Well, that sure was a culture shock. After 3 days at the lovely 4-star Lexington Hotel in Manhattan, we hit the road and got as far as Groton, Connecticut. Ran into another sweet Jesus, no way is this a 3-star hotel situation. I walked in to that room and wanted to cry, of course without touching anything in the process. Rick reminded me that sometimes we hit a home run on the rooms, and sometimes we strike out. This was really only the second real clunker (I might have said third, if I counted Nags Head-but it was beach front, so, bygones), and still better than Hadden Hall in Miami-lol! (Sorry Lauri) It was probably worse having come from Manhattan, and already being a little sad about leaving there….I worry that I sound kind of bratty with the whole star situation, but I really am quite flexible and open minded. I am German after all, and I expect things to be neat and clean-can’t help it.

Anyway, we got moving. Through Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and landing in Maine which was our destination. All those states, and we only drove 182 miles. Crazy! We got to Kennebunkport and had a delightful Lobster lunch. We arrived in sunshine and by the time we left a fog cover had rolled in. The contrast was as startling as those two hotels mentioned above. See the photos below. Our server at Cape Pier Chowder House has met former President Bush and his wife Barbara at the restaurant. Says they are quite friendly.

After that we started really checking out hotels in the area. This really does get tedious at times. Kennebunkport had 1-star hotels for just under $200 and 4-star as high as $840. We kept going. We found a great deal on the Westin in Portland, Maine. Just what the doctor ordered. Halle-freaking-lulljah! And we decided to stay there for two days. We are within striking distance of Canada.

We enjoyed our first evening walking down Congress Street-complete with a little music venue that looks an awful lot like The Rialto. We got up on Tuesday and Rick went to the gym while I went through over 150 Benco emails. I slacked off there a little. Oops. After that we walked to the AAA office to get some info on New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Weighed down with about 15 lbs. of books and maps, we headed back up the hill to our hotel to drop it all off. Then we really started exploring. We walked down to the pier and up and down several more hills until we decided it was time for a bite. We went to this great little place called Duckfat. Seriously, how can you go wrong with a name like that? Rick wasn’t sure he wanted to wait a whole 10 minutes for a spot at the bar-like we have something more pressing to do-lol. I persisted. They had the best Poutine I have ever had! For the uninitiated, Poutine is a big bowl of French fries (fried in duck fat), and covered with duck fat gravy and sprinkled liberally with cheese curds. Best served with an ice cold beer. Definitely worth waiting for-3 1/2 hours later I was still stuffed.

It’s hard to believe that today is exactly 6 weeks from the second beginning of the trip. Tomorrow is the beginning of the Canada portion of the road trip and after that, we make the big left turn and head west. Wow.