Our trip to Maine continued on Friday with a trip back to my hometown of Cape Elizabeth to give MJ the grand tour of where I grew up. We drove past the first house I grew up in in Cape Elizabeth, past the schools and the town center and then down to the Two Lights area where I spent the next 10 years.
We ended up going into Two Lights State Park, a staple of my childhood in that area. Upon entering I was surprised at just how small the park really is, it felt so big when I was growing up! We took a walk up to the fire tower and then down along the rocky coast.
After the park we headed down the street to see the actual “Two Lights” for which the areas is named, a pair of lighthouses. We then had a delicious lunch of fried seafood and blueberry pie there at The Lobster Shack.
From there we made the trip up to see my family again, spending the rest of the evening with little Xavier who was due to be discharged on Sunday.
Saturday we went to Dunkin’ Donuts for a late breakfast before heading back up north. My sister had been formally discharged, and while she couldn’t leave for long we were able to take her out for a little while to pick up some of the remaining baby supplies that she would need.
That evening we made dinner reservations at The Muddy Rudder so I could get one of my favorite Maine dishes: lobster pie. Unfortunately, to my great disappointment, they no longer had the dish! Instead I went with steamers (steamed clams) and some lobster ravioli. I will miss the lobster pie.
Since we were near Freeport, we also had plans to visit L. L. Bean that night too. The assumption was that since it was almost 10PM by the time we got there it would be relatively easy to get in and out without too much fuss. We were wrong. It turns out that L. L. Bean is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year and we arrived just in time for the tail end of celebrations from July 4 through 7th! We saw the early moments of the fireworks show from the road on our way down and entered Freeport to masses of traffic and people walking and watching the fireworks. We made it to the entrance of the L. L. Bean parking lots before all traffic stopped to watch the fireworks. It was one of the most impressive local shows I’ve ever seen! I uploaded a video of part of the finale here.
After the show we probably spent 45 minutes in gridlock before we actually made it to a parking spot to begin our shopping adventure at the store itself. True to my Maineness, I love L. L. Bean. I didn’t end up buying much, but going to that flagship store is always a treat. With the unplanned traffic madness it was after midnight before we left to finally drive back down to our hotel.
Sunday was our last full day in Maine! After a lobster roll lunch at Newick’s in South Portland we headed north to see my family, finally all discharged from the hospital and settling in at home. I bought my netbook and we spent much of the day just hanging out and chatting casually. We grabbed some pizza for dinner and had an enjoyable dinner together before we headed out.
Monday we checked out of the hotel at 10AM so we could make it to Nashua, New Hampshire by noon.
We met up with my Aunt Meg at her house in Nashua and we all headed over to my grandmother’s for lunch. It’s always such a pleasure to see both of them, I’m glad we could squeeze in a quick visit at the end of our trip.
It was then off to the Manchester, NH airport for our long trip home! It was pretty uneventful aside from an hour delay on the runway in Philadelphia due to a recent traffic change on the runway.
More photos of the trip are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157630515701810/
I’m still tired, but it was a great trip!