Category: Maine

posts about Maine and other States in New England

Just relaxing doing nothing


Sue and Jeff live outside Hallowell, and even though the interstate is quite close there is no direct access and its not actually that noisy


As you can see from the photo the neighbours are slightly further away than they are at home. When we aren’t here we are spending time over at Kathy’s parents who live on the other side of Augusta. Her Mum makes a mean mug of coffee and always has lots of food to nibble on.


The big tree on the corner of the property by the turning into Sparrow Drive has recently come down as it was leaning dangerously, and the small shed in the garden has also gone.. actually its been gone for a while now so I guess the satellite image is quite old

Flying is never a really good experience

I don’t care what any airline claims – flying is not an overly enjoyable experience : well not in economy any way.

We got to the airport, dropped off our luggage and went through security. All remarkably painless and as we didn’t have to be there 3 hours in advance as we were already checked in we didn’t end up kicking our heels and getting bored sitting in the departure lounge for hours.

Boarding was remarkably painless, probably because the flight was only about half full, but of course we ended up with people sitting in the two seats in front of us: two people who were complete pains – they reclined their seats the minute they got into them and never put them up again (even when food was being served). The woman who was sitting in front of me just didn’t sit still for the entire flight, if she wasn’t going to the toilet she was moving round in her seat making the back move all the time which made watching any film just about impossible as unless you leant forward and twisted your neck it wasn’t actually possible to see the screen properly.

The flight left late but managed, due to 75mph tail winds, to actually land on time at 17:05 EST. Immigration, baggage claim and customs was the quickest it has ever been and we got out of the airport at 17:35, just in time to see the Concord Trailways bus for Portland just leaving…. oh well.

So we waited for the next bus at 18:30 which was a couple of minutes late (if only the previous one had been) and headed for Portland. The movie on the coach was Evan Allmighty, not a film I would have chosen to watch due to the fact that the previous film in the”series” starred Jim Carey and I find his manic behaviour extremely tedious. But it wasn’t a bad film and it filled the two hours of trip up the interstate.

It was about 10:30 by the time we had arrived at Sue and Jeff’s and I have to say that it wasn’t long before I headed off to bed.

Look out Maine, here we come


Well I’ve started my holiday today, not that we’ve gone anywhere yet: Kathy is working today so I’m finishing off the packing, getting the car ready, taking some rubbish to the tip and doing some last minute shopping for things we’re taking over which include hot paprika and Paprika flavoured Pringles which for some reason you can’t actually get in Maine.

We don’t actually fly out until tomorrow but we headed down to Heathrow after supper this evening as we’ve got a very good park, sleep, fly deal at the Park Inn which is right by the airport.


We’ve started using these park, sleep, fly deals due to the rather odd concept of a bus service that National Express run (or as is the case of morning buses from Heathrow to Cheltenham, the Service that National Express DON’T run). It also gets rid of the early starts from Cheltenham (6am-7am) and the worry of what happens if there are any hold ups on the way.

The Hotel isn’t bad – its a huge place as you can see from the photo. Inside its quite smart, but I think the interior designer had watched just a few too many episodes of StarTrek – The Next Generation as the corridors look like they could have fallen right out of the enterprise. The mattress was extremely soft and Kathy was worried about her back but it didn’t seem to cause too many problems.

So we can have a nice long lie in tomorrow, take it easy and get to the airport in plenty of time for our flight as we are already checked in and have our boarding passes (oh, the wonders of the internet)

Pickles

I guess this is a follow on from my bit about the American fixation with cheese. Its the American fixation with pickles.

Try to get a burger.. and if you are lucky enough to get one without cheese then its a sure bet that it will have pickle on it. Pickle seems to have seeped into the diet as a mandatory, yet mainly unnecessary, food stuff (in a similar way to sprouts are to the standard UK Christmas meal).

The “restaurant” in the Interstate Bowling Center in Augusta, Maine actually states on its menu for burgers that they are “served with the infamous pickle”. Served with it yes, but does anyone actually eat the things.. I think not.

Anyway who would want to pickle a cucumber anyway?

…and another thing

.. What is it with Americans and Cheese? Why do they smother everything in the damned stuff? I’m married to an American and she can’t answer the question. As you might have guessed I like cheese but NOT when its cooked – :wierdface:

There you are sitting in a bar and you want something to eat and you browse the menu.. Fancy a burger.. oh look its got CHEESE on it (note I’m not talking about Cheeseburgers here – I guess they have even more of the stuff on them). How about some nice steak tips with onions?… ‘fraid not its covered in cheese..

Arrgggggghhhhhh