher weight (like an old-fashioned iron) on top. When he gave me the lobster roll I found out it was actually on a hamburger bun instead of a New England roll! The lobster salad was already inside while he grilled it, but it remained cool, contrasting deliciously with the warm, crisp, golden brown buttery outside.
First words (after much eye-bulging): "Wow. This is the best one yet!" No lettuce, celery, etc. Just lob, mayonnaise, and subtle seasonings. I'm not sure why I liked it so much--it just tasted really good! My eyes sproinged out a lot when I first started eating it, but I didn't moan or whimper. I think Maine Diner was secretly still better because I don't quite approve of the weird roll, but it sure was good. Very very yummy lobster salad and Mac's is a little seafood shack with a big lobster tank, no customers, and a guy who cooks it right there behind the counter. How cool is that??
Dean's Italian from Amato's was good, too! He said he'd get it all the time if we had Amato's in Connecticut. Fluffy grinder/Italian roll, open on the top with lots of cheese and big veggie chunks piled on top. Exposed top and larger veggies really enhanced the taste. Much less fast food-ish than a Subway. Tasty salt, pepper & oil seasoning also.
Afterthought: Mac's was much easier to eat than a normal lobster roll because it was more contained, but it did sort of seem like cheating!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
We walked around the city a bit this afternoon, but it was late-ish after the massage session (very very well done massage at the Regency's spa; I was impressed!) so we mostly just had drinks (another excellent short cappuccino) at a coffee shop and checked out the one-and-only Angela Adams store and a neat little skinny fabric shop with a small collection of great designs. Portland is such a cool city... I would love to return, and walk around more another time. It has really interesting city-ish shops, like New York, but it's so quiet and uncrowded. It almost felt like we had the whole city to ourselves at times.
Posted at 8:28:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
For dinner, we walked to Fore Street, which was also quite close to our hotel. We didn't have reservations because we didn't know if we'd stay the fourth night (it depended partly on how soon Tango's treatments were done), but Fore Street holds a third of their dining room tables for walk-ins, so we showed up at the door a little after five, and they said we could be seated at ten of six. We visited Angela Adams and the fabric shop, came back, and it was perfect timing. Since we were eating much earlier than the previous nights and were seated by a window, and I had my camera with me while walking around, I got some very nice photos.
Laura's Items:
1) Stonefruit (nectarine and apricot) and mixed lettuce salad with roasted filberts. It was so pretty!
2) Maine lobster roll (butter poached lobster, toasted roll, mayonnaise, fresh tomato relish) appetizer. Yeah, obviously, I had to order this whether I wanted to or not.
3) Pan-seared livers of Maine farm-raised chicken and rabbit (Warren and Harrison, rainier cherries, bourbon pan sauce) appetizer. I'd had rabbit, and I'd had liver, but I'd never had rabbit livers.
Dean's Items:
1) Wild mushroom and sweet corn soup with garden tomatoes.
3) Fettuccine with sweet corn sauce, basil, capriano.
3) Roasted summer squash side dish.
Shared Items:
1) Wood oven baked tomato tart (tomato, butter pastry, Maine farm goat cheese, fresh herbs) appetizer. Yum. I saw this being prepared as we walked by the prep kitchen area and had to have it.
2) Ripe Maine summer berries (high bush blueberries from Bowdoinham, low bush blueberries from Warren, crème fraîche, lemon curd, maple sugar) dessert. The high bush berries were big like South Glastonbury berries, and the low bush were Maine-style, intense, tiny, and sweet.
Lobster Roll Analysis:
First mutter = "good lobster."
A more substantial homemade-style NE bun, buttered and grilled. Stronger tasting lobster, but the pieces were too big so it was too hard to gnaw. Lettuce, mayo, and tomato relish on the side (none of which I really used). Lobster was lightly buttered. It was a good attempt at a fancy version of a lobster roll, but a lobster roll really shouldn't be fancy. Worst lobster roll of the trip. (It was still good, though.)
Everything else was very very very good. Dean really liked all of his items. My rabbit livers were delectable. (They all looked like rabbit livers to me... I didn't see any little chicken livers!) They were better than any of the weird foods from Evangeline. We both thought the very simple fresh blueberry dessert was extremely nice, although it couldn't really compare with what we got at Five Fifty-Five. Dean liked the sweet Maine blueberries best and I liked the slightly tart So. Glastonbury kind. But both were quite amazing, especially drizzled in the delicately sour crème fraîche, like very fine goat's milk yogurt.
I would call Fore Street a "country kitchen" style restaurant. It was very good. Simple, fresh, tasty, larger portions. Copper tabletops and sunlight streaming through 19th-century windows. A slower pace/slower service than 555. Five Fifty-Five was our favorite, but Fore Street was the perfect way to end our visit to Portland.
Today's our Portland day, so breakfast/lunch was at the Portland Lobster Company, right on the water in the Old Port section of town. Bob R. told me it's the best lobster roll in Portland! It's very close to our hotel, so we walked there, but they don't open until 11:00 and the door was still locked when we arrived at 10:40-ish, so we walked around while we were waiting, and checked out a cool and fishy gourmet food store down the street, where I bought a grinder of Sloth. Of all the combo choices, I went straight for the Sloth (without yet noticing it was called Sloth). Not too surprising I guess...
Posted at 11:51:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Anyway, back at Portland Lobco, we were the first customers in the door (the only reason we were out & about so early was a 12:00 massage appointment back at our hotel...), and ordered our veggie burger, lobster roll and Maine blueberry pie inside, then waited on the deck with a lightup buzzy lobster that would let us know when to fetch our food at the pick-up window. I couldn't believe how beautiful and intensely blue the sky looked.
First mutter: "Good lobster." My lobster roll had no mayo, but instead a light drizzle of melted butter was ladled on top. Big piece of lettuce liner. Nicely toasted, buttered NE bun. (Here's a side view.) That's it--very pure lobster experience. Mild, very fresh tasting lobster. Lob more tender than Harraseeket L&L. Quality product, but not my personal preference taste-wise. I like a stronger lobster taste and a little mayonnaise. Their wild Maine blueberry pie was my fav though!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Posted at 9:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Evangeline. A restaurant that shares its name with a great Band song, and was recommended to me by Bob R. He declared it his favourite place and called it, "as close to a Paris bistro as you can get outside of France." It's a pretty new restaurant, having just opened this April. We could feel that newness, that it wasn't all the way broken-in yet, not like a Five Fifty-Five or a Fore Street [where we had dinner on Wednesday]. But the menu offered the following first course items (among others slightly less unusual): escargot (snails), Everglades grenouille (frog's legs), cervelles de veau (calf's brains) fritter, and marrow bones. Which to choose?? Dean said I should get them all, so that's what I did. Escargot at appetizer time, and the other three while he had his entree.
Now, the thing is, if you examine the bottom of my (as yet not updated) Weird Foods I've Eaten list, you'll notice that the "Weird foods I will never eat" section contains but two items, one of which is "Brains of any kind, even though I want to. Mad cow disease and its cousins are way too scary." Yet what do I do when confronted with an actual opportunity to taste calf's brain? I order it, of course. It was not even much of a dilemma. Okay, I knew the brains would be on the menu ahead of time, so it wasn't a surprise. Still, I hadn't decided until then if I would actually order it. I might have turned it down if there was some other, more exciting, choice that I could have picked instead. But when the opportunity arose to have a whole meal of nothing but weird stuff... I mean, come on, I had to do it.
The brains were from Story Hill Farm in Pennsylvania. If prions are currently eating away at my brain, it's all their fault. (Ak. Now I'm never going to read an article about Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease again.) Dean got an endive salad (which was kind of weird and very endivey) for his appetizer, and a chef's surprise for his entree since there weren't any vegetarian entrees on the menu. The chef's creation turned out to be a white asparagus risotto.
So here's my report on what I ordered:
Escargot - They were much chompier and pure snailier than any escargot I've had before. (I've ordered escargot many times; I'm quite fond of them.) More in touch with the snail. They weren't served in butter in one of those cool pewter snail broiler dishes with an indentation for each snail, but instead it was just a small pile of snails placed in the sunken center of a very large white plate. Not bad, but a little too simple and chewy.
Brains - As I ate it, I tried to report on what it reminded me of. First I said sweetbreads (Dean and I cracked up, thinking of poor Sam), then I realized it tasted even more like shad milt! Creamy white in the center with light-tan breading outside. Salty. This was my favorite dish! [Hmm... good call on the sweetbreads comparison, because my fav food resource says brains and sweetbreads can be used interchangeably in most recipes!]
Bone Marrow - You can tell it comes from a beast; tastes meaty and very rich. Reminded me of foie gras. The two large marrow-filled bones were served with a super-long twisted handled spoon with a scoop on the end (kind of like a tiny extra extra longhandled melon baller), with which you scoop out the marrow, then spread it on crostini. This was my least favorite dish, and the only one that I thought bordered on disgusting. It was very impressive looking, though. Also, I kept thinking about Taffy (of my fav nursery rhyme, Taffy was a Welshman) the entire time I was eating it, including the illustration in my Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever. I did not mention this to Dean, because I knew he'd say, "Huh??" and it would have been way too much work to try to explain.
Frog Legs - Dean asked, "Does it taste like chicken?" and I laughed and said, "Yeah, how did you know?" I have had frog's legs a couple of times before, and they've never been my favorite dish ever, but they were pretty good, if you like gnawing on little legs with tiny feet on the ends, with flesh that tastes like very tender chicken.
For dessert we had a "Fig Newton." I didn't expect it to resemble actual Fig Newtons, but it did! It was like homemade Fig Newtons. Bizarre. (It did not compete with 555's "Zucchini Bread.")
I didn't have my camera (I don't bring it to dinner restaurants) but when I realized I was ordering a pure Weird Foods meal, I wanted to record what they looked like, so I snapped a few candlelight photos with my Treo. They look practically like they're in black and white, but they're still kind of interesting and arty looking, so here they are anyway:
1) My three second course dishes (with Dean's risotto in the background).
2) What remained of my frog's legs, after I'd eaten them. (That sauce was actually bright green, and the little round things are some extra capers, I think.)
4) The "Fig Newton" dessert. (The farthest-away object, that looks kind of like a piece of sushi, is a fig.)
5) Our very nice-looking bill.
Since my photos turned out so bad, I've provided a much clearer hand-drawn version of my meal at the top of this post as well. It's not entirely to scale. :-)
Mainely Kids (my one chosen guidebook) steered us right, too! Fort Foster in Kittery is quiet with plenty of parking by the time we showed up at around 3:30. We walked out to the end of the pier (I love my hair in that photo! ha!) and all the way down the rocky beach. Tide is low, and just turning. It's so quiet here. Maine is quiet. Mainers are quiet. I'm going to go tidepooling!
Posted at 4:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
...I found a family of four green sea urchins!! I've never found a live sea urchin in a non-tropical land before. I have no idea how I found them; I guess it was just my special echinoderm-sensing blood. Two were big (2 1/2" and 3") and two were tiny (3/4"). Waded and waded among tons and tons of ropey seaweed, parting the strands, peering beneath. The ocean was warm and the ocean was numbingly painfully cold but mostly it was just pleasantly cold--the kind of Atlantic ocean-cold that you get used to and it feels merely cool. I got wet up to mid-thighs (I tried to roll up my shorts, but they got wet, then dried, salty-white high-water mark remaining). Dean relaxed in his cool new chair while I rock-climbed and waded far far away, out into the distance.
Posted at 4:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Another excellent pick! The Maine Diner in Wells was classic, and completely different than the lobster shack yesterday. The Lobster Roll Guy steered us right!
The diner is a happenin' joint and was very busy, but we were seated right away. Dean took advantage of the "Breakfast Anytime" policy and settled on Eggs Florentine (yum!!), while of course my choice was easy: lobster roll! First sound muttered: "Mmmmmm." (Note: Dean's the one who keeps track on the "first sound muttered" front... I'm too busy muttering it.) Light mayo, no lettuce, more intense lobster (stronger, less sweet) than Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster. Buttered, grilled roll was exceptional. Very buttery taste. [Here's a side view that shows the roll.] Lots of lobster; big chunks (not quite as big as Kimball). Pure and simple. A premium lobster roll. Halfway through, I cried, "I don't want it to be done!" and started wimpering while eating. Dean thought I was exaggerating, but I wasn't. (I was also very impressed with the cole slaw.)
The blueberry pie had sweet Maine blueberries, and was served warm, with a big scoop of melty vanilla ice cream on top. More substantial crust than yesterday. [This was Dean's favorite pie of the trip, and I guess it was mine too, because it was warm and à la mode, but that's an unfair advantage. I'm not a big crust fan and I like smushier crusts better, but that's just me. I'm not really a pie person. I do agree that this pie was technically the best and was very homemade diner pie-ish.] Here's a photo of the Classic New England outside of the diner. The Maine Diner was great!!!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Five Fifty-Five is New York City quality (incredible flavor combinations, and very innovative), but nicer (more space, quiet, fresh local ingredients, easy to get reservations...) because it's in Maine.
Posted at 9:13:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean got 1) Summer Beet Tarte-Tatin (Fishbowl Farm's organic beets, melted leaks, and horseradish spiked chevre) and 2) Summer Vegetable Risotto (fava beans, chanterelle mushrooms, and Vermont mascarpone) and I got 1) "Figs in a Blanket" (mission figs, prosciutto, maytag blue cheese mousse, toasted almonds) and 2) a "Knuckle Sandwich" (Casco Bay lobster combined with avocado aioli and fresh peas, sandwiched between layers of fried green tomato). They were all amazing, but the Knuckle Sandwich was unbelievable. It was SO GOOD. I'd never had fried green tomatoes before, and they were incredible, especially combined with the chilled lobster. What a genius combination. I also got a "Cucumbers in Tequila" drink that tasted exactly like Aunt Sarah's vinegared cucumbers. I mean exactly. In a drink form. Maybe it doesn't sound like it, but it was really good. I would order it everywhere if I could!
I picked out our dessert, and Dean was very skeptical about my pick until he tasted it and realized he never should have doubted my innate ability to discern the one true tongue massage on the menu by careful reading of the fine print descriptions. It was called "Zucchini Bread" but it was actually a thin stadium of light, moist, 3/8" thick zucchini bread filled with crème fraîche that had salted caramel sauce drizzled on top. Peach compote on the side. Mint subtly mixed in, somewhere. Didn't resemble actual zucchini bread at all. Dean quote: "That was one of the best desserts I can remember!" Total agreement.
After HL&L we drove to the nearby Desert of Maine, which we thought was going to be hokey, but it was actually quite interesting. The whole reason we went is that I had two old postcards from there, which my dad's elementary school friend Quentin had sent him in 1949. (The very best part about the postcards is that the address just says, "Gene Whaples, Storrs Conn" and that's all that was needed to get them delivered! No house number or road name or anything.) Anyway, since we're goofs, we had to go to the Desert of Maine solely because of these highly entertaining postcards.
Posted at 4:08:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
As we arrived, a 30-minute tour was just about to begin, and the gift shop lady asked if we wanted to join it, so we said "Sure!!" and leaped on. The tour guide lady was really good. She drove us around the dunes and we got to see 100-foot trees halfway buried in sand, the forest where the desert stops, and the site of the Spring House (built as a tourist attraction in 1938 and completely buried in sand dunes by 1962), which is on one of my postcards. It was mostly covered in sand when Quentin visited, but the roof was still sticking out. Now there's just a marker to show where it is underneath. In 1949 when Quentin visited, the desert was still growing, and they thought it would keep growing, but it's shrinking now (it's currently about 50 acres; at its largest it was around 500) and pockets of plants are coming back in, re-creating topsoil and allowing the land to slowly revert back to native forest.
The whole reason the desert happened is that the Tuttle family cleared the land, circa the 1780s, planted years of potatoes and failed to rotate their crops, then grazed sheep there until they ate the grass down to nothing and all the topsoil eroded, revealing glacial sand that spread and spread and spread, overtaking the entire farm. The Tuttles had to abandon the land, and it was turned into a tourist attraction in 1925. Pretty good lesson on the importance of rotating crops!!
Back in the gift shop after the tour, I showed the guide my old Quentin postcards and she was really interested and looked them over in detail, making lots of comments. I even made her read the backs! :-) She showed the rest of the staff and the son of the owners (she wanted to show the owners, but they weren't around), who made color copies for their display. I was really surprised that they didn't have either postcard already in their collection.
Here's our official Desert of Maine photo, taken by the tour guide in front of some of the sand dunes.
[Oh yeah, I also got horehound drops at the gift shop! And one Maine-flavored candy. But I wish I got a whole bag of Maine-flavored candies, because I was real hungry at 6 o'clock and I ate it and it was so good!!! Maine candies are the best!!]
After the Desert, Dean "roped" me into going to the L.L. Bean flagship store (he claims I hate L.L. Bean, but I actually think L.L. Bean is fine and was perfectly happy to go... I just don't personally have much interest in it). We left at least two hours later (closer to three, I think), several quality L.L. Bean products for Dean in hand. It was a very huge store, and even had a Coffee by Design cafe on the top floor. I got a short cappuccino and it was superb. Microfoam, good coffee, naturally sweet foam. I really liked getting a short! I also got postcards and some cranberry soap that smells incredible. And now I know that Dean is a huge Bean Brain. I can't believe we've been married for almost 13 years and I didn't know he was such an L.L. Bean fan!! He claims he used to own many fine L.L. Bean products before we were married but doesn't anymore because I wouldn't "let" him get any! What the heck!!! Dean is so silly. Here's Dean modeling his brand new Tropic-Weight Flight Jacket in front of the giant flagship store boot. So spiffy.
We didn't go to any of the Freeport outlet stores, but we did go to a cool British store that had frozen STEAK AND KIDNEY PIE!!! Aaaaaagh!!! It was SUCH a huge TEASE!! If only it had been in Connecticut, I could've bought it and heated it up in the oven and EATEN KIDNEYS!!!
Posted at 12:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
First Maine lobster roll of the trip: Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster in Freeport, on the way to the Desert of Maine.
First word muttered upon eating: "Wow!"
Definitely a no-complaints lobster roll. [Wow, does it look good in that picture!] Perfectly grilled, buttered, New England-style bun. Light green lettuce (could have been a little crunchier, but I won't complain about that), no celery, very light mayo, and some subtle speckled seasoning. Otherwise, pure fresh Maine lobster. Smaller than Kimball Farm's but still a fine size.
Dean's NOTE: Although it was very good, Laura did not moan while eating her lobster roll (unlike Kimball, which draws at least a dozen moans during one eating session).
Our shared Maine blueberry pie was delicious. Smushy top, intense blueberry taste, and very sweet. Dean's veggie burger was good too--came with a nice bun, lettuce, tomato, and mayo just like Kimball.
Add to that the big plus that Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster is a classic seafood shack, right at the town landing, overlooking the ocean, with an order window and picnic tables to eat your chow at when your number is called. After we polished off our pie, we walked over see the sights and smell the smells. There was a sign about fishing rules for different types of fish, including SHAD, with a cute shad picture. We watched a fisherman employing a hoist ("$10 per use") to lower big barrels of yucky salted smelly cut-up bait fish with eyeballs and flies. (I walked over to check out the contents when we wasn't looking.) It was great! There wasn't even much of a line at HL&L. Great first Maine lobster experience!
GPS Guy: "Take Exit 20, on right, to Dessert Road."
Posted at 11:41:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Then he started correctly saying "Desert" after a few times of us laughing at him! (Maybe the Guy had Maine blueberry pie on his mind...)
Sunday, July 27, 2008
We stopped at Jaffrey on the way to Maine--fuel for Tango and a Kimball Farm lobster roll for me, to start off the trip with the known high-water mark, the lobster roll to which all future lobster rolls would be compared. I moaned a lot while eating it. I left my camera in the plane, though, so I don't have a photo. But here's my most recent Kimball Farm lobster roll photo (from May), as a benchmark.
Posted at 5:08:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Landed at the Auburn-Lewiston airport in Auburn Maine to pick up our rental car (Oxford Aviation, where Tango's getting his touch-ups and mods, is closed on Sundays, so we can't pick up a car there when we leave Tango), and I drove from Auburn to Oxford while Dean flew the rest of the way. Auburn was a nice little airport, and it was a really fun drive on nice quiet back roads, only about 20 minutes. I had a lot of trouble finding a good radio station (there are ten zillion contemporary country music stations in Maine--weird!!!), and none of them came in very well, but I finally picked out an okay one. I saw Tango flying along above me as I was driving along!
Maine Game (spot the Maine things):
big sign: Maine Coon Kittens!
snowmobile on a yellow caution sign
roadside stand of Maine lowbush blueberries
Gifford's ice cream
straw moose & moose sign
Italians [sandwich] sign
Poland Spring HQ
Smokey Bear - Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires
lobsters
