Initial Impressions
Christopher Setterlund
55 – In My Footsteps Trip
October 5, 2011
Finally made a trip to York and Kittery, Maine. I had wanted to do it for months. A total of 330 miles driven today, most miles on a day trip yet. Actually found gas for $3.26 in NH, haven’t seen it that cheap in forever, and also, it’s not really that cheap, jerks.
It was sort of a sun sandwich on the way up to Maine. Cloudy on the Cape until I got over the bridge, sunny all the way up but then cloudy right when I got into Maine. Luckily that all burned off, temporarily at least.
The first spot I visited was the Stolen Menu Café in York. Needless to say I asked for menus rather than steal them, but I did end up with way too many pastries for my own good which is why I needed to share them with others.
What do you call a redneck from Maine? Whatever it is there was a jackass flannel-wearing douche who nearly killed me at a rotary so I yelled and called him a redneck, whatever, hope he flipped his truck and his shirt burned up.
My main target on this day was Cape Neddick Lighthouse, aka Nubble Lighthouse. It sits on a little rocky island just offshore, it looks further away in photos than it is. I packed my own lunch thanks to Maui’s brilliant idea at work yesterday and was able to sit and stare at the lighthouse, eat, and listen to WEEI, almost perfect.
I saw the first of a million monarch butterflies at Nubble Light, I saw tons at Fort Foster in Kittery right after in rained, spent some time chasing them trying to get photos, bet I looked ‘special’ doing that.
I was able to easily maneuver around the rock outcroppings on the edge of the shore at Nubble, the same can’t be said for a man and his girlfriend. He climbed down a rock and then basically arm dragged her off the rock. Needless to say she went down and yelled at him, she wasn’t hurt so I laughed once I got far enough away.
Long Sands Beach is classic Maine. The rocky shore acts as a sort of funnel for the waves and at low tide the beach goes out a ways making it literally ‘long sands’ like the name, how ironic.
I love going to take photos of historic homes that are occupied. I visited one and there’s a guy getting groceries out of his car. I pull up jump out and snap a few photos and speed off, yeah not too suspicious looking! Or even better is standing in the middle of the road to get the whole building in the shot, sorry, beeping your horn only makes me have to shoot the photo again fools.
Of course then it began to rain off and on. The skies stayed blue though which made it really cool looking. It also set up a great shot later on in the trip.
I had to visit the Kittery Premium Outlets for fun. Unbelievable how many stores they have, went into the UnderArmour outlet. A cop then pulls up leaves his lights flashing and goes in to check out shirts. Yeah, left his K-9 unit, lights flashing, for a shirt? He probably got it free too.
There are two incredible forts in Kittery. The first is Fort McClary which was crazy because it was open. I mean the buildings were open and you could go inside, I was all over that going way up inside the white Block House to get shots of the harbor, and Portsmouth and Whaleback Lighthouses.
The second one is Fort Foster which became my second favorite spot of the day. The fort itself was nothing out of the ordinary but my time there was unreal. First off it started raining, hard. Plus the gates were closed so driving to the fort was a no go. I had to get on my hooded jacket and walk in the pouring rain while others fled. The thing was the sky was blue so I knew that a rainbow was coming and that the rain wouldn’t last. I was right on both.
Once near the shore I could see Whaleback Light closeup as well as a house out on the rocks. I walked all the way out on a long pier getting soaked but then the rain stopped and as I turned around there was the rainbow. For a short time there was a second rainbow as well. It was well worth being soaked to get to see something rare like that. It was after this rain that the butterflies came out and were everywhere.
It was also this time where I noticed a high school cross country team jogging all around the fort. I just happened to mention I just ran a half marathon, I quickly became part of the gang once I whacked a random stranger, hey initiation rules need to be followed.
Being super intelligent like I am I decided not to listen to my evil gps and ended up adding an hour to my trip home. First I decided to be an idiot and check my phone while driving and ended up heading north on I-95 rather than south. The gps flipped out and was ordering me to make U-Turns all over the highway. I had to pay a toll to get off which sucked. Then I thought that the gps was wrong about the exit to take off of I-95 heading toward Boston so I made my own choice and added more time to my trip. I swear it wouldn’t be normal for that gps not to try to kill me at least once during a trip.
Photos of the Day:
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| Long Sands Beach |
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| Cape Neddick 'Nubble' Lighthouse |
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| Block House at Fort McClary |
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| Whaleback Lighthouse(left) at Fort Foster |
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