If you are looking just for pictures, click here. If you want the story, keep reading...

Birthday wishes...

This trip all started when Ana asked me where I wanted to go for my Birthday this year. Where as opposed to what mind you. Being in Florida and in the middle of July at the time, I did a quick Google search. This brought us to Wells, ME. Always being somewhat fascinated with Lighthouses, I figured a Lighthouse tour of SE Maine would be just what the overheated Floridian would need this time of year. So grab a seat and enjoy the ride...

08/03/07: 

We had a 7am flight from Tampa to Boston, with a quick stop in Washington D.C. on the way up. It was great to see the Capitol Building, the Washington and Jefferson Memorial and of course the White House. At any rate our flights were smooth and timely, and we got our rental and headed North. 

The border of Maine is only about an hour and a half North of Boston. To get into Maine via I-95, you must cross the Piscataqua River Bridge: 

Lunch: Barnacle Billy's

Having only eaten breakfast and it being almost 2pm, we were pretty hungry, so we made our way down to Ogunquit, to visit Barnacle Billy's Etc. I read about this place on Chow.com and they came highly recommended. Apparantly the owner Billy runs both places and for the most part both are identical, except that the Etc. side of the restaurant is more of a sit down type establishment. At any rate, I had the lobster roll and Ana had the clam roll. Both tasted pretty amazing to me, but Ana didn't care too much for it. When we finished up with that Ana had the blueberry ice cream and I had the black raspberry, both were delicious. 

Look at these two crazies:

Barnacle Billy's had an amazing garden:

When we finished up wondering around Ogunquit, we headed back down to York, ME to see our first lighthouse of the trip, Nubble Light. You might recognize this jewel from the cover of Frommer's "Guide to SE Maine." Originally built in 1879 and automated in 1987. This is one of the prettier lighthouses in Maine.

(Please note, there are additional pictures on the pictures only page)

This photo is 1280x1024:

Of course I needed to see how cool this water was...later the weather man stated it was 63F. Just a little chilly!

While we were at Sohier Park, someone rolled up in this jewel, a 63' Corvette!

Dinner: Grissini

We went down to Grissini in Kennebunkport for dinner. We sat outside which was sort of a mistake in hindsight. When was the last time you had to put on "Off" or "Cutter" at a fine dinning establishment? If not for the bugs, this would have been a pretty delightful dinner. I had the Sea Bass with Saffron Mashed Potatoes and Ana had the Astice (which is a huge ravioli with Lobster, cream cheese, crab and other spices. The food was OK - but not for the price. Had it been 1/2 as much it would have been well worth it. The waitress forgot to bring our wine but did make up for it by giving us but a glass and a half at the normal cost and tossing in dessert. The dessert was the highlight of the meal, a fine cherry flavored and filled canoli. (Ferrara's watch out! these are that tasty!)

After dinner we drove down to Kennebunkport and then on down to the pier. We could see the light at Goat Island lighthouse from where we were, but it was starting to storm so we headed out. 

At this point we were both pretty tired and headed back home (and it had started to rain at this point anyway).

08/04/07: 

For breakfast we ate at the hotel. We were staying at the Majestic Regency (sounds WAY fancier than it was) but if you want a good room at a decent price with great breakfast, look no further.  They had "Cogdon's" donuts, a local place that makes stellar donuts and assorted continental breakfast. To be honest these donuts make Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts taste like cardboard, they are that good. 

We started off today by visiting Kennebunkport Pier as we wanted to see Goat Island lighthouse. 

On the way to Kennebunkport is the Wedding Cake House. The story is that the scrollwork was done by a ships captain who had to get back out to sea and wasn't able to give his new bride a proper wedding cake:

Sadly, the Goat Island Lighthouse was pretty far away and we could only get some basic shots of it. If only I had a 400mm lens.

At any rate, what good is it without pictures:

Next up the coast was the "Two Lights" in Cape Elizabeth. Naturally we tried to take back roads as often as we could. 

We came across a Mustang rescue and drove through a classic northeastern small town, named Saco, ME. 

At one point there were 2 Lighthouses here, one was taken out of commission in the early 20th Century. The other is still an active aid to navigation. In the first picture you can see the old non commissioned lighthouse on the very left hand side of the picture. 

The area around the lighthouses were beautiful (especially the first one :) )

Our next stop took us a little further north to see the "Portland Head Light". There are actually 2 lighthouses that can be seen here, the Portland Head Light, which is land based, the other, the "Ram Island Ledge Light". The ledge light is not a very pretty sight, but it is an old lighthouse which makes it cool none the less. The Ram Island light can be see in the background if you look closely at the first two pictures: 

Look at these two:

Our next stop was less than 2 Miles away in South Portland. There were two more lights to be seen here, one we were actually able to go inside. The first lighthouse is called the "Spring Point Ledge Light". This light originally was free standing in Portland Harbor, and some 60 years later they added the jetty leading out to it. Gorges Island is an old Fort you can see from the lighthouse. The second light official is named "Portland Breakwater Light" but due to its size and shape the locals call it Bug Light. 

On the picture on the left, you can see the Portland Head Light, which is about 2 miles away. Bug Light is visible in the picture on the right:

Lunch: Saltwater Grille

At this point, we asked Ross, the guide at the Spring Point Ledge Light, for a local restaurant recommendation. I cannot say enough about the place he recommended, Saltwater Grille, which was about .5 mile away from "Bug Light". I think both Ana and I agreed that this place had the best seafood that either of us had ever eaten. 

We both started with the lobster and corn bisque. This was absolutley amazing. The soup base was so creamy and so full of flavor, the lobster was just out of this world. This makes Red Lobster's Lobster bisque taste like spam soup (if such a nastiness exists). 

Ana had the Calamari Salad, I had the Scallops Carbonara. The Calamari was prepared in such a way as to be marinated in balsamic vinaigrette and seasoned with Romano cheese. The Scallops were wrapped in bacon, had peas, bowtie pasta and a traditional parmesan sauce.  They brought our an olive foccacia loaf that brought it all together. 

I also have to note that while in Maine, I had some of the very best brewed iced tea. It seemed everywhere I went it was almost always just freshly brewed. 

After a very hearty meal, we went looking for the last lighthouse of the day. This one was quite a bit further away and really was quite a hunt to find.  Located in Arrowsic, ME, Doubling Point Light was quite a find. Frommer's didn't quite elaborate on how difficult this was to find, but after driving past it by 15 miles and turning around and finding the dirt road to its location, it was well worth it:

At this point it was about 5 PM, so we figured we would head back to Kennebunkport and check out some of the shops down there. We strolled around Kennebunkport for about 2 hours and then decided it was time to stop for dinner. We decided on the Maine Diner, a pretty popular local diner.  

Dinner: The Maine Diner

It had been almost a month since we were able to get some nice diner food, as there are no diners in Florida. I had 2 eggs, toast and a bagel, absolutely amazing. Since we had both been on diets for a while, the taste of real bread was like the manna rained down in the old Testament. We also got 2 slices of pie to go, Ana opted for the blueberry pie, I opted for the chocolate chip cookie dough pie. Sadly, both were rather disappointing. 

08/05/07:

Naturally, all good things must come to an end, and this was our last day to spend in Maine. I had hoped to see a few more lighthouses, but due to a traffic accident on one of the bridges on the only route out where we were going, we only got to see one. Sadly, we drove all the way out to it, to find it undergoing renovation, so you will see these effects in the pictures.

We started off with the usual Cogdon's donut at the hotel and then packed up our belongings and checked out. This time we hit the interstate to make up some time. Our lighthouse search would take us to Pemaquid Point. While I would have liked to been able to see this without the construction fabric, it was still very nice, especially considering we could go in it. The area was also very scenic. 

There are 2 1000 watt light bulbs in this bad boy and they are housed in a Fourth-order Fresnel (1856)

Some final thoughts...

We will definitely return in the future, especially in the summer, where its in the 70s most of the time. 

On thing you don't see on Floridian Interstate signs:

Kilometer measurements :)

If you didn't check out the image only pages, I suggest you do, as not all the pictures I took appear here.