Maybe booking my flight to New England at 6:45 am was a mistake. I’m notoriously not a morning person (thank God I’ve always worked mid days at CKG) I never sleep the night before a trip and so when the alarm went off at five, I was already up. Ok, I’ll skip the crazy parts, worrying that the cab driver knew my apartment unit and that I’d be out of town, that he stopped at EVERY yellow light on Cicero, and that if my friend Angie didn’t stand in line outside for curbside check in that I would have missed my flight.
I’ll fast forward to our first destination, the Ben and Jerry’s headquarters in Burlington, Vermont. We pulled up to the hillside factory and the car next to us had girls from Germany. What!?!? Yes, apparently people from all over the world come to the ice cream capitol, to get a tour, and free samples. There’s even a cool Flavor Cemetery for those flavors that didn’t have a successful fun. Yum, it was definitely worth it, but I didn’t realize how much land we’d have to cover to get to our next destination.
Most people think the states in New England are tiny (Rhode Island, Vermont) but let me tell you, Maine is huge. Lots of cemeteries, the kinds without the gates and the signs… just graves a few yards off the main road, weird, but ok. Small town after small town till we go to another small town… Bangor. Boring. Finally we made it to second destination; Bar Harbor, a tourist town on the east side of Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. It’s mostly known for Acadia National Park. Only 4,000 people live on the island and the park has over 9 million visitors a year. What did we see on the cute main street? Ice cream shops, ice cream parlors, ice cream shacks… and tons of blueberries, who knew that Maine was best place for blueberries? In fact, who knew anything about Maine? We hiked, we kayaked, we ate ice cream and I tried seafood for the first time in my life (remember me the good Jewish girl who kept kosher) I got to crack open a lobster – seriously what’s with the greenish brown stuff inside it? I had crab quesadillas – anything tastes good with cheese. On our way off the island we passed a small hut next to 3 airplanes and what the heck, we decided to fly. Like I mentioned the air today, I was very surprised that all they wanted was my credit card… no forms to fill out, no weight questions, just give us your plastic and get on the old Cessna. Wow. It was great. I swear I didn’t think of La Bamba, Patsy Kline or JFK Jr.
Off to lovely town of Freeport Maine… why is it lovely? Because the town is known for one thing, well at least for me, OUTLETS. The LL Bean outlet stays open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now I wasn’t looking for any canoes or ugly flannel shirts, but there were other cool shops and that night we stayed at our nicest hotel… the Econo Lodge.
The next day we drove to Cape Cod. I have a slight obsession with the Kennedy family and so of course we stayed in Hyannis. Every time a helicopter flew overhead I waved thinking it might be Teddy or another family member. That’s the night we had a platter of FRIED seafood (scallops, crab, lobster, clams, shrimp) of course followed by Ben and Jerry’s – you must try the newest flavor Crème Brule.
The next day after looking for seashells in the ocean (which I ended up throwing away- oops sorry grandma no souvenirs for you) we visited the JFK Memorial and Museum and headed back to the airport in Manchester New Hampshire… Wait, we just realized that we have to drive through Boston to get there. Angie and I were going car crazy and started asking random people on the street if they were related to Matt Damon or Ben Affleck. Oh yeah, Denis Leary too. The trip ended with my favorite of all at the famous seafood restaurant Legals. I had a Maryland Crab cake sandwich and some yummy key lime pie. Good thing the speed limit is 65 out there, because we sped back to the airport and shezam back in Chicago. It wasn’t a very relaxing vacation (I get bored laying at a pool all day) as we were on the go every day, but it was free of stress and cool to visit parts of the country I haven’t been to.
Things I liked about New England: fresh seafood, faster driving on the highways, beautiful nature, and slower pace of life, no taxes, and fun things to do.
Things that I found weird about New England: the taste of lobster, the 2-lane highways, the abundance of Dunkin Doughnuts, the slower pace of life, only white people, and the folks’ accents.