Anyway, Auburn, Maine. I had never been to Maine, and honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. The natural beauty outside the airport was incredible. But let’s start low and go high and talk about the airport first. The airport in Portland is totally underwhelming. First, the whole airport inexplicably has lots of grades. You have to walk uphill from the plane to the terminal (and then on departure, downhill down to the plane—which is annoying when your bag gets ahead of you) and you also have to walk downhill to the rental cars…and uphill when you return the rental. So that’s less than ideal. And security? Wow, what a clusterf*&! I felt like I was back in Thailand except with more respect for the concept of lines. They were calling my flight while I was still in the security line. And let me be a total frequent flier snob and say I was annoyed at the lack of frequent flier line, but I guess that just gives me compassion and insight into what everyone at the Portland airport is dealing with. Which is chaos! Yeah, that needs to be fixed. And who schedules so many flights at 5:40am. Shouldn’t that be illegal?
That said, let’s move on to pleasanter things. Since I had a few hours of light left to me, thanks begrudgingly to daylight savings time having just gone into effect, I decided to head to the coast to see a few lighthouses. The Head lighthouse was commissioned by George Washington and looks every bit the quintessential lighthouse being white with a little window on each side and a constant foghorn blowing. There’s also a rock commemorating a boat crash and the sea there is so wild and the coast so unforgiving, it is easy to imagine a ship losing control and just going to pieces on the rocks. From the Head Lighthouse you can see another lighthouse on the coast, so they call it two lighthouses. On Shore Rd on the way to the lighthouses, there’s a charming place called the Buttered Biscuit that has delicious take home meals, desserts, snacks, and wine. I had a yummy crab cake with garlic aoli that had whole cloves of garlic! I put it on their cheddar chive biscuits, which were also fabulous. For dinner I went to a place called Joe’s Boathouse, which was suggested by the owner of the Buttered Biscuit. Joe’s Boathouse is literally in a shipyard with all sorts of boats tied up and looks like a place mobsters would go to dump bodies. But inside the restaurant is perfectly warm and delightful. I decided to have lobster there. I had been told that there is a lobster season (and March isn’t it) but then I was also told that you can’t go wrong ordering lobster in Maine. So I went for it. I can’t say that I could taste any discernible difference between the lobster I ate there and lobster I have had elsewhere, but it was still absolutely delicious. The staffers were very attentive and familial—it seemed like most of the clientele knew each other. Everyone was even given amazing homemade cake from someone’s birthday celebration because there was extra leftover. I ordered lobster pasta to go and that was excellent, even reheated.
I drove up the toll road to get to Auburn. Getting one of those EZ passes is essential in areas with toll roads because, if you’re anything like me you don’t ever carry cash. Ever. And certainly not coins, for the love of all things holy. And if you are lucky enough to have to drive through some of the unmanned toll booths then you or your company will get a bill for the tolls a month or two later potentially with added fees as they accuse you of trying to evade the toll.
In Auburn I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, which had a beautiful view of some raging falls and was in easy walking distance of a few restaurants and stores. Gritty McDuff's restaurant had some delicious offerings so I went there a few times. The best awesomeness was in the form of sweet potato fries covered in pulled pork, cheddar cheese and maple sauce. Holy God. So good.
