Maine Notes

We escaped the heat dome for most — but not all — of the week at our usual haunt of Belfast, Maine. We’re back in Virginia now. This town on Penobscot Bay has some fine restaurants, not too pricey, and at least three bookstores. One is a “romance bookstore.” You can always park on the main drag, no parking meters. I could imagine resettling up there and spending the winters in Miami with my daughter and my new grand-daughter. You can get something on the water without breaking the bank.

The photo was taken from the door of our rental.

Route 1 runs up along Maine’s Atlantic coast. They call it a “coastal route” but the truth is you can’t see much ocean. It is to be avoided near Kennebunkport since it becomes a parking lot. North of Brunswick, where it splits away from Interstate 295, it’s wide open.

We ventured off route to the west once, years ago. The interior of Maine is like how I imagine Alabama must be, but not as hot. My main recollection is auto junk yards and pizza joints. The coast is where the money is, also lots of old hippies. The interesting thing about old hippies, the men, is that they look like old lobstermen. I fit right in.

Not too many tourists if you get up near Belfast. The political culture is more explicit, but amiable. A couple of people remarked to me about a vaguely political t-shirt I was wearing. You could find Trump signs, as well as rainbow flags.

North of Belfast there is a character with a bookstore advertising “50,000 books.” We went there once. There might as well be 200,000 books. They are completely unsorted. Finding anything is impossible. There are lots of antiques places, from upscale to junk yard. There is one fancy fine arts bookstore along the road.

Down south, the incidence of Thai restaurants was surprising. As you head north, you see more and more shotgun shacks, and houses in advanced states of disrepair. People laying out yard sales along the highway.

We drove north as far as we could, short of entering Canada. End of the line was a little place called Lubec. A nice coffee shop. It seemed like you could get good coffee everywhere. If you have the patience to drive all the way up to Machias, you can get the best blueberry pie in the universe.