Freeport, ME - Leon Leonwood

Our journey for the year is almost over - we’ve come to Maine, the last state on our map before we turn around and begin to head on back to Iowa - where friends and relatives live and where our dentists and doctors eagerly await our visits. It’s July 25 and we will get back to Iowa on August 27, a little more than a month from now. It hardly seems like it’s been a year but, on the other hand, trying to remember campsites and places we visited last September seem like years behind us.

Maine just has too many trees. No, I’m just kidding, there are never too many trees. But we loved driving through long passageways lined with trees.

We pulled into our campsite after traversing a 2 - 3 mile dirt road. Nothing against dirt roads but I’m not excited about driving our RV down one. A car, yes but not the RV. Our RV is not happy with potholes and loose rocks. Luckily this road had only washboarding for 3/4 of its length rather than massive potholes. But the washboarding made my teeth rattle.

We set up, called Deb to arrange a meeting and then took off to explore the campground. We always walk the perimeter to check to see if there are any trails around the area. Lots of campground owners put in trails since they suspect that many campers are looking for them. And, today we were lucky since we found a path off into the surrounding woods. Not only had the owner mowed some of the grass, he had also built some sturdy bridges. There were even signs pointing the way. Well, here are 3 signs - all pointing different ways. I did call it ‘exploring’ the campground, didn’t I?

I think this used to be a tree farm since the trees are all in such straight lines. But, a beautiful trail none the less.

The owner of the campground had very carefully nailed arrows to the trees to show us which way the trail went. However, this arrow points about 45 degrees from where the trail actually was. We got to this arrow, then spent a good deal of time trying to find the next arrow, making ever widening circles and - finally - we found it. I’m standing right next to it in the right hand picture above. You can see that the arrow is not pointing at me.

Here’s the map we have on the side of one of our slides to show the states we have stayed in and had some kind of adventure. I put Maine on today, right after we arrived. I took some liberty since we have not stayed a night nor have we had any kind of adventure. Gary called me on it and said that I was cheating. Yep, I cheated - but I help make the rules. Ha, ha. Besides I have every confidence that we will earn that state. We have 3 more states to visit before we hit that Iowa corn. We have some obvious holes, don’t we?

We landed near Freeport, ME which is noted for its beauty on the shores of Casco Bay and also for - shopping - lots of outlet stores - all crowded around the flagship store for LL Bean. And, as you have guessed, this is one of our reasons for visiting Freeport. The other is to visit with friends that we have not seen for 40 years, Deb and Chris. 40 years - how did it all pass so quickly?

We went over to Deb and Chris’s house, which they have lived in for approx. 40 years, their whole married life. They have also had the same employer for the same 40 years, Deb was first an English teacher and now is the English Department Chairperson while Chris is the President of a Banking Association. Not only have Gary and I lived in too many homes to count, we also have had several careers in our lives. I’ve always thought of Gary and me as being stable but we’re pretty flighty compared to Deb and Chris.

The plan was to eat at one of their favorite restaurants on one of the many fingers of land sticking into Casco Bay. Usually they take their boat to the restaurant but the boat is not in the water yet, so we drove. The view out the windows was scrumptious.

Beautiful restaurant and very good food. Haddock was popular with the other three and I got the veggie burger. Oh, yeah, blueberry muffins are their specialty and we all ordered one. Yum.

Pictures afterwards. If I look like I’m in pain, it’s only because the sun was so bright. Hey, note that Gary got into the picture - that’s his arm and iPhone in the lower right.

Back to their home, treats and coffee and excellent conversation. Lots to talk about since it’s been about 40 years.

Then back to the RV.

The next day we hit LL’s flagship for shopping. Now, Gary and I don’t do shopping. We do museums, we do walking, we do battlefield tours, we do lots of things but we don’t do shopping. However, I’ve got a credit and we need a few items so here we are.

Freeport does shopping right: there is FREE parking, and bathrooms throughout the shopping area. You don’t have to go into a restaurant for bathrooms, you don’t have to find a gas station or convenience store - they have public bathrooms and they are marked - even on the handy-dandy local maps that you find everywhere. Pretty cool. Freeport knows what its draw is and they do it up well.
LLBean had what we wanted: new hiking boots, some shirts and shorts for my brother, some mesh shirts for me and we were done. Easy peasy.

We also toured the LL Bean outlet store and found a new day pack and I found 2 new wicking hiking shirts. I know LL takes back anything - they say so in their literature. However, people take advantage of this. I saw a pair of micro spikes which had been worn many times, and a wicking hiking shirt that had several bramble pulls in it. Oh, my.

Found this cool chair: a Lobsta Rocka. And, for $269, you can have one. Looks just like a lobster trap. And, hey, my shoes match.

McDonalds in Freeport - even that fits the architectural scheme. (See the arches in the sign on the right?)

And, that’s our time in Freeport - time to turn around and begin to head back to Iowa for September.
I thought you might appreciate a Lena and Ole joke that I got from a friend of mine:

‘Lena went back to Norway to visit her sister. Back home, Ole was keeping house by himself. Lars asked him if he was lonesome all by himself.

‘Vell, a little’, said Ole. ‘But vunce a veek, I have a voman come in and nag.’