We’re staying in Saco which is about 15 miles south of
Portland, Maine. On Thursday we went to Portland to see the Portland Head
Lighthouse which is at Fort William Park. Both the lighthouse and the
park are beautiful. This is the type of coast that looks good no
matter how low the tide is. There’s a nice view of Portland across Casco
Bay but it’s not a good photography subject at that distance so I don’t have a
picture of it.
Portland Head Lighthouse, one of the most photographed
scenes in the country.
After the park we drove over to the Maine Mead Works in an
old section of Portland. We’d seen a story about it on the news the night
before so, never having had the opportunity to taste mead before, we thought
we’d go check it out.
These are “totes” being filled with mead which sits here
until it finishes its fermentation process.
Mead is often mentioned in books about the Middle Ages but
we didn’t know what it was made from. It’s honey and water with yeast
added to make it ferment. Other things (like blueberries) are added to
make different flavors after the process is finished. It’s actually a
type of wine so I guess you could call this a winery. They use 1000
pounds of honey a week (from New Hampshire), mixed with water in 50 pound
batches. The operation runs 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday.
An amazing amount of product is made by just five employees, only two of whom
are doing all the actual mead production. The owner’s wife labels all the
bottles by hand, a horrible ordeal according to our tour guide who obviously
was very glad someone else was doing it. The business is expanding and is
now selling product as far south as New York.
Slightly out of focus as it was taken while I was quickly
walking through the room. The tall contraptions are fermentation towers
where the honey/water mixture is fed to the yeast culture and starts its
fermentation process. It goes through at a constant slow rate and runs
through the tubes into the totes in the next room where it continues to ferment
until the yeast has consumed all the sugar.
We didn’t get to see much of Portland due to lack of time
and an over-abundance of traffic but it looks like a really neat place.
It’s a very old city, though, and the roads (and parking places) aren’t built
for wide trucks so it wasn’t easy to get through it.
Yesterday was rainy so we took care of the grocery and
laundry chores. This is not generally something I comment on, however,
finding a laundromat was such a challenge it’s worth noting. The one at
the campground had two out-of-order machines so we had to go elsewhere.
After wending our way through the traffic to the first one I found on the
internet, the business was no longer there. Even if it had been open there was
no place to park. The second place, in Old Orchard Beach (4 highly
congested miles away), did exist but had only 3 parking places, 2 of which were
full and we wouldn’t have fit in them anyway. Jim managed to squeeze into
the end space right next to the traffic lane with fingers crossed that no one
would hit us (which they didn’t). There are very few parking places we
can get into in areas like this.
The weather today was outstanding so we headed off to the
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles down the coast.
Jim at the Rachel Carson NWR.
It has a nice one-mile trail through woods and around salt
marshes with a very slow-moving river going by. The only wildlife we saw
(besides the usual assortment of chipmunks) was a flotilla of ducks dressed in
adolescent coats, adult-sized chicks from the spring hatching. There was
just one spot on the trail where we could see the beach and waves in the
distance. The NWR has a number of locations from Portland down to Kittery
on the NH border but there was no information available at the headquarters
area about getting to them or even if they had public access.
Besides trying to find other sections of the NWR, we had
planned to go into Kennebunkport and find a place where we could see the ocean
but that turned out to be impossible. Vehicle traffic was nearly at a
standstill and it was being further obstructed by a very large organized bike
ride. Judging by the numbers pinned on jerseys there were over 1700
entrants. We turned away from the ocean at the first opportunity and
ended up eating our picnic lunch in the RV.
This afternoon we drove 35 miles up to Freeport to see L.L.
Bean’s flagship store. The place is so big they have different buildings
for their various products……home, fishing and hunting, retail clothing, boats
and sports. The parking lots stretched for blocks and they were all
full. Freeport is a lovely town and I would have liked to see more of it
but we got out of L.L. Bean too late to wander around.
The L.L. Bean Boot in front of the retail building.
That completes our short time in the Portland area.
Tomorrow we’re off to Cape Cod to spend a few days with Jody’s parents. I
probably won’t be doing any emails while we’re there.
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