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.