Off to Maine

July 11, 2007
Boothbay, ME

Yesterday, we had a nice, short drive from Salisbury, MA to Boothbay, ME. We left on I-95 and cut over to I-295 south of Portland, and then took US-1 through Brunswick and Bath (home to Bath Iron Works, a ship building company that used to be a client when I worked at Towers Perrin). We arrived early in the afternoon, and were back online quickly since I needed to follow up on the eBay sales. The remaining payments were made, so I needed to get things shipped (I listed with a 2 business day from payment target date). Fortunately, everything was packaged up and sitting in the back of the Range Rover. I used ups.com to generate all the pre-paid labels and find the nearest shipping outlet. I was able to get there before closing time, although I knew I was in Maine when I realized “you cain’t get theah from heah” on the way to the shipping place. Boothbay Harbor is a small town with narrow streets. Some are one-way, and most of them are actually marked as such. Others, you have to guess (no cars parked on your side and no street signs facing you generally means “don’t go here”).

Well, I’d printed out directions from the ups.com web site and things fell apart quickly when they tried to send me the wrong way on a one-way street. “No problem,” I thought as I backtracked and entered the address into the Range Rover’s GPS. “Oops,” I thought as the GPS wanted me to go the same way. At least I could see the target on the GPS map, so I angled toward it, only to come to the wrong end of another one-way street. I had to loop around again and figure out how to come back at it, but I persevered. I dropped off the 4 boxes and headed home (all one-ways in my favor this way).

We did a “full deployment” at the camp site, since we’re here for a few days, and hoping for some decent weather (more on that later). I’d taken out the last of the frozen NY Strip steaks (from Costco in Phoenix) the night before. We need to clean out the fridge and wine storage unit before we cross into Canada later this month. Meat is generally a no-no and booze is severely limited (1.5 litres/person), so we have our work cut out for us. :-)

On the way back from the shipping place, I stopped at the local Hannaford’s market and picked up some salad greens and asparagus to go with the steaks. We sat outside and relaxed with the last of the Yellow Tail Chardonnay before cooking the steaks. Since we have the equipment, we did all the cooking outside: Geri made pan-roasted red potatoes and sautéed asparagus, and I used the last of the mushrooms for a sauce, so we made a dent in the supplies. We had the last bottle of “Aureus” Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, which was another Costco find (we bought a case and haven’t seen it since). With “Luau Hawaiian Honey” ice cream for desert, we had a great “on the road” meal.

This morning, the weather’s been either fog, drizzle, or light rain. It’s supposed to lift later, but who knows. The forecast (for what that’s worth) for later in the week is better, as a front is supposed to pass – eventually, so we’re cleaning up odds and ends this morning (me updating the blog and Geri starting some laundry). We’ll head for a local lobster shack for lunch and kick back in the afternoon, I’m thinking. There might even be some “nappage” to be had, although we probably need to work on campground reservations for the Maritimes… :-)