Maple Hill Bed and Breakfast Freeport

Along the way:

Heading to Portland, Maine (to visit Tom, Denise & Foster) we drove from Milton, through the Lewiston border crossing (N of Niagara Falls), through New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and finally into Maine, an 11 hour drive. Surprisingly, there are no orchards or farms east of the Niagara River – it's all bush.

Portland, Maine, United States jimcabay

Along the way:

Heading to Portland, Maine (to visit Tom, Denise & Foster) we drove from Milton, through the Lewiston border crossing (N of Niagara Falls), through New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and finally into Maine, an 11 hour drive. Surprisingly, there are no orchards or farms east of the Niagara River – it's all bush.

Portland, Maine, United States jimcabay

Ni hao! (Hello in Chinese...pronounced "knee how")

We are now one week away from our departure and realizing that next week at this time we will be in the air over the Pacific and headed to China! The accumulating of stuff is coming to an end and the real packing is beginning. The girls love the whole packing thing...their mother...not so much. Excitement is in the air as the count down begins.

We are looking forward to ...

... in the city. From small mom and pop boutiques to outstanding malls, Portland has the upper hand on upscale shopping. You will definitely see your share of dazzling jewelry and fine art, and there is no better place to see it than in the fabulous museums and art galleries. The Portland Museum of Art and the Bayview Gallery are two of the premier establishments in town, and the equally delightful Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company and Museum is always a treat. You can ...

... just as well, as the welcoming sign on entering New Hampshire, carries the tag-line, "Live free or die." I see what they're trying to say, I think, but there are maybe other ways of saying it. I'm still alive so I must have been living free enough for the people of that particular state. Anyway, it all makes a nice change from my usual 9-5 desk job.

So aside from lots of driving ...

we sailed into boothsbay in the dark (as usual). we only had limited lights, so it was a crew effort to communicate with chris who was motoring the boat in via GPS coordinates and autopilot.

"boat at 1 o'clock!"

"mooring at 11 o'clock!"

we successfully docked (at the wrong dock than planned but we docked none the less). we had hoped to get farther up the coast but the last few days had been light wind (cary said ...

... had no idea there were so many! but you can only see them by boat, and turns out maine has the longest coastline of any of the 50 states (i'm pretty sure this is what chris told me). some islands have lots of houses on them, plus a few stores, maybe a school. some kids have to take a ferry to the mainland for school in portland. but some islands are privately owned and have only 1 or 2 houses on them. if maine wasn't ...

On Sunday, September 13th, volunteers gathered in South Portland near the Maine mall for Volunteer Day. The mission for the day was to clean up trash, build a bridge, finish a kiosk and other tasks related to building walking trails for SP residents to enjoy. The best thing to me was the range of ages who participated -- from very young of 4 or 5 to young at heart of any age!

Today, we made our way to Bar Harbor, Maine, but decided we must stop at L.L. Bean. We love L.L. Bean! Freeport, Maine is the home of the L.L. Bean company; therefore, they have retail and outlet stores for shoppers to visit. I must say I was a bit disappointed that I did not find anything at the outlet store. I had a checklist in my mind of what I was looking for, and none of it was to be found. Oh ...

... followed Route One up the coast and checked out Portland and continued on to Freeport. Here we did some shopping, really didnt buy anything though. The LL Bean store was HUGE! We decieded to stay the night in this town and ate at Muddy Ruckers.