On the road again; Caching Places We've Never Been: Down East Maine

We left Bangor and checked into an RV park, Naples Campground, in Naples, Maine.

This area, called The Lakes, is much like the Finger Lakes area in Upstate New York. There are a number of finger shaped lakes in this area and we were parked between Brandy Pond Lake and Tricky Lake on the south side of Sebago Lake. When we arrived, the camp owner said we had arrive just in time as the power which had been out since Irene hit southern Maine – 5 days ago had just come back on. This area had been hit real hard and there were trees down everywhere as we drove in.

Our first day in the Down East area we drove to Yarmouth. This is one of the places that I have wanted to visit for a long time as it is where DeLorme has its corporate offices. This is the company that makes my favorite GPS. We got a cache while there, bought a few geocaching things, and ALMOST bought a new DeLorme PN60. I would have, too, but they had sold out and would not have any in until the next day at the earliest. After ‘sleeping on it’ overnight I decided I could live with my PN40. Wow, saved $250 without even trying. Open-mouthed smile One of the features of the DeLorme facility (e is silent as per the staff at DeLorme) is the worlds largest printed globe of the earth, called Eartha. You can see Eartha behind the 3 story high windows at the corner of the building.

We saw the funniest thing in the parking lot. A Mercedes that thought it was a pickup truck. Now that is creative.

Tom had wanted a Fish Stew or Chowder and I wanted a Lobster Stew so I Googled “best lobster stew in Maine” and found The Dolphin in Harpswell. The restaurant is at the very end of one of the peninsulas that are all along the Maine coast. Tom had his fish stew and I my lobster stew. NEVER have I had a better lobster stew. The broth was simply superb and lots of lobster. It came with a fresh salad, blueberry muffin, and baked sweet potato. Even now my mouth is watering.

The views were terrific, too.

The Dolphin at Harpswell, Maine

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The next day, Thursday, we drove to Augusta, the capitol of Maine. We parked and noticed the State Museum, State Library and Archives right across the street from the capitol and decided to go there first. I went to the genealogy section of the state library to see if there was any information on the Ward family that settled in Fort Fairfield, Maine, in the late 1700’s. I did find several books with Moses Ward mentioned, but there was not a lot of specific information about him.

Tom went into the Museum. I joined him after about and hour and a half looking through books and we closed the museum. There were so many fabulous displays and these are just a few.

There were 3 floors of information about Maine displayed in a ‘living history’ type of exhibit though all the people in the exhibits were manikins. There was even a working water wheel driving belt driven machinery.

After the museum closed we walked across the street and got these pictures of the lovely capitol.

Augusta is the third smallest capitol city in the United States behind Bismark, North Dakota, and Montpelier, Vermont.

Our last day in the Down East was spent geocaching and exploring the countryside. We finished by driving out to Five Islands to have… guess what??? Lobster.