A Day in Portland

The Fun

We spent the day in Portland and met up with one of my favorite college friends, Suzanne, who I hadn’t seen in a few years since she moved to Boston from Asheville. We went on a DUCK tour, and enjoyed learning about the history of Portland, seeing the tallest building in the state of Maine (16 stories, in case you were wondering!), and cruising through the harbor where we saw some seals, lobster boats and a few wooden schooners. Our tourguide was fantastic – knew a lot about the city’s hockey team (they are moving to the ECHL after being in the AHL for many, many years – my condolences, Portland!) and pretty much everything else about the city. He’s a native, and works as a college librarian and was bursting with fun facts. Of course, when he talked about the city symbol being a Phoenix all I could think of was Fawkes and Harry Potter, but I’m a nerd like that!)

We also took a drive through south Portland to Cape Elizabeth to see the famous Portland Head Light. This is the iconic, lighthouse view of coastal Maine – sailboats in the distance, rocky cliffs in the foreground, and of course a lighthouse. It was a great side trip out of the city.

 

The Camping

Bradbury Mountain State Park is a tiny park just outside of Freeport, Maine, about 20 minutes from Portland. It’s close to LL Bean (and thank goodness for that, because my camping pad sprung a leak our first night!). There were only a dozen or two sites in the entire park, and all seemed to be pretty lovely and of varying sizes. There were three teardrop campers there our first night, and that’s always a good sign!

There were no hookups and the sites were too small for big rigs, so that was a certainly a plus for someone in a 9’ long tiny trailer. The only noise problems we encountered were dogs – so much barking. I wish I had a dog I could bring camping (my own has been banned, by me, because he gets so anxious and miserable when taken into the woods) but if my dog behaved the way the ones in the campground did, I wouldn’t bring him out ever again.

The campground featured the two nicest vault toilets I’ve ever experienced – seriously, I forgot I was pooping in a hole and not a flushable toilet. (Sorry for the TMI, y’all, but everyone poops!)  They also had a very nice, well-lit dishwashing station, not that we had to wash anything with all of Portland’s great food options available to us.

There were also showers – no flush toilets, but showers. Each had a sink and mirror and was super clean. It was nice to take my first camping shower of the trip!

 The Food

OK, I know that Portland is a foody destination. But we kept it pretty simple (and delicious). We had breakfast at a place called Bill’s Pizza on commercial street… $1.99 for two eggs and toast, or $3.99 for a stack of homemade Maine blueberry pancakes. I am not ashamed to say I ordered both!

For dinner, after brewery hopping, we went to a place called Po-Boys and Pickles. I had blueberry voo-doo wings. They were delicious and stained my fingers purple from the fresh blueberries. (Shh… don’t tell anyone I’m usually a vegetarian, but hot wings are my weakness!) They were served with a side of homemade pickled vegetables, and on a scale of 1-5 stars, I’d give them 10! I ordered a to-go container and ate them for breakfast the next morning. (Again, not ashamed! They were delicious!!!)

 

All in all, Portland was a pretty incredible day. I could have spent a week there – it does have the same charm that Asheville does (but my hometown has way more, and way better breweries – sorry Maine!)