Gear
We took 9-foot 5 weight rods with floating lines, which is sliced white sandwich bread, or a Toyota Camry, or a Wilson fielder’s glove. It’s so basic it almost doesn’t need to be said. If all I said was that we took fly rods, like as not you’d assume they were 9-foot 5 weight rods with floating lines.
Rods get heavier than 5 weights, especially in salt water, and lighter, especially because once you’ve bought a 9-foot 5 weight, rod companies depend on you catching rod fever and buying more rods. And buying more rods will almost certainly make you a better angler. Really.
When Kris unpacked her rod the tip was broken. She vaguely remembered breaking it on our trip to California, and vaguely remembered forgetting breaking it. Luckily I’d brought a spare rod—I’m really good about packing a spare—except that I blew it and it wasn’t a spare Winston 5 weight but a Winston 3 weight. I had grabbed the wrong green rod tube. The 3 weight was a bit light, so Kris used the guide’s Orvis 5 weight all week, which was exactly the same model as her broken 5 weight. It’s a good rod.
Back at the lodge, Kris got on the Orvis website and ordered a new tip for her rod. It was waiting at the house when we got home. Kudos to Orvis for great service.
Hotels
In the North Maine Woods we stayed at Libby Camps. Food, lodging, and guides were all included in the trip price we’d paid six months before, so once we got there we only had to pay for alcohol, taxes, and tips. Paying for everything was long forgotten. It felt free!
After we left Libby Camps and the North Woods, we spent two nights on the Atlantic Coast, in Bar Harbor, and one night by the airport in Bangor. Staying in an airport hotel is convenient for early flights, but what can you say? Airport hotels aren’t known for their charm, because, well, universally they have none.
In Bar Harbor we splurged on charm, and stayed in a popular inn a block off of the Main Street, Bass Cottage Inn. We were three flights up with no elevator, but that was ok, or at least once we got our luggage up the three flights it was ok.
The next day while Tropical Storm Lee, née Hurricane Lee, blew through we mostly hung around the inn. This year on fishing trips we’ve survived a tornado in Little Rock and the remnants of a hurricane in Bar Harbor. Travel is so broadening.
Acadia National Park shut down for Hurricane Day, as did a lot of businesses in Bar Harbor. We went for a walk in the rain, and watched the wind and waves in the harbor until we were blown into the nearest place serving lobster and chowder. In the afternoon I played the guitar in our room while the weather reports reminded us it was wet and windy, and later we played cards down in the lobby. It was a nice inn, but by the end of the day even the weather reporters were a little bored.
I got scolded at the inn for entering the kitchen and putting a dirty cup in a dish tub. A staffer nabbed me on the way out of the kitchen, and made certain I knew that it was a working kitchen and that I didn’t belong. Do I seem annoyed? I was annoyed. It wasn’t like I had pranced into the heart of the kitchen to mingle maple syrup with the lobster. It was a mild scolding, maybe only an admonishment, but still. Kris would tell me I’m overreacting about something petty, but there you are. You take your victim as you find them.
It wasn’t even my cup. It was Kris’s cup.
The morning after the storm we drove through Acadia National Park, about 20 minutes from downtown Bar Harbor. There were lots of cute tourist lodges near the park, far from the Bar Harbor main drag, cute clapboard places that looked like they were built for auto trips in a 1968 Buick LeSabre, and I kept wishing we’d stayed at one of those. It would have been cheaper, and I’m certain no one there would have scolded me, no matter what I did with their damned ol’ cup.
Really. I’m over it.
Restaurants
There are four main food groups in Maine, lobster, blueberries, maple syrup, and chowder. While visiting Maine, we tried to keep our diet properly balanced. Outside of Libby Camp, we ate a lot of lobster, blueberries, maple syrup, and chowder, though not necessarily at the same time.
A few restaurants stood out. In Bar Harbor, we ate at Havana, which is a Cuban-tinged restaurant, and there was a good classical guitarist. He played a lot of things that I play, only better. I vaguely recall eating scallops, which aren’t very Cuban, but which are very Maine. I don’t remember seeing black beans and rice on the menu.
In Bernard at Thurston’s Lobster Pound the guy two tables over had on an Astros cap, and I told him that it was very stylish. He complemented mine right back. We had lobster there, and Thurston’s is now closed for the season.
The most popular restaurant in Bangor is the Timber Kitchen and Bar, located at the Embassy Suites. I’d never been to a restaurant at an Embassy Suites. It had the longest menu ever compiled, and the pizza was good. I could have done without the blueberry compote on the pizza though.((I’m lying. They served it on the side.))
Moxie
Moxie is the state soft drink of Maine. I asked our fishing guide, Jeffrey Labree, about Moxie, and he said it must be the greatest advertising campaign ever, because the stuff is terrible. He brought me one, and because it’s guaranteed to prevent softening of the brain I tried it.
Maybe it wasn’t quite the thing with red wine. A Mainer at the table asked if I’d ever had Dr. Pepper and said it tasted like Dr. Pepper. She was wrong.
Acadia National Park
What a beautiful place. It was closed the day of the storm, so the day we were supposed to go we spent in our hotel room in Bar Harbor playing card games and getting admonished for walking into the kitchen. The next morning we drove the national park loop. What a magnificent place. We didn’t stop at the park’s Jordan Pond House tea room because we didn’t have a reservation, but my sister told me later that they’d make room if you showed up, and that the blueberry popovers really are all that. I forgot to ask if they came with maple syrup.
L.L. Bean
We didn’t spend enough time in Acadia because we wanted to see Maine’s other national treasure, L.L. Bean. We had to drive out of our way, but how could we not visit L.L. Bean? Freeport is a shopping enclave, and everybody and their dog was there, literally, enjoying a beautiful post-storm day in the great outdoors by shopping indoors at L.L. Bean. It is a great place to dog watch and people watch on a sunny day.
There was a Vermont Flannel company store next to L.L. Bean, and I bought a red flannel shirt that promised it was Made in America. It’s so heavy that I’ve already scheduled the one day next February that I’ll get to wear it in Houston. Still. I’m now prepared for my future career as a Maine lumberjack.
Books
While we were driving around Maine, we listened to the new Steven King novel, Holly. Did you know that there is always a new Steven King novel? It’s almost like the plot of a horror novel. I’m guessing that it has to do with the long winters and not the supernatural, but if it turns out that Steven King sold his soul down on the crossroads, I’m not sure I’ll be surprised. Holly was as much mystery as horror, and it’s a good driving novel. I also re-listened to Salem’s Lot, which I first read in college. It holds up pretty well.
We visited Steven King’s house in Bangor, and were told by locals that sometimes he does house tours, and that when It was published he put a red balloon in an upstairs window. That’s mighty classy. It’s a scary neighborhood though: apparently Senator Susan Collins lives directly across the street. I wouldn’t go out at night. I’m certain she’s some kind of shape-shifter.
I’ve already mentioned that before we went to Maine I had read Thoreau’s The Maine Woods, and I was better for it. Because I read Thoreau I knew I needed a red flannel shirt.
There’s a series of Maine mysteries by Paul Doiron, the Mike Bowditch mysteries, about a Maine game warden. The books are great for local color, and a lot of fun to listen to. It was from the Mike Bowditch mysteries that I learned about Moxie.
There are two major poets from Maine, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edna St. Vincent Millay, neither of whom wrote about Moxie. I must have read some Longfellow at some point, but I can’t say I remember any. Weirdly, because of Evangeline, Longfellow is probably as well remembered in Louisiana as Maine.
Millay is mostly remembered these days as a bisexual free spirit and morphine addict, but I always pause when I come across one of her poems. There’s almost always something there to ponder:
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
Renascence
Music
Patty Griffin. Sorry, that’s almost all I’ve got. Doris Day recorded “That Jane from Maine,” and Rudy Vallee was from Maine. Howie Day seems likable. Apparently the long winters are better for writing horror novels than for making music.
As an aside, the It Girl of popular music right now seems to be a guy from Vermont, Noah Kahan. It’s low-key stuff, with plenty of banjoes and fiddles, very likable, and a New York Times critic noted that one of the reasons for Kahan’s current popularity may be that New Englanders so rarely have a popular music icon to embrace, so they’ve embraced Kahan with a vengeance.
So we listened to Patty Griffin, who, last I heard, was living in Austin. Then we listened to more Patty Griffin. Luckily Steven King was there to take up the driving slack.
Guitar
Between the one day that Kris and I were sick and the day of the storm I played the guitar a lot in Maine. I think with the windshield washers slapping time I managed to play every song that driver knew, or at least most of the songs that I know. Libby Camps gave me a free sticker, and it’s now in a place of honor on my guitar case.
Great place, Libby Camps, and for at least part of the year it’s an excellent place to sit on the front porch of the lodge and play the guitar. I wouldn’t want to try it in winter, even in a red lumberjack shirt.
