Hello!

In July 2013, we drove about 3500 miles from Wisconsin to Maine and back. Well, Andy drove about 3000 of them while I figured out where we were going. Our goal was partly to check out Bar Harbor, Maine as a potential place to have a family reunion next summer. My mother-in-law's family has a reunion every two years and because they live all over the US, the location changes. We're in charge of it next year and we thought, why not Maine? Seems like a cool place...but maybe we should verify before we invite a bunch of people to go there. We also wanted to take a road trip and I hadn't been east of Tennessee so it was time to head that direction. Back in college we did a few major road trips - to the southwest just for fun and to British Columbia, Canada for our honeymoon (10 years ago!) - but back then we didn't have a minivan and smart phones didn't exist, so we thought we really needed to experience a road trip with these conveniences. The verdict is that road trips are much better when you can take anything you want and smart phones obviously make it easier to find awesome places on the road (not to mention the GPS aspect and seeing live traffic updates). I'm pretty sure we're flying next year though! It just takes a long time.

Look at all that crap! Minivans are awesome.

So much room, practically no organizational abilities required.

I wrote the following posts describing our trip while we were on the road since I had like 60 hours of free time. Although a blog would typically have the most recent post at the top (which would be the end of our trip), I posted this all backwards when we got home so the first post you see after this is the first day of our trip. My point is, if you're in this for the long haul and you want to read it all, click "older posts" at the bottom of this first page to read more. Honestly I wrote this mostly for us to remember our trip but figured I'd do a blog since maybe someone else could be interested!

Here are the theme songs from our trip. We heard them multiple times a day, not on purpose (although we like both songs).

Friday 7/19

We left Eau Claire at 9 am and made it to Madison for lunch and then headed to Chicago. We hit Chicago around 3:00 and the traffic was slow but not too horrible. We took 294 around and then went over to Indiana. We missed the exit for 80/90 and went further on 94 than we intended and learned that turning around on toll roads is a real pain! We stopped in South Bend Indiana for dinner at a place called Brothers that had good beer and decent food, did a little shopping, and drove around Notre Dame briefly. What a beautiful campus. I had no idea Notre Dame was in South Bend! We made it to Cleveland Ohio that night at 11:30 CST/12:30 EST and got a good night of sleep at a nice hotel, the Doubletree Hilton Tudor Arms. It was a good choice – hard wood floors, marble, comfy bed. Long day. Google maps said it would take 10.5 hours to make it from Eau Claire to Cleveland and it took us 13 – well actually 14 but we lost an hour. We stopped to eat, probably spent a half hour going in the wrong direction, and Chicago traffic moved pretty slow so this isn’t too bad. 

Saturday 7/20

We got breakfast at the hotel restaurant: expensive, bad service, but decent food at least. It was a cool hotel with a lot of historical detail. Finally we got an audio book downloaded (World War Z) after lots of confusion about which version to get (the unabridged version is not available in the US, I guess).

Erie, PA was our first destination. We took the MLK out of Cleveland which is a nice road with beautiful old bridges and many garden areas. Stopped at Target in Erie for supplies since it was close to the highway, but Erie has some serious traffic issues so it was not a quick task. I was surprised with how nice Ohio and the small bit of Pennsylvania we saw were - lots of trees.

Leaving Erie, a deer hopped out and the person in front of us missed it but then it crossed to the other side of the highway and got smucked by a semi. We both happened to look back and see it happen – good thing a semi hit it because it probably did very little damage while it would have really messed up a car. We actually could hear the loud crack of it getting hit across the freeway. Poor thing!  

Although Google maps told us to go up to Buffalo NY through Rochester and Syracuse on 90, we decided to take 86 across New York through Jamestown and Corning over to Binghamton. I’m pondering whether it is pronounced bing hampton or bingamton. [Later I learned that this is called the Southern Tier of New York. Also, David Sedaris pronounced bingamton in "Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls."]  It was a nice casual drive with no tolls and very little traffic. Rolling hills just covered with trees. 

We ate an early dinner at the Market Street Brewing Company in Corning. Yeah, Corning, where the glass place is. If we had time I totally would have gone to the museum of glass. The meal was just ok. Wouldn’t eat there again. We debated about whether to go down to Scranton and over to Hartford CT but decided to go up to Albany and took 90 over to stay at a Comfort Inn in Auburn, outside of Worcester, MA. 

It smelled like this was happening in the hotel.

I think the hotel was hosting a cigarette smokeathon or something. Good lesson to never stay at a hotel that allows smoking at all. Our room was supposedly non smoking but it just reeked of cigarettes and air freshener. Bad ventilation I guess. Trip advisor heard about it. I was disappointed because it wasn’t cheap and the reviews were pretty decent. Thankfully we brought our suitcases back out to the van that night because the clothes we had in the room continued to smell like cigarettes a few days later.

So today, Saturday 7/20, the second day of our trip, we were on the road for 12 hours (11 am to 11 pm, almost exactly). We finished the first half of World War Z. Definitely didn’t need completely unabridged – it is good but got a bit slow in some parts and the accents of the readers were kind of hard to understand. I was a little bored in the beginning segments about the outbreak. Rebuilding is more interesting. Google maps said it would take 9 hours to make it from Cleveland to Auburn MA, taking the upper route through Albany. We may have added a half hour taking 86 instead (which was worth it - we took the upper route home and it was kind of bleghy). Then we stopped in Corning for at least an hour and in Erie for probably 45 minutes. That would make another 45 mins for random bathroom breaks.

I stole the smoking picture from http://howmanyarethere.net/how-many-ways-are-there-to-quit-smoking/ but they probably stole it from somewhere else.  

Sunday 7/21 & Concert

It took a while to get the cigarette smoke out of our lungs. Seriously. We had sore throats and had to hack up the grossness that occurred in our bodies overnight. It was like the aftermath of going out to the bars back in the day when smoking was allowed. Good thing we took our luggage back out to the car because the clothes we wore at that hotel still smelled of smoke days later.

Ok, moving on! We woke up in Auburn, MA and had to make it to Bangor, ME for a concert.

We left at about 9 am and headed for Portland, ME first. Portland is awesome! Super cute city, with lots of dogs everywhere! We tried to go to the Peak Organic Brewery but it actually isn’t a place you can go to. It was weird because the website is really nice and they show beer and food. So we went to Trader Joe’s which was right by where the Peak Organic Brewery was supposed to be and the guy stocking beer gave us some tips on where to go for beer.

So our first stop was Novae Res, which is a bier café. It was this cool little place back in an alley (a clean alley) that had the craziest beer selection I’ve seen probably. They had these half pint glasses that were nice for testing beer. Here we had our first lobster roll. It was good, not amazing. The food was more of something to go along with beer than being a big deal on it’s own. The atmosphere was nice and they had outdoor seating.


Then we went to Infiniti brewery and distillery. This was a big, more commercial place. Andy had a double IPA and I had a drink called “a garden party” with gin, cucumber, St. Germain, mint, absinthe, and celery bitters. It was good. We also ordered some fried pork belly because, why not, and unfortunately it tasted really good but being primarily fat it made my stomach angry. There was a guy playing live music and he was awesome.

Next we headed out of Portland and decided to hit up the Maine Beer Company outside of Freeport. It is this neat, clean little place. They had beer only, no food. We got a sampler of all 8 of their beers which were all pretty good. Bought a few to take along and some merch.

Then we headed to Bangor. We had another Comfort Inn reserved which worried me from our experience the night before but it was actually really decent for the price. I took my shoes off, it was that clean. They did have smoking rooms I guess but there were no smoking signs in the lobby and I didn’t smell smoke at all. Whew.

Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five, Guster Concert

Panorama. There was a train going by. It was weird. Click to see it better. 

Our main reason for going to Bangor on this particular day was because we had tickets to see the Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five, and Guster at Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion. We had awesome seats – row 11, seats 8 and 9. Pretty much front and center. It was a huge outdoor venue but it felt like a small one because we were so close. I’ve never had tickets that good. They were definitely expensive, but worth it.

You've got three guesses on who this is, but the first two don't count

We mostly wanted to see Ben Folds Five which I guess was weird because Barenaked Ladies were the headliner and who most people were there to see. The crowd clearly was not excited about Ben Folds Five. I felt like BFF were kind of low energy at the beginning but they picked up. I’m sure a band feels different when they are not the headliner. They played a nice variety of old and new, but I like the new songs almost as much as the old so I’m happy either way. They played Brick, which I always find disappointing because their one mainstream song is totally not representative of them as a band but I’m sure they had to do that to appeal to the people who only sort of knew who they were.


There is a train track really, really close to the stage and a train went by while they were playing. It was so weird! The conductor (is that what they are really called?) was waving all excitedly as they drove by. The band stopped and joked about it.

Guster

The 1^st opener was some guy named Boothby I think and he was pretty funny and entertaining. Then Guster came on and I had only sort of heard of them – they have that satellite song – but they were really good. Kind of funny too and they had a few more songs I had heard but forgot.

BNL

Then BFF were on and the end was Barenaked Ladies. I was mostly into Barenaked Ladies around the time One Week was popular (which of course they played). They apparently have a new album. I knew probably half the songs they played or a little less. They played the Big Bang Theory song. The main guy, Ed, was pretty cool. I knew his speaking voice from the Rock Spectacle album (“it’s right up that ladder, lady”).  A bunch of members from the bands came out to play with other bands. It was cool. He showed us a clip of Steven Hawking quoting their song. It was kind of funny that everyone was dancing and psyched to hear the theme song from a TV show. I also enjoyed it though! I always listen to the intro to the Big Bang because I like it. Anyway, they did the cover of all covers by singing the choruses of pretty much all the current popular songs – thrift shop, scream and shout, bullet proof, etc. It was awesome. They had a fantastic encore – Brian Wilson was pretty much necessary so I’m glad they played that and then the drummer and Ed switched spots and the drummer sang the alcohol song and blister in the sun by the violent femmes. It was great. We were super pleased with our seats and our parking too. We were out of that place with no wait although we parked super close. Then we realized we didn’t eat dinner and luckily Pizzaria Uno right by our hotel was open. Score! 

Monday 7/22

Got an awesome night of sleep and a clean shower. Took off for Bar Harbor around 10:30. The route from Bangor to Bar Harbor is kind of like Door County. There are a lot of slowpokes not even going the speed limit when it’s 45. Probably tourist gawkers. I’d be super annoyed if I had to drive this regularly but, being a tourist gawker, it was ok.

Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound

Me.

Andy.

Lobsters.

We had our first lobster at the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound. While waiting for it to be cooked, we youtubed how to eat a lobster because we didn't really know what we were supposed to do with these things. It turned out pretty well. It was amazing to get full off of just lobster. Unfortunately our hands stunk like lobster after like 4 washings, purell, and wet wipes but it did go away! We learned that they are called lobster pounds because they’re kind of like dog pounds, where they hold a bunch of lobsters until right before they are eaten. Except we don’t eat the dogs at dog pounds. This is a horrible description!

Andy in the hammock. Tiny campsite.

Then we headed to Bar Harbor and stopped at our campground called Hadley’s Point. We had a decent site but it was right across from the playground which was a little loud, just from normal kid noise. It was an absolutely perfect day weather wise – a little overcast mid 70s. We got set up and went to Bar Harbor. Traffic was pretty crazy. We were going down one road, I think West St, and heard a crash behind us and realized someone took off the side mirror of a parked car. Later we saw the mirror on that car’s windshield with a note.

Our first agenda item was to go to the West Street Hotel to check out rooms for the reunion. We were helped by a nice guy named Brian who showed us some rooms. We had a drink at Paddy’s, which is the bar right below the West Street Hotel and walked around Bar Harbor. It is a very cute town with lots of little shops and restaurants. We asked Brian and someone at Paddy’s about food allergies since Andy’s mom has a shellfish allergy and Brian said that most restaurants are very accommodating, even giving away free food sometimes to people with allergies. The woman at Paddy’s said they will cook food on aluminum foil, so it is not on the grill that fish was on.

Then we headed over to the Atlantic Brewery which was out of town a bit kind of by our hotel. It is a nice place. They have a tour which we didn’t do but we did the tasting. It was cool, because someone explains the different beers. Then we spent a bunch of money on merchandise and beer and headed to the restaurant connected to it called Mainely Meats. There we had a sampler meal that we shared. They have good beer. Then we got some ice cream and went back to the camp site. Took a little walk to Hadley's Point to see an amazing sunset and sat around the fire. Perfect day.