After our lunch in Beverly, we continued onward into Maine, settling in at our hotel just outside of Portland. It was getting late, but I had heard rumblings of a new fish and chips shop nearby that is closed on Mondays and Tuesday (this was on Sunday) so we decided to venture out for dinner.
The fish and chips were good, but nothing to write home about. But apparently they were worth blogging about because here we are. They actually sold out for the night right after we got our food, so I guess they were reasonably popular.
The next morning we got up bright and early and ventured out in search of a “fairy trail” on the nearby Mackworth Island. When we got there it seemed as if everyone had the same idea to start Labor Day off with a hike and we were turned away due to maximum capacity. Instead we went right down the road and hiked at the Maine Audubon wildlife habitat. You would expect me to have taken some pictures, right?
As we were nearing lunchtime we sought after one of these infamous Maine lobster rolls. We settled on The Highroller, seemingly one of the more touristy places to dine in the city. I got a Maine-style roll with garlic mayo and split a flight of mini rolls that were a combination of Maine-style and the warmed up and buttered alternative: Connecticut-style. Don’t tell any of the Maine-enites, but I think I preferred the warm ones.
After browsing a few of the shops in downtown Portland, we needed to find something to do for the rest of the afternoon that would be open on Labor Day, so we went down to Two Lights State Park, out on Cape Elizabeth. This was probably my wife’s favorite part of the trip as we walked along the rocky cliff-side shore, enjoying the cool Maine weather.
At the northern end of the park is a restaurant called The Lobster Shack, so we popped our heads in for a minute to have yet another lobster roll. I guess I’ll say it now, but these were generally pretty good and tasted the same quality no matter where we went. They were also pretty expensive considering that I typically finished one in four or five bites and was hungry again within a couple hours.
After dinner we stopped somewhere to get ice cream (I forget what the place was called) and then headed back to the hotel to put the child to bed. My intentions were to stay up and play games in the hotel room after he went to sleep, but this vacation was already wearing me out. And seeing it all typed out here is exhausting me again, so I’m going to cut this off early and follow up in a few days with the next leg of our trip: northward into Bangor and beyond to Bar Harbor!
Yeah, those lobster rolls should be called crawdaddy rolls because they are so tiny! But they are delicious for sure! There’s nothing better than gastronomical satisfaction when venturing into unknown territory!