Maine – On the road from York Beach to Portland

We finally made it to as far east as you can drive in the United States…..Maine! We were pretty excited as we crossed the border from New Hampshire, as although Maine is part of New England to us it sure didn’t feel like it. It almost had the feeling of its own country tucked away in a far corner of the country. Our first stop in the state was in the town of York Beach, which was only 20 miles or so across the state line. For this night we stayed at Flagg’s RV resort, which was only 1 block from the beach. We pulled in and checked in with the owner Nancy who lives right on the property. She gave us some good advice of where to go for dinner and we were off. In a short 5 minutes we were walking along the road with the beach next to us. For those of you thinking that when I say beach your picturing a sandy beach with warm ocean water gliding over the powdery sand, you would be mistaken. This “beach”, the vast majority of it anyways is comprised of fist size to boulder-sized rocks with the ocean lapping a few hundred yards away as it was low tide. It made an incredibly cool sound as it moved the rocks around and they tapped against one another. Julie and I took a walk down the sidewalk in search of seafood. We had been trying to stay away from it for the most part until this point, as we knew that we would be on the coast from now until we reached Quebec City in 5 weeks. But now the time had come to finally taste what the ocean had to offer. We found a restaurant overlooking the beach and settled in. Julie ordered a 1.25-pound lobster while I had scallops. Both were delicious although I was also highly entertained watching Julie fight with the lobster trying to crack it open. After dinner we continued our walk down the sidewalk next to the beach as the sun set. It was truly the best first night on the coast that we could have asked for.

The next day we woke up and packed up. Our final destination for the day was Portland however we had a few other places that we wanted to check out on the way. The first, which was still in York Beach, was the Nubble Lighthouse on Cape Neddick. This lighthouse is one of the most photographed in Maine and has been a working lighthouse since 1879. The lighthouse is placed on Nubble Island, which is just off the coast of Cape Neddick. The island is so close, there are no trespassing signs and no swimming signs. I guess that means they don’t want you to swim over to get a really close look. Hehe Nevertheless it was a very cool picture spot as you could see the lighthouse from a few angles and York Beach almost behind you. After taking multiple shots and a stop to the gift shop (Julie loves everything lighthouses) we were off to our next stop for the day, Kennebunkport.

I had heard about Kennebunkport, as I’m sure many of you have, because that’s where the Bush’s go (or used to go) on summer vacations. I had also heard that the town was very quaint as well. In only a short hour we were there. To our surprise there were 2 towns, Kennebunk and Kennebunkport. Both are right next to each other only separated by a small section of the Kennebunk River. We parked and walked through Kennebunkport. I would describe it as a quaint New England fishing town that has been taken over by high-end tourist shops. Things were very nice there albeit at a higher price. We bought a few touristy items and walked across the bridge to Kennebunk in search of something to drink. We found to our surprise that it was the home to Shipyard Beers. We stopped at its original pub Federal Jacks and had a flight along with some nachos. The beers were excellent and I would highly recommend that if you ever go to Kennebunk to stop by and try some.

The last stop of the day and our home for the next few days was Portland, the largest city in Maine. We had spent the last few days prior looking for a campground on the outskirts of Portland and oddly none were that close. The few that we found that were drivable to spend the day in Portland but they had received terrible reviews. The weather for the time that we were going to spend in Portland wasn’t looking great either so for the first time we decided to stay in a hotel as close as we could to downtown. Luckily I have one of the greatest aunts in the world that travels a lot and as a result has a seemingly unlimited amount of hotel points which she graciously lets us use.(Thanks Aunt Lori) We called a few of the Marriott’s around town to make sure that they could accommodate a vehicle the size of ours. After finding one that could we were off. We checked into the hotel that was about 10 minutes out of downtown then headed into town to find some dinner. We found out that in Portland for dinner (as well as any other port town) seafood is the way to go. After walking by endless restaurants we found one after a patron saw us walk by and claimed that he had just eaten there and it was “delicious”. That was good enough for us and we went in. The prices were a bit higher than we were used to so we decided to split a salad, appetizer and entrée. As the former patron had proclaimed everything “delicious” after eating we thought so too. We had the arctic char as our entrée and damn was it tasty. After dinner we stumbled upon a dessert bar called The Bar of Chocolate Cafe. We stopped in, had a dessert cocktail and called it a night. This place is amazing; definitely check it out if visiting. Don’t worry, we were not driving…Portland luckily has Uber.

The next morning we woke up and after breakfast in the hotel we were ready to explore more of Portland. Luckily it was not going to rain until the afternoon so we had some dry outdoor time in the morning. We took an Uber back downtown and started to walk around. We wanted to take a tour and there were many to choose from. Everything from hop on – hop off buses, harbor sightseeing cruises to brewery tours. The one that we found was unique though; it was a sightseeing tour on a converted 1970’s era fire truck. A company called the Portland Fire Engine Co did the tour. The fire engine could only hold 12 people so it was not big either. As it wasn’t the nicest of days it turned out that we were the only people on the 11am tour so we had our guide “Guy” to ourselves. Guy was in his early 70’s and had lived in Portland his entire life. He told us stories of being in the Coast Guard to manning Portland’s now historic Portland Head Lighthouse in addition to all of the history that Portland had to offer as we puttered around town on our now personal tour. We both highly recommend this tour for anyone visiting Portland. After the tour we wanted lunch and we were both craving sushi so on a recommendation from our hotel we visited Yosaku. It was lunchtime on Friday so the restaurant was pretty busy on our arrival. Service however was prompt and in no time we were chowing down on some delicious sushi. By the time lunch was over the rain had set in over downtown. We set out and walked some of the main streets that Guy had recommended that we walk down. After checking out a few of the stores and getting rained on we decided to call it an early day and head back to the hotel. We needed to work on blogs and edit video and as it was storming out this was a perfect time to do so. We spent the next few hours working before checking out the pool then heading to a Chili’s next to the hotel for dinner (Thanks Nancy!)

While our time in Portland was a bit rainy we both loved the city and will definitely be making a return trip.

Next up…..Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park and the rest of Mt. Desert Island, Maine.