notes from mainecation 1

Hello traveling friends! I am yet again on the road — this time literally as I have driven up to the great vacationland from New York: Maine.

According to the numerous license plates I passed by on the way here, Maine has been dubbed as the vacation state. Generally I guess I agree with this as the weather here has been downright amazing. The last muggy NYC summer weekend smoothly solidified into a crisp autumn air as I drove north in the rented Kia, switching between conversation with esteemed subscriber Vic Dong and vibing out to various K-POP from the years gone by.

Maine is some sort of magical destination in my mind. The wilderness, the north-ness of it all. It’s almost like my fascination with Scandinavia. Something about the coldness makes it feel so new and cool.

Our first day driving up was pretty normal with our first stop being the city of Portland. I’m not sure if it was because I was so tired from driving but to be honest I was not really impressed by the city. But the lobster roll I had was quite good.

Vic and I ended up choosing The Highroller Lobster Co. for dinner. It was definitely styled very well — it had a pretty cohesive retro-ish diner look and even had a full shop of merch. The lobster roll we had was also quite decent. It was served in one of those buttered-up half-toast bun deals, with a bed of lettuce supporting the weight of decently hefty amount of lobster on top. We also ordered some blueberry soda and fries to go with the meal.

I have not had very good experiences with lobster roll. Maybe it’s because I was cheaping out, but for $34 here in Portland, ME I finally felt like I was getting close to what it was worth. The lobster tasted actually good and I at the time felt like it was pretty fresh. I also did like that it came with a bed of lettuce but also felt like … maybe they could have used that space for some more lobster? But that’s just me. The night ended early as we had had a huge travel day, with more traveling the next day.

Generally, not very impressed with Portland. But still cute!

The second day (today) has brought much more joy. While waiting for an Arabic coffee shop to open we walked down to bay(?) to take a quick walk. We were not the only ones taking a walk when we realized we were apparently at either the halfway mark or the half-mile to go mark of the Portland Marathon.

Sometimes I forget how fast the leaders of marathons are moving but to see some of these guys cruise like it’s a sprint is amazing. Sadly our little adventure did not yield good results on the waiting front. Despite watching the marathon for a bit and delaying the day, when we returned to the coffee shop it ended up CLOSED. So we decided to go to one nearby and headed out on our journey.

Our first stop was to visit the trolls in the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. The garden, along with being a refuge for the various flora of costal maine, is also the home of a series of statues created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. Each one of the trolls reflects a certain aspect of the environment (one stands for the leaves, another for the branches, etc.), and even come with some fun anecdotes! For example Søren represents the branches, and when the wind blows he does a little dance! Which is why he looks so excited in this picture.

It’s also just very well organized and filled with great little trails which serve as good warm ups for the national park hiking we will be embarking on in the days to come. The only tragedy this park bestowed upon me was when I was about to leave the god damn park and a mole ran right where I was going to step and I ended up crushing it under foot.

I didn’t realize it in the moment, but I had heard some people nearby (maybe one wearing an Atlanta Braves hat?) groan. But then one of the ladies from the group came to give me a high-five and told me it was a pest. Vic later told me she had seen the mole scurrying across the path and perfectly place itself right at the stop I was about to step. Looking back I do remember the step being suprisingly springy. 

Despite the tragedy we trucked along and got to one of our first lighthouses of the trip: the Marshall Point Lighthouse. Let me just put up this picture and see if anyone can figure it out.

That is RIGHT. This is the exact lighthouse Forest Gump ran to in the movie during his post-Jennie rejection era. It was so cool to see such an iconic scene in real life and very fun to learn about how old lighthouses in the US operated.

Our lighthouse visit lead us to the second lobster roll of the trip and to inform everybody: yes. The food I am rating this trip will be lobster rolls. This will be and has been a much more expensive endeavor than rating poutine but I think that this should be quite fun. So our second lobster roll of the trip ended up being at this place called Claws in Rockland, ME and I think this one takes the cake quite easily.

For $35, each lobster roll came with easily 1.5x the lobster Highroller gave us, as well as a free side of fries with that. Even the lobster tasted more lobstery, and even better I could really tastes the freshness. Now this, I thought as I chewed my lobster, is what the sea tastes like.

The Claws lobster roll is better to the Highroller one in every way possible. It’s simpler to say that this roll is simply a superior one to the Highroller. That’s it. I think I might rate it like a 9/10, and the Highroller a 7.5/10. Because honestly. That’s just what a lobster roll should taste like.

We ended the sightseeing for the day with a long walk along the Rockland Breakwater to check out the lighthouse. It’s a cute little construct, with peeling paint and a keeper with a twirly mustache and a goatee. Just seeing the lighthouse in the middle of the bay with the multicolored trees in the back was enough to make me feel like the stop was worth it.

That was it for the two days! Kind of a long one but I think it was worth it. See you guys in one or two days after some long national park hikes!!!