August 5, 2019
Colchester, VT
Lone Pine Campground
Site 61
Day 4 arrived and we knew we had to get on the road, but no one really had much urgency. We got everything packed up and were on the road around 9am. Lone Pine was a decent campground, the sites are small and quite close together, but it is very well maintained. It is on Malletts bay, which is about 20 minutes north of Burlington, so there are a couple of options that would get you closer to downtown, but for what we needed it worked pretty well.
Once we got rolling, I started seeing signs for a town called Sharon. As we got closer, there was a second town as well, causing the sign to read Sharon Strafford.
This combo of towns definitely sounds like someone that asks to speak with the manager, sends her steak (ordered well done of course) back to the kitchen, pays for her groceries with a check, and absolutely is chairwoman of the PTA.
One thing we have not grown immune to is the sheer number of moose signs.
I'm curious how many of these situations have occurred to have this many warnings.
Before we left for this trip I started reading a book called 'The Nature Fix', in part to reinforce a very obvious and easy conclusion (being outside makes you feel better than being cooped up inside), and in part to learn some of the science behind why. One of the pieces of evidence the author points out is that there is a substance contained in tree oils that triggers endorphins, etc (don't worry, I'm not going all holistic healing on you, nor is this a pyramid scheme intro, although its starting to sound like one). Anyway, I've been blathering on at the shop back home about Japanese forest therapy and this scientific connection behind why you feel better when you go outside, so when I checked in with Luke at the shop to see how things were going, the response I got was "Enjoy the nature. Absorb the pine needle energy." Point taken.
One of my regrets from our previous trip to Maine is that we didn't visit either Allagash or White Birch breweries, both of which brew a fair amount of Belgian style beers, which have been my favorite for a very long time. This time around we were going right past Allagash, so we popped in for a quick flight and loaded up on some of their prized Coolship variants. I also happened to be repping Tripelroot and wearing Kimberly's favorite hat. [Narrator: It wasn't her favorite hat]
When we got to the campground, we discovered that it was part of an actual farm, with a little farm-to-table cafe, a small dairy barn, and some goats. Jordan and I immediately had to explore and see the calves and goats because "They're soooooo cuuuuuuuute." They were all very cute until a black pig walked up to Jordan, she got all excited that he came over for her to pet him, and he pooped almost right on her foot.
After checking out our farm/campground, we headed into downtown Freeport, which is essentially an outlet mall built around the LL Bean headquarters. As we wandered around looking for a place to grab dinner, we walked right past the Patagonia outlet and saw that it was closing in 15 minutes. We headed in and realized that 30% off of $189 is still comically overpriced. While we were wrapping up, a guy that looked like he must have just gotten dressed in the NorthFace changing room yelled to his son that had just knocked a pair of pants off the rack. "Ulysses, dude, pick those up." Uhhh...
After dinner we were working our way to the LL Bean store when both Jordan and Kimberly discovered a bookstore. Huge nerds. Here they are probably debating something about Harry Potter.
Outside, Jordan freaked me out with a series of poses that have me terrified of the next few years. Full sass.
Inside LL Bean, it was just as I remembered. I'm all for what they're about, and when your founder is Leon Leonwood Bean, you definitely shorten it to LL. It's just that their products always make me think of a generic Fred Armisen Portlandia character. Case in point.
Tomorrow - we head downeast (yep, gonna hear that a lot) toward Boothbay and some oceanfront wandering.
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