I hadn't been to Maine in 14 years. But it was mom's birthday weekend and I hadn't been there in 14 years. American airlines had only recently gained access to their airport after the merger with US Air. But they only fly into D.C., Charlotte, and Philadelphia. I think the last time I had to take a connecting flight on American was when I went to Mexico.
We missed our first plane, so we took a 7 a.m. to Philly. I'd never flown there before, but I was impressed week ask the so on the wall and city history on display. For instance, on one of the moving walkways, there were posters displayed of movies that had been shot in Philadelphia. Since mom's knee is still in really bad shape, I pushed her around in a wheelchair over the terminal. We went to Tony Luke's and split a cheesesteak, which was absolutely tremendous.
The flight to Portland took off a little bit late, but the gate agent never gave us a reason or timetable. So everybody was just sitting around wondering what was going on. We left about 45 minutes late. The disappointment was we had to cancel our boat trip that afternoon. We landed and picked up our rented red Nissan Altima, which only had 1100 miles on it and cost just 20 bucks a day.
We drove south to Kennebunkport, which is well known for being the Bush's residence. It's a classic New England coastal town, very little space to move, and a lot of little local shops right off the water. And of course, there was plenty of seafood. We went to Mabel's, one of the best known seafood joints in the state. Mom asked recommendations and wound up getting a two pound stuffed lobster with shrimp, crab meat, drawn butter, and God knows what else. I was fine with broiled scallops. We also split some fried whole belly clams, maybe my favorite fried seafood. It wasn't a cheap meal, but it was wonderful.
The weather in Maine is pretty crazy, I would actually call it bipolar. When we got off the plane, it was around 80 and sunny. By the time we finished lunch maybe two hours later, it was maybe 65 and the sun was tying to fight its way through a completely a gray sky. We did walk around Kennebunkport and they had a lot of nice souvenirs. Very classy, not trashy. But finding a parking space is just brutal. It's one lane roads with tons of pedestrians. So the traffic moves at the speed of kites and the space is so limited. After fifteen minutes, we did find a lot.
From there, we headed a little farther north to Old Orchard beach, where mom used to spend summers when she was really young. As we drove down Route 9, which is the coastal road in that town where everything is going on, it reminded me a lot of Coney Island. A huge amusement park, a lot of families, and a demographic that was very lower middle class. I also noticed a ton of Canadian flags. I guess they like to come down in the summers and warm up in Maine. We also went through the neighboring village of Ocean Park, which is another beach community. As we approached the old summer camp where my grandfather used to be a camp counselor, mom just started crying. She was thinking about growing up and how much it hurts her to think about how fractured her family has now become. It's not easy to watch, but I just figured it was best to give her a few minutes to get some more emotion out. Both of my parents have become absolute softies when it comes to crying, over the last 5 years.
By now, it was approaching 6:00 and I just wanted to go to the hotel, check in, and clean up. We checked into the Clarion, near the airport. I hadn't seen one of these hotels since I was last in Newark. We got a room on the first floor, which I'm not used to. I was happy about not needing to use elevators. Until we opened up the door to the room and then it hit us. The pungent smell of chlorine and bleach. The balcony of our room overlooked the indoor pool. After I was in the room for about 5 minutes, I got more used to it. But every time we'd return to the room over the weekend, we would open the door and that brutal chlorine smell would hit us fresh all over again.
Mom napped for an hour and I tracked the end of the Mets victory in Miami. Around 6:30, we drove six minutes east into the arts district of downtown Portland. We had dinner at Slab, a Sicilian style pizza pub with a really nice bar and dark interior. I had a German lager and one square piece of pizza. To us, it really tasted like pizza bread. The crust was pretty chewy and the cheese was really hard to notice. It was ok, but if I went back, I would have tried something else.
From there, we drove a little bit east on Congress St and walked into Blue, an intimate live music venue. They had a jazz trio playing, a sax, bass, and drum. I like that they didn't charge a cover, but the suggested donation was $25. Most covers for these kind of venues are maybe $10, $15 at the most. So I felt it was steep, but I figured they did that because they hope people will be extra generous. I drank a bourbon sweet tea, with black tea, simple syrup, lemon, and Bulleit bourbon. Pretty good cocktail, and it was satisfying, especially with spice of the bourbon.
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