Friday, August 5, 2011

2011 Summer Trip to New England #9
















We arrived at OutDoor World Moody Beach, Maine RV Resort on Tuesday. The park is attractive with lots of trees, but the RV spots here are really tight. The park seems to run at near capacity much of the time. I would not want to be a first time camper trying to get into one of these camp site. Due to horrible I 95 traffic (what else is new!) we got here late in the afternoon so we just set up camp and chilled out the rest of the evening. Wednesday, after exploring around, we discovered that there are beaches all around us and no further away than a mile. We spent the afternoon riding along Ocean Road and enjoyed all the neat scenery. We stopped for awhile at Wells Beach and sat on bleaches and watched the people swimming in 50 degree water. The temperature here has been 72/73 and drops down to 60 at night. But it doesn't stop people from swimming. From Wells Beach we drove another 2 miles to Kenneybunk Port and road along the coastal roads there. We stopped to take pictures of the Bush summer home (pic 2 above). There were lots of cars parked on the side of the house so we figured the Bushes might be there. I'm sure they would prefer this beautiful weather compared to the 100+ degree temperatures in TX. I was surprised that the home is so visible to the public. I thought it would be more secluded. It definitely was beautiful. From there we continued on down the coast for awhile and then made our way back to the campground. We did stop for dinner on the way back and you guessed it, more clam chowder for me and a hamburger for Jim. Thursday, Jim and I ventured out on our bikes and rode back out to Wells Beach. We had lunch (yes, more clam chowder) and sat on the benches watching the crazy people swimming again in ice water. After awhile I browsed the little shops there and Jim looked for geocaches. It was so cold there I ended up buying a sweatshirt. I have so many sweatshirts I really did not need another one, but it was cold and people were actually swimming. Jim thinks they must be from Canada and they think this is warm. After spending most of the day here we finally headed back to the RV. I decided to cook Jim dinner that didn't involve fish haha. We grilled chicken and corn on the grill. Friday we decided to take a trip to the LL Bean store in Freeport, ME. It was about 40 miles from us. We decided to take the scenic route and along the way we stopped at a Shoe Outlet. Jim bought me a really nice pair of sandals (such a good hubby).






Next on our way, we stopped at the Cold River Vodka Brewery at Freeport Me and got a tour of how they make their vodka using potatoes. It was pretty amazing to hear about the process. They start off making a potato soup in this huge vat using 15,000 pounds of potatoes. Then the soup mixture is cooled to a room temperature and the yeast is added to make the alcohol. It's about a week long process to make a batch of vodka (about 10,000 bottles). It was a very clean operation and the young man that gave the tour was so knowledgeable thank goodness because Jim hit him up with about 50,000 questions. After the tour, we did a vodka tasting and Jim bought a souvenir bottle and a shot glass. Another interesting tidbit, they decided to start making the vodka with potatoes after the Atkins Diet almost put the potato farmers out of business in Maine. To some Vodka connosieurs (we are not!) potato vodka is smoother particularly that from small scale refiners like Cold River (they use a triple distillation process resulting in 96.5% purity). We found out that Vodka is nothing more than highly purified alchohol mixed with water to the familiar 80 proof. Cold River uses highly purified mountain creek water and considers them selves as compitition to Grey Goose and Ketel 1(their price is also comparable).






From there we finally made our way to the LL Bean Store also at Freeport, Me. My goodness was that place huge. It was several times larger than the largest Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World! Another thing we learned was that the store is open 365 days a year 24 hours a day. We walked all over one of the stores all afternoon and never did see the whole store. There were several other stores that we did not get to like the Outdoor Living, the Home store, etc. etc. There were blocks and blocks of parking. In addition to LL Bean there was lots of other name brand stores there in this town. The picture above does not give the size of this store justice (the complex covers several city blocks). I did manage to find a few things there but the majority of their clothes were for winter wear. Since we haven't experienced a winter in Virginia since we retired, my shopping was limited to their summer selections. They had rooms and rooms of sports clothes and two whole sections for kids. I would have loved to check out the Home store but it was a block away and I had walked and walked all over the main retail store and needless to say I didn't have it in me to go any further. Maybe the next time we come this way. Tomorrow we are going to Rockland, ME for their 64th Annual Lobster Festival. Looking forward to that.







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