Good morning,
It took me longer than expected to post my last update on the trip. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I can procrastinate better than
Anyone I know. Yes. Anyone.
Since I am not in the most jaunty of moods this grim Friday before a long weekend morning, I'm just going to write up what happened on the rest of my trip and not in my little format that I was using.
After we left
Portland we headed due north up SR-201, a.k.a. Scenic Route 201. It was very picturesque and breathtaking at points. We have lovely photography of the area, shot on instant cameras by rank amateurs. One can imagine the incredible pictures that turned out in the end. Anyway, we drove 4 or so hours up this lovely road and passed many small towns on our way into the mountains of Maine. We arrived at a place called
Jackman right before sundown. Jackman scared me a little as we drove through it, I couldn't put my finger on it. It could have been that it had that "little town in the middle of nowhere" horror movie feel, totally enhanced by the gloomy overcast darkness that settled over it as we drove in. It could have been that the largest building in the town was this
enormous stone church. It just seemed so oversized for a town of population 200 to have this giant church. But I digress, as usual. Anyway, we just picked out a cabin rental place at random there, it was getting dark and it looked stormy as heck and we settled on Sally Mountain Lake Rentals. I couldn't have picked a better spot if I tried.
Sally Mountain Lake Rentals: I walked in the door and there was a gentleman in a flannel shirt and jeans who spoke with a curious Boston-Canadian accent (apparently that's what real Mainers sound like) and happily told me he had Bigwood for me if I wanted it. Yes, that's how he said it. It was the name of the cabin we were to be staying it. $50 a night. $25 a person a night, specials for a week. I was amazed by the low cost and quite honestly, very surprised at the quality of our lodgings. There were 10 beds, 2 floors, 4 little tv's with basic cable and a very nice little kitchen complete with all the gear necessary to cook and eat. It took me a little while to figure it out that we actually got the 10 man hunting cabin by default. It also had a porch that had a picture-perfect view of Sally Mountain Lake. They call it a lake. Ok, Lake Ronkonkoma is a Lake. Maine's version of a lake looks like the Atlantic Ocean. This "lake" was enormous, it was just gigantic. Again, one man's lake is another's puddle eh? So we spent the night there and did not want to leave in the morning but we were determined to go futher into the mountains, so we pressed on.
Rockwood: We had called a cabin place in Rockwood the day before and Melody had spoken with a lovely older lady that told us she might have a cabin for us, it just depended on the "lovely young couple" that was staying in it decided to leave the next day. She told Mel to call on Wednesday but alas, when you are surrounded by mountains, trees, and Mooses, there isn't much of a cell signal. In fact, most of the trip up we had no signal at all.
So we trekked on to Rockwood with the attitude of "what the hell". Only 30-40 minutes away from Jackman and we started seeing road signs for cottage rentals and a few minutes after that, we saw the sign for Rockwood. We had arrived, but where the heck was the place we called? We drove up and down the road for a while, till I realized that the sign for the place was partially obscured and we had been driving past the place for some time. We drove down their little road and stopped in front of the office. Our soon to be host Bonnie, had left us a note on the door telling us to check out the cabin and if we like it it's ours and come back at 3PM. By then she'd be back from the Doctor's in Bangor and would have our cabin cleaned up. How nice. So we ventured into the next town down the road. Another 45 minutes or so and we see Greenville and at the same time, my cellphone makes a wierd warbling - it located a signal! 5 bars worth! If they have a cell tower, they must have fast food! YES! We set about looking for a McDonald's, I had heard they served McLobster up there and was DYING to see what processed lobster looked like. Well, our quick search of the area turned up no shortage of little restaurants, a few gas stations, a bank, and a few grocery stores. Hey, by central Maine standards we were in a Big Town. It was nice, the weather was pleasant (about 60 degrees and breezy) so we picked out a place with an outside deck and had sandwiches for lunch.
After our lunch and searching about, we headed back to Rockwood. We met Bonnie upon our return. She was an absolute doll, she explained everything about the cabin's amenities and talked to us about the grounds and told us all about where to go to get food, see moose, etc. and then she left us to our own devices. Again, the view of the nearby river was beautiful but unfortunately we could not rent a boat to get across it. The waters were deemed "unsafe" by our hosts both days we were there. I wanted to get to the island on the other side of the river. I wanted to hike all over it. Ah well, like some famous General said, "I will return."
Time there flew by like crazy and before long we were paying Bonnie and packing up the van and headed back to NY.
It was 11 hours back to Long Island from Rockwood, ME. It's a beautiful place and I highly recommend it to anyone that's into hiking, kayaking, or just laying around looking at beautiful skies on a warm summer afternoon.
