“Third boxcar, midnight train, destination, Bangor, Maine. Old worn out clothes and shoes, I don’t pay no union dues. I smoke old stogies I have found short, but not too big around, I’m a ‘woman’ of means by no means, ‘Queen’ of the Road” – Roger Miller

Miles traveled: 337.8

Ok so to be clear – I passed through Bangor, Maine today on my way to Bar Harbor; I don’t smoke old stogies; and I took some liberties with the lyrics of the always great Roger Miller tune King of the Road. But I just love that song and you can’t help but sing along to it. My sister and I used to ‘jam’ to that in my dad’s big, red, Ford pickup truck up at the ‘country’ when we were little. He had a cassette tape that was always playing that included that song and some other great classics like Downtown and Tumbling Tumbleweeds and at least one Patsy Cline song that I can recall.   We of course did this while we sweated like a couple of pros in the cab of the pickup with no AC in South Carolina – we in the South like to call that ‘roughing it’. Anyways, I digress.

Mom and I grabbed a delightful Bagel Nation-esque breakfast at the Bagel Shop in Stowe before heading up the road to check out Smuggler’s Point. I gave my mom the standard lecture on food in the Jeep (I have cleanliness ‘expectations’ due to my very minor OCD tendencies, and her bagel – while it looked amazing – looked like we could be one droopy tomato and a couple of lox away from epic disaster in the Jeep), and we were on our way. Well, we were on our way after I pulled off in the parking lot and made her throw the tomatoes that she didn’t want to eat out the window. She’s so understanding, thank the lord! Although this route added an hour to the day’s total drive, it was a perfect drive through the quintessential Vermont scenery – windy mountain roads, passing rivers and streams, and huge evergreen trees and wildflowers. We even got to check out a few of the old wooden bridges.

The remainder of the day was spent driving through the back roads of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine (with a brief stint on 95 north in Maine through Bangor). If you will recall, mom was given two simple duties – state-line pictures and disc changing. She was really on top of her game on the disc changing today with the exception of first thing in the morning when we re-listened to three chapters of the Harper Lee book…we’ll chalk that up to post-tomato purging trauma and the early hour.  But mom was on it with the disc-changing task the remainder of the day – you go girl. State-line pictures on the other hand, well, let’s just say thank goodness there was back up as I don’t believe mom even got a shot off on either the New Hampshire welcome sign or the Maine one. The Maine one was tricky – and small – but we were on the state-line picture taking struggle bus today. It’s ok though, I have decided that I will allow mom to continue her stay through the planned date anyways!

also taken by the back-up

taken by the back-up

We did discover that this is major antique country up here – I mean there’s one at just about every turn. We did stop into a couple of them along the way to break-up the drive and to get out and stretch the legs a bit. Not too much by way of cameras today, but I did score an old Ansco developer/printer in the original box. There were a few cameras in the same place but holy lord were they overpriced. The guy was selling one that I probably snagged up for $20-30 a few years back for $95 – I almost had a stroke. Still fun to poke around in these places though to see what they have – great way to get a history lesson!

We arrived in Bar Harbor a little after 6pm, and settled into the Inn that will be home for 3-nights (feels weird to take in more than just my book bag)! The Drydock Inn & Café is a pretty neat little place located in Southwest Harbor – which is like a 15 minute drive over to Bar Harbor. We grabbed some dinner at Jack Russell’s in Bar Harbor (no lobsta just yet…that will come later in the stay), and got back to the Inn after following a moped doing 25 in a 50 for 15 miles (which was not a glamorous as it sounds). Acadia National Park is on the agenda for tomorrow!

Until next time…

-traveljunkE

day 35

trip totals