Lumber and Boots

Friday morning it rained out of buckets, we left Bar Harbor towards Bangor, to the north, only about 100 miles away from the Canadian border. There, to our full surprise, a tour was arranged for us and that gave us a chance to see much more than we would have done on our own without guidance.


Bangor, located on the Penobscot River, was famous for lumber and shipbuilding. Logs were floated downstream from the North Maine Woods and processed at the city's sawmills before they were shipped to the Atlantic Ocean. The wealthy lumber barons built elaborate mansions, which are still to be admired, one of them owned by famous author Stephen King (pic). Other sights in town are an unusual water tower/tank (resembling a lighthouse, see pic), the huge, park-like cemetery Mount Hope and - pretty unique and unknown - the Cole Land Transportion Museum. Collected by the Cole Transportation company unique vehicles of all kinds are presented in a huge garage-like building. Nobody would expect a collection like this behind such a modest facade!

On to Augusta, the capital of Maine since 1831, located on the Kennebec River. Just passing through we wanted to at least see the State House (that's how they call the Capitol here in New England, pic) - much less elaborate as in other States and without a golden coppola - and the State Museum, which really was a treat. It explained a lot about the different industries in the state, fishing, lobstering (pic above), ship-building, milling and much more. A water-powered mill is installed in the museum as well as living quarters and workshops and much more.

After another one hour-drive we arrived to Freeport, our today's destination. After check-in we, of course, had to explore L.L Bean. In 1911, an outdoorsman named Leon Leonwood (L.L.) Bean returned from a hunting trip and had a revolutionary idea how to improve shoes: by stitching leather uppers to workmen’s rubber boots.

This innovative boot is one item today in the store, which consists of several buildings, from boats to bikes, home accessories, clothing, guns and fishing ruts, and is just humongous. Freeport itself seems to only consist of outlet stores of all kinds and after a visit to L.L. Bean with a pair of boots for Peter, we drove back to our hotel with a stop at Gritty's, where we had good IPAs and food (fish & chips and a lamb burger) and, as always in brewpubs, enjoyed good conversation.