Edra took the first shift, while I slept. When I opened my eyes, I was amazed to see how beautiful upstate New York was—I had no idea! It was just gorgeous—lush, green trees everywhere and a super nice smooth road. I would definitely return to visit up here, especially since we didn’t have time to stop in Cooperstown and see the baseball hall of fame.
The rest stops along the drive were awesome—bathrooms, food and gas stations every few miles, which was a nice change of pace. We were used to gassing up whenever we saw a station, because sometimes we didn’t see one for hours.
Unfortunately, McDonald’s had a lock on the rest area food, because it was the only restaurant we saw. We stopped for a quick breakfast, but later on passed several other McDonald’s in search of something different for lunch. But after a while, we realized there were no other choices off the through-way, so we finally broke down and ate McDonald's for lunch, too. (Which was entirely too much McDonald’s for anybody—we grimaced every time we saw the golden arches for the rest of the trip—no pun intended!)
We were still playing the license game we’d started in California. We’d seen cars from almost every state, with a few last exceptions. Mark spotted one of the remaining states, Alaska, at a toll booth in New York, and we all cheered. Now we just needed Washington D.C. and Delaware to finish the game and color in all the states.
Turns out the New York through-way is the entrance to the Land of the Toll Road. We went through a lot of states today—New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and finally, Maine—and each time we entered one, we’d see a “Welcome to [state name]!” sign, and right behind it was a “Toll booth ahead” sign. The one good thing about those roadside McDonald’s was that they also had ATMs, so luckily, we had enough money to pay the tolls, even though we could never figure out how much they were (the cost varied by how far you’d driven).
The sign below was a really exciting sign, for two reasons. 1) It said Maine on it, which was the first time we’d seen a sign to our final destination, and 2) It said New Hampshire, which meant we were going the right way. I’d told Amber we weren’t going through New Hampshire and she panicked, insisting we had to go through New Hampshire to get to Maine. She worried we would bypass New Hampshire and end up in Canada, so I texted her this sign to reassure her we were close.
Since we hadn’t stopped anywhere except the rest areas, we took Amber’s recommendation and stopped in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to stretch our legs for a bit. It was the cutest little town, with old brick buildings and cute stores. Even though the buildings were classic Americana, the vibe was definitely modern liberal, and I felt like I would get along well with the New Hampshire people and their many brew pubs. In one of the stores, I saw a refrigerator magnet that pretty much explained my 20s. It said, “College ruined my reputation, my credit and my liver.” Yup, seems about right!
Amber had said that Portsmouth was about an hour from Portland. I wasn’t expecting to leave Portsmouth and instantly enter Maine, but that’s exactly what happened. We drove over the bridge, and on the other side, we saw the Welcome to Maine sign and cheered. We were immediately welcomed by some young locals in the next lane, who saw our license plate and started yelling, “California, YEAH!” Then they lapsed into some inappropriate hand gestures that I’m sure were NOT the official greeting used by any Mainers with a decent upbringing. It was rude, hilarious and unbelievable all at the same time, a surreal end to the road trip.
We had a bit of stress when we realized our offramp was closed, but Adele, our trusty GPS, re-calculated and suggested a different exit. We beat Amber home by about 20 minutes, so we took the time to explore the neighborhood. We shrieked how cute her house was (OK, only I shrieked), then walked down her quiet, cute little street.
A few minutes later, Amber arrived, and there was much rejoicing. We unpacked our car Bruno for the final time, which turned out to be more systematic than sad, because we were hungry, and just wanted to be away from the car.
Amber drove us to the most adorable place for dinner—a lobster shack!
I give the lobster roll here 10 claws out of 10--it was lobster roll perfection! It was my first one, and the best of the trip! The coleslaw was also amazing, and notable because usually I don’t bother with coleslaw. But this one was good!
But this was not just any lobster shack—it was the best one in Maine! It was on the cliffs of a rocky beach, nestled between the water and a lighthouse. And it was at sunset—it couldn’t get any more Maine than that!
Mark loved it because he could chuck rocks into the ocean. Edra and I loved it because in addition to having unbelievably good food, we were in the company of both Amber and the ocean, which we had come to miss dearly during our inland jaunt across the U.S. (Turns out being enveloped in all that land so long made us feel claustrophobic.) It may not have been our beloved Pacific Ocean, but it was the sea, and still made us feel at home.
We savored the food, the company, the beautiful flowers and the funky art surrounding us. We had such a blast that we didn’t even notice it had grown dark and everyone else had left!
Between all the talking, laughing and carrying, we suddenly looked up to see the picnic tables and the parking lot were both empty!
But Amber wasn’t ready to take us home just yet. We learned on this trip that the rest of the country takes their ice cream very seriously, mostly because ice cream stores are only open part of the year. They’re all outdoor places, with picnic tables and big crowds, which is kind of cool. Seems like the whole town comes out after dinner to socialize and enjoy their frozen treats. It's a great way to socialize, and get out in the community.
So Amber honored a request for our daily ice cream. She took us to a funny little shack attached to a gas station that was famous for not only its ice cream, but for it’s funny seating area—plastic chairs nailed together to planks of wood. They looked like rows of chairs on skis! But hey, they worked—no one had stolen the chairs.
I could’ve spent all day looking at the menu—it had all sorts of crazy flavors, including banana, two kinds of walnut ice creams, Grapenuts (yup, the cereal), cake batter and grasshopper ice cream. But the dairy was closing, so I quickly chose a scoop of moose tracks, which was vanilla with chocolate swirls and Heath Bar in it. It was wicked good.
The cashier closed the window and turned off the open sign, but we sat outside eating our cones anyway. Which proved to be kinda mean, because people on the road saw us, pulled into the lot, and sauntered over to order their own cones—only to be told it was closed!
We didn’t get home until 10 that night. We were exhausted because of our early morning and long drive, but we ended our day on a sugar high, tired, happy, and thrilled not to have to drive anywhere the next day. And best of all, we got to see Amber, and we were going to spend the next week playing with her. Yahooooooo for Maine!
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