Good Bye Maine

Getting ready to leave Moosehead Lake on our way to Stockton Springs we noticed our route took us right by a favorite restaurant of our's, Anglers, not that we hadn't already been there several times before:-)  We told each other that very soon all this wonderful food will be gone and they have one of the best haddock sandwiches anywhere and a large parking lot, hmm, sounds like a plan.

In the parking lot

The awesome haddock sandwiches

We had never been to the campground in Stockton Springs before, but it looked good on the website and had decent reviews, well, what a disappointment.  It is billed and called an RV resort, hah, no amenities at all, short narrow gravel sites, with grounds that didn't look like they had been tended to in weeks.  The only saving grace was its location and it was dark and quiet at night.  But it put us in position for our last few goals.  First was to go to an all time favorite, Bagaduce Lunch, awesome as usual!

A scrumptious lunch of clams, scallops, and onion rings!

Jan had a hair appointment to go to in Ellsworth and my job while she was there was to get our final good bye lobsters for dinner, and a couple more to make "on the road" lobster rolls.  Mission accomplished.  It really turned into a trek.  We have been visiting Ellsworth, Acadia, MDI since way back in the 70's, in fact we honeymooned in the area in 73, and each of us had visited as kids with our families.  Now just as you leave the mainland to MDI you go by Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound.  They have been there since 1956 serving lobsters in the rough, you pick out your lobster, they toss it in a burlap bag, cook it in boiling seawater over a wood fire, classic, and I can specifically remember eating there as a kid.  Anyway, they always have the freshest lobsters, any size, and they do something we have never seen anywhere else in our travels, they pile some seaweed into the bag after the lobsters for you to add to the water you boil them in, and we have found it gives them an amazing added flavor, so obviously that is where I went.  Jan's hair place was north of Ellsworth several miles and Trenton Bridge is 16 miles south of Ellsworth and it is high season, 45 minutes later I had the lobsters, I took a roundabout way back, helps to know the area, so made it back much quicker.  So that evening we had our lobster feast!

These are the 2 "little" guys 1.3 lbs each
for the on the road lobster rolls

These are the dinner feast ones, 3 lbs on the left and 2 lbs on the right:-)

The famous seaweed

A'boiling away

Tada!

The last couple bites, that's what bliss looks like:-)

And man o man were they fantastic, and if you ever get a chance to get seaweed, do it.

So one more day and one more thing to do, we wanted to go to Camden, walk around a bit and eat at a restaurant overlooking the beautiful Camden harbor, Waterfront.

Blackened haddock tacos

A haddock Rachel sandwich

And the very happy campers.

That brought us to the end of Maine, an excellent couple months worth.  So we are now making our way west with many more plans I will share as we go.

Oh yeah here were the lobsters destined for the rolls.

And here are our very last "on the road" home made lobster rolls, I can tell you we savored them:-)

Our Time in Maine is Coming to an End

We had an uneventful drive to Houlton, just how we like them:-)  We were here last time in 2022 and had found a take out place we really enjoyed and wanted to go back to, Craig's Clam Shop.  It is a long way 38 miles away, but it was worth it again.

Delicious scallops, haddock bites, and onion rings
We had to eat in the truck since it was raining

We stayed at the KOA there and had a nice site, large and grassy, and after the last place with all the dust, the grass was very welcome.

It's new potato time in northern Maine so we went out to find some.  We remembered from our previous visit that there are self serve stands all over the place so we headed out to find yellow and red new potatoes, and after checking out, oh maybe 15 stands we finally zeroed in on one and got a bunch!

Then off to Greenville and Moosehead Lake, we enjoyed yet another homemade lobster roll for lunch on the way:-)  We were going to a fairly new campground we had never stayed at before, Moose Creek, and we have to say it might be the very best park we have ever been to.  It's a big place, well taken care of, sites are huge, and quite private, lots of amenities, tons of walking, quiet and dark.  Although the roads are not paved they might as well be, the crusher run they have on them has turned them almost into asphalt, and the sites have a stone covering that is clean, smooth, and doesn't puddle, incredible.

A glimpse of Moosehead Lake on the way into Greenville

Our enormous site

We went to the B52 Memorial set on the crash site of a B52 in 1963, it was interesting and moving.

The next day, pretty gloomy and rainy we went out for a meh lunch, although they did have a very good seafood chowder, the name not worth mentioning.

And a gloomy view out over the lake.

Followed by a sighting of a unique animal only found in the local area.

And then our last day in Greenville was beautiful, so we splurged on a fantastic seaplane ride, only marred by the Canadian fire smoke, around the whole lake, it is huge!  In fact, it is the largest lake in Maine at nearly 118 square miles.

Our shy pilot

It was a very enjoyable flight, and astonishing as it sounds, it was the very first time I had ever been a seaplane in all my flying experience.

Quick Stop in Columbia Falls, Then on to Houlton

With a road trip ahead of us, even if it was only 80 miles to Columbia Falls, called for another round of home made lobster rolls:-)

The knife under Jan's is to hold it steady,
they are so full of lobster they keep falling over:-)

We pulled into a nice, but a bit rough campground in Columbia Falls, Cottonwood, it is all gravel and dirt, but the sites are huge, lots of privacy, the people are very friendly, but man is it dusty.  It is a ATV and side by side haven just off the Downeast Sunrise Trail, a big time ATV/snowmobile trail that has hundreds of miles of other trails off it.  We had planned to rent a side by side, but after talking to the host we decided to pass on it.  As I said it is extremely dusty around here right now, and the trail is effectively a lane and a half graded dirt road, and they don't want you to go off the main trail, didn't sound so fun after that so we passed on it.

Karen and Tom were spending their last couple days in Maine down in Winter Harbor so we met in the middle in Milbridge at a lunch spot, Chipman's Wharf .  It was nice, food was okay, but in this area of Maine there just isn't anything. It did work out perfect, we were able to have a nice visit, weren't rushed at all and had a nice view off the porch.

So that left eating out, can you imagine?  We are near Machias where a favorite restaurant of ours is, Helen's.  Probably too much info but I have been on a diet and both of us have been working on what and how much we eat for over 2 years.  Neither of us were sweet tooth people for the most part although I used to eat ice cream from time to time and an occasional sweet.  We haven't had any of that in a very long time, and the only thing I had thought about was Wild Maine Blueberry pie:-)  Maine blueberries are small and delicious, special really, I tried to order it last year and couldn't bring myself to do it, but this year I was determined to have my piece of pie and Jan assured me she'd have at least a bite, so on a foggy, wet day we headed off to Helen's.  Our lunch was great, baked haddock, fried clams and onion rings..........followed by a piece of pie a la mode.  Great lunch, awesome pie, good for another 2 years.

Yes, Maine blueberries are special!

So on our last day with nothing much to do since we cancelled our ATV plans with very few places to eat, this is a fairly desolate section of Maine's coast, we decided we could do a lot worse than going back to Helen's for lunch, no pie this time, but we shared an enormous "Monster" haddock sandwich, delicious!

After we took a nice drive down to Beal's Island, home to one of Maine's largest lobster fleets, believe it or not, actually a place in Maine that we hadn't been to before.  It is a real working harbor area, lots of fishing and lobster boats, in fact saw very few pleasure boats.  Also since we are so far downeast, the tides are larger, around 12'.  The tide was out when we went through and it was interesting to see how many docks were only accessible at high tide, and it was the first time in Maine we had seen boats sitting on the hard waiting to float with the incoming tide.

And we also saw something we had only seen a few times before several "lobster pounds", an enclosure cleansed by the tides coming in and out to hold large quantities of lobsters for sale, a 2 acre pound can accommodate up to 50,000 pounds of lobster as an example.

Off to Houlton to find some new potatoes.