We're Here!

A long day of driving (Neither of us uttered the fateful question: "Are we there yet?"!) brought us to the promised land of Mount Desert Island in Maine. Hurray! But of course, along the way we had to experience "road food" - not to be confused in any way with road kill! For many years we have been able to time our trip such that we can have lunch in Cape Neddick, Maine. Lobster? you might well ask. Crab? Another logical choice when one is so close to the ocean. But no, we go to "Flo's".
Flo's is a hot dog stand parked right along the edge of Route One, just north of Kittery. If you have ever enjoyed a hot dog, you must try Flo's. It is simply an experience. Only open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. "and not a minute later" (closed on Wednesdays), you sidle into the tiny building and generally prepare to stand in line and enjoy the banter and the shed-like ambiance. What you should order (please forgive my being so proscriptive, but trust our experience) is a dog with mayonnaise and Flo’s signature dark, rich, spicy relish. I know, mayo on a dog - we shuddered the first time we heard it, too. But we shuddered with pleasure the first time we bit into the moist natural casing dog on the squishy steamed bun and the creamy mayo collided with the kicky relish - dee-lish!

Happily sated, we continued north on Route 95 to 295 to nifty Portland. We exited onto Forest Avenue and in a moment of virtue (or penance) we laced up our sneakers to walk along the water on a terrific walking path. Then north to Augusta where we hung a right and stayed on Route 3 through the China Lakes region and all the way into Bar Harbor.
Despite this being firmly in the shoulder season, lots of restaurants and shops are still open and doing a very steady business. Tired as we were, we headed for a consistent favorite: “Geddy’s”. Another quirky place, but with goofy atmosphere galore, Geddy’s is a noisy, family restaurant with a solid bar business at its heart. Their menu is wide-ranging with seafood to pizza to burgers. Ahh... hamburgers. Char-grilled and tasty unadorned or topped with the usual suspects or some unusual ones as well. Oh, what the heck. We’ll eat vegetables tomorrow! Chuck ordered the pepper burger, I got the bacon and blue cheese. Wait a minute. They both came with lettuce and tomato. Yeah, that’ll count. So under the array of license plates and old road signs, we toasted to our all-American, hot dog and hamburger, road trip kind of day.

Tomorrow: Acadia National Park, foliage, the ocean and um, O.K., way more vegetables...