Come On Spring!

I really shouldn't complain, as we are very familiar with how spring can be in Maine, although, since I'm human I will a little bit.  It's been cool to cold most days, highs in the 50's at best, lows as low as in the 30's, rainy, but with some welcome sun mixed in, but the wind has been our nemesis.  Jan set out to fix it though and ordered 2 sides for our canopy, so before we go out, we observe the wind and erect the two sides that make the most sense, and it's been working out.  We are so pleased with the concept that we ordered another 2 sides.

And with the weather iffy, what to do, well, go out for the seafood that we have been craving:-)  First day, back to a nearby favorite, Susan's Fish and Chips.

Onion rings, haddock, and whole belly clams,
but for some reason we could only give it a 7 out of 10

We headed down to Kittery another day to go to the Trading Post, and while there we wanted to go back to Bob's Clam Hut, and when I say go back, we figure it has been at least 10 years or so.

Whole belly clams, scallops, and rings,
we'd give these an 8.5

Then the day we were waiting a year for, came, Wednesday, $1 a shuck day at Billy's Chowder House in Wells, one of our absolute favorites.

Jan was a piker, she only got 6

2 bowls of lobster stew, with awesome rings

Yeah, this stew is the real deal!
Wonderful a 10!

Then came the biggy, Red's Eats for the best lobster roll in the world, huge and succulent, maybe save our own:-)  This place has lines down the block all season long, rain or shine, and even as good as it is, with an awesome owner, for us anymore this is a once a year deal, it is truly a commitment.  We knew we wanted to go before Memorial Day and with no rain in the forecast we made our way to Wiscassett, and arrived a little early, which unbelievably put us first in line!  A record.  But the line started forming less than 5 minutes later with almost 30 minutes until they opened.  These are the biggest, most decadent lobster rolls anywhere, and what makes them so good?  Simplicity, just lobster meat piled high and overflowing the toasted roll with melted local butter to pour over top.  That's it, perfect!

We are revamping our fire pit set up for various reasons and have decided to use a 20 pound LP bottle instead of the propane on our coach as we have been doing for years.  It has been fairly convenient, but it necessitates filling our on board tank fairly often which is not always an easy thing, and we have to have the fire pit in close enough for the length of our hose.  We started talking about this while we were back in Florida because our new park doesn't have propane delivery, and we could see many advantages to not being tied to the coach.  Anyway we went down to NH, no sales tax, to buy a new 20# tank.  While there at a U-Haul store that sold them, the owner came out to fill the tank and we got talking about restaurants, imagine that.  He said that he and his wife were foodies and went out every chance they got and suggested 3 places to us that we had never heard of.  We thought that kind of amazing, even though there are literally hundreds of places around, we pride ourselves on being in the know.  

Well, one of them was Lord's Clam Box in Sanford, yes inland, so off we went, and man-o-man we have a new top ten place.  Order at the counter, they give you a buzzer for when your food is ready, very reasonable prices, huge menu, none of this spin the screen so they can get a tip as so many places are doing anymore.  Well it was absolutely fantastic, maybe the best clams we have ever had!  This will become another regular and has moved a few others off our list.

Amazing clams and haddock,
rated 10.5

And sensational seafood chowder

And that pretty much capped our first week.

Maine!

One thing we did just before we left Nashville was wash the motorhome, including the roof that gets so bad in Florida.  For those of you that full time, you realize washing your rig can be a big deal as the vast majority of parks don't allow it.  Four Corners allows it so we took advantage, and amazingly enough we made it all the way to Maine without any rain! 

We stopped one night in Max Meadows, VA at a new to us park, Fort Chiswell which was a perfect overnight, right off the interstate with long pull throughs.  Then we pushed to Pine Grove, PA to Twin Grove, another good overnight easily accessible with long pull throughs, which the next day got us to Brattleboro, VT to the KOA, one of our favorites.  It is a small park owned by a young couple that have done an excellent job of improving it year after year.  Lots of shade, nice sites, beautiful grounds.  

We bought a corned beef intending to have it for St Paddy's day but had never gotten to it, so on our first cool night in Vermont, Jan cooked it up, traditional corned beef and cabbage, delicious.  But kind of like with Thanksgiving turkey, for us the best part is the sandwiches the next day, and in this case, beautiful homemade reubens with, of course, a Guinness:-)

We spent the afternoon working on our cigar inventory.

I have shared before that there are two specific things we like to do when in Brattleboro.  Go to Stapleton's General Store in Proctorsville for one of their sandwiches, and then on to the Woodstock Farmer's Market.  We had a gorgeous day for it, blue skies, and up here the trees are just budding out.  It was even warm enough to sit outside for our lunch.

The special of the day fried chicken strips and a Caesar salad on a wrap

And a delicious roast beef and cheddar

Then on to Woodstock which was especially nice since we are ahead of the summer crowds so the store was only busy, not SRO:-)  Sometimes they have locally raised pork, and we hit the jackpot, Jan bought out their supply of loin chops and shoulder chops, only 4 each so don't get the wrong idea.  It is a wonderful store so if you are ever in the neighborhood, it is definitely worth a visit.

Then on to Maine, and Bayley's Camping Resort for the next 7 weeks.  We still have to get settled in.  Watch out lobsters, we're coming for you!!!