November 8, 2023: I went to bed extra early for our 2 a.m. wakeup………..but it wasn’t to be.
Our plan was to drop off Rocky at Katie’s at 4:30 a.m. for our 5 a.m. car park to catch the shuttle for our 7 a.m. flight. Whose idea was this!?!?!?
But at 9 p.m. Rocky started coughing. Not alarming for our 15 year old little buddy. This time, however, he didn’t stop.
At 1:00 a.m. I gave up on sleep and started the coffee.
When Mike got up at 3, I had already decided we were canceling our trip. Katie was finallyyyyyy feeling better in her second trimester, but certainly we were not dropping off this pitiful, loud, crazy coughing little dog.
But Mike thought otherwise.
When we sneaked in Katie’s house at 4:20 a.m. and placed Rocky gently in his little bed on Katie’s couch, I felt a little sick.
Soon we were changing planes in Baltimore though and Katie’s reassuring text that Rocky was fine had me optimistic, excited and ready to go! She even put the pet cam on him so I could see his little sleeping self.
Our flight was only about 1/3 full. It was amazing how different it felt with so few people on the plane. Much more relaxed. Did you know that Baltimore Airport won the Best Restrooms Award? I don’t have a photo but can assure you it was well deserved! Japanese standards!
A smooth 2 hours later we were in Portland Maine! I’m sorry to say I had never heard of it before this trip. We went to Maine when the kids were young, during out impromtu Niagara Falls trip. We stayed in Bar Harbor Maine and went to Acadia National Park. We were in the hottub one evening when a man there on a business trip asked about our travels. We told him where we had been–Niagara Falls, Montreal, Maine. We said we had two more weeks but didn’t really have a destination. He said if it was possible at all go to Nova Scotia–so off we went!
The travel was a bit tricky. Our credit card was denied and I couldn’t get a signal to call the bank. Finally after standing on one foot in a New Brunswick parking lot I was able to get the bank on the phone. Then we started running out of gluten free food for Katie. We were at a hotel so I called the front desk and explained we really needed to find some for our daughter who could not eat any wheat. This was before it was nearly common and all labels were clearly marked with a convenient “GF” (gluten free). The helpful clerk said, no problem, there is a store, just go east and take the Rothesay Quispamsis exit………the what?? Rothesay Quispamsis…….I felt like she was saying things that were not even words. Even when I asked her to spell it the letters didn’t even seem to be in a logical order.
But find it we did. We traveled another whole day until we got to Nova Scotia. We were so far east we were in yet another time zone! When we got to the town of Antigonish and found a great radio station, Mike declared the trip a success! We made it as far east a was possible, in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. There were so few people and really only one road that encircled the area. A pod of pilot whales splashed around in the water, with northern birds flying everywhere. It looked like I imagine Scotland to look; then we learned that Nova Scotia means “New Scotland.”
So when the opportunity arose to go to Maine with our good friends to do a brewery tour of Portland, we jumped at the chance.
It was November, 2023, so while it was pretty warm in Orlando, it was nearly winter in Portland. As we were landing, I could see a small tent city of what I assumed were homeless people. But we saw few concerns in the downtown area where we walked from brewery to brewery.
The food was amazing at every restaurant! A waitress at one place said she lived in Tampa for a few years and found the food quite substandard. She remarked that she didn’t mind paying more for great food, but in Tampa you paid a lot and the food wasn’t very good.
Our friends arrived a few hours after us, wisely opting out of the 7 a.m. flight. Within an hour we were enjoying a beer at the first brewery, Shipyard, which was right next door to our hotel. Before the evening was over, we would go to another called Brickyard Hollow, where we chatted up the bartender about his favorite breweries. We had dinner of potato soup with pieces of lobster on top. My mouth is watering.
Our room had one of the best views ever, with the sun rising over the bay in orange red clouds.
I sat against the window for probably an hour, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise. Soon, however, it was time to brave the cold. And…..it was snowing!!!!
We ended up with yummy breakfast sandwiches and it really was fun to walk in the wet snow. Even the flowers seemed to take it all in stride!
Mike and I walked down to the water, where the old docks still had their pilings in an artful design and ships moored comfortably on the new piers. Two young men were clearly birdwatching with binoculars, one of only a few times where I really felt I had found members of my tribe when traveling.
We found a local bakery with the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever had! And I am a bit of a chocolate chip cookie snob so that was exciting! Apparently everyone else thought the same thing because the line was longggggg for the Standard Baking Co.! In fact, as I just confirmed the name on the map, you can literally see a line of people out the door on the satellite view!
In the afternoon, we ubered to another area of the city with a group of breweries, literally side by side. There we hit Geerys, Alagash, Definitive, and Foundation breweries. Geerys was really just a tasting room, with a few bar stools and a friendly guy who told stories and showed us the huge tanks where the beer was made.
It wasn’t long after ubering back to the hotel that Mike realized he left his debit card at the last place. Oh well, just part of our regular lives really. We called them and asked them to destroy it for us, since it wasn’t in the schedule to pick it up and they would not mail it. Oh well.
On Friday Mike and I found a darling cafe with the most delicious oatmeal and all the trimmings. I sat in the sunny window and stayed warm while we started our day with the water right outside. We ended up going there each morning.
Soon the four of us were walking around the area again. It was cold and we wanted more coffee when Lo’, there was a sign proped up on the sidewalk that said Espresso and showed a finger pointing right. It lead us to Rigby Yard, which was so beautiful and delicious we made dinner plans for the next night.
Day 3 found us taking an Uber to a lighthouse. On the way there was a parade of sorts, and the driver deftly worked his way around it.
It was exceptionally cold and windy at the lighthouse but the views were worth it. Shockingly there were some girls swimming in that cold water!
When we got back I’ll admit I went back to that bakery and got 2 cookies 🙂 We made it to another 3 breweries: Oxbow, Apres, and Belleflower. It probably sounds like a drunkfest, but we sampled flights of beer and enjoyed rating them on preference. We ate, played cards, sat by the fire, walked and walked.
We discovered signs around the city, outlining Portland’s activism in the Underground Railroad. The city had a very peaceful, inviting, loving vibe to it.
On Saturday we ventured out for our last day and went to Goodfire, Lone Pine, Rising Tide, and Austin Street breweries. Some were more crowded with the weekend and a local brewery van taking people around.
Maine, it turns out, has the 2nd highest number of breweries per capita! It really was a great way to celebrate the city, friends, and good beer and food!
So what made me think of this, 6 months later? My 4 a.m. wakeup was Rocky coughing again. I sipped my coffee hoping Rocky would fall back asleep and thought about our trip. We were great travel partners and agreed that sometimes you just have to leave home for a few days to escape life!
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