Bairnhess RV Adventures: Maine at Lahst

Portland, ME July 10 - 15, 2013

We made the drive from Plainville, MA into Meadowbrook, Maine with much trepidation. The weather cooperated only bringing us fog to deal with. The drive was uneventful thank God! We arrived at the Meadowbrook Campground after driving 6 miles off the highway on a winding, two lane residential road. We did get a large pull-thru site which was unfortunately right next to the "Snack Shack" and rec hall. As Peg was pulling the rig uphill onto the site the BAT started slipping in the mud; she didn't even flinch just threw her into 4 wheel drive and pulled in like a pro! We were all set up in a matter of minutes and glad that we hadn't lost our knack. We spent the afternoon putting our house back together after being homeless for 40 days. It felt really good to be in our own space once again.

The next full day was spent doing laundry and grocery shopping to restock the fridge. We decided to use the next day to take a "Lighthouse Lover's" cruise around Casco Bay from Portland's waterfront area. It is a great little city with a beautiful waterfront and downtown area. Feels a lot like Austin probably felt 50 years ago. The city's population is less than the total number of people attending and working at UT! The 90 minute cruise was beautiful all around the bay including four different lighthouses, a few forts, many islands and even a dozen sunbathing seals. It felt great to be on the water and the weather was perfect. The tour guide was full of fun facts about Portland; i.e. there used to be so many lobsters that they fed them to the local prisoners until they protested and a law was passed that the inmates could only be fed lobster two times a week! Peg's favorite fun fact was..on a clear day you can only see 26 miles out toward the horizon at sea due to the curvature of the Earth. Who knew! There are still a ton of lobsters in the area as shown by the hundreds of lobster traps throughout the bay. On our way home we stopped at the L.L. Bean Supercenter. This place is like a city all by itself. We wandered around aimlessly for an hour looking at all of the cool outdoor gear and even picked up a couple of much needed items.

Lobstah's are King of the area

Bug Light - Cute as a bug

Portland Head Light

Peak's Island

Seals sunbathing

This is the city's attitude.

We took our required trolley tour the next day which was just as wonderful as the cruise. We saw the entire waterfront, downtown, and the east and west end neighborhoods. We felt like we got a really good feel for the city.

Waterfront for only 2.4 Million

We used our last day to go to the beach. Maine has 3500 miles of coastline, but only 100 miles of sandy beaches. One of the most popular is Popham Beach State Park which was only 8 miles from our campground so we headed over there. As it was Sunday the traffic was pretty heavy by Maine standards and we drove all of the way into the town of Popham Beach looking for parking. On the return trip we were able to get a spot in the parking lot! Woo Hoo. It is a fantastic beach with tons of sand and a nice easy slope into the water with little waves. We never dreamed we would be able to swim because we assumed the water would be too cold, but Peg went in right away. I took a little longer and had to give myself a talking to, but I took the plunge as well. It was invigorating. Fox Island is just off the beach and accessible only during low tide so we took a walk on the beach and over to the island through a few feet of water. On the way back we had to carry our bag in the air as the tide was coming in fast. It was a beautiful day at the beach. We finished off our last day with a lobster feast. The park has a lobster pound on site so you just pick out the lobsters you want and tell them what time you want to pick them up. We picked out two 2 pound lobsters along with corn on the cob and baked potato... Yummy! We feasted on the most delicious lobster until we were stuffed.