Vacationland Maine - Friday May 23

Catching up slowly. And before we inch forward, let me say a few words about mom, for those of you who read my blog for mom news. She is being treated to a lovely time. Lots of stimulation, lots of food, lots of attention. Heck, I bought her 11 books in the Gideon Scotland Yard Detective series the other day. She was complaining that her copies were falling apart, so on the way back from Bangor, I stopped at a great barn of a used bookstore and bought one copy of each of the JJ Marric/Gideon books they had. Yay! Meanwhile, Juliet keeps finding adventures for her to go on. Go her! More power to her in fact. Sadly, each time we try to talk, mom gets upset that we aren't talking to her. Sigh. So, long and the short of it, I think that mom is having a good time. Though she would be just as happy being at home in her bed doing nothing, I think. :)

Friday was another day of rest and relaxation! Huzzuh!! I got up and puttered on my computer for a long time - starting to get things organized, websites visited for the first time, getting all the logging in and set-up re-accomplished. As for my phone, I have only added one or two apps so far - mainly the bridge app! It doesn't look as good as it did on my old phone, but it is playable. Yay! Anyway, I could have done that for hours and hours, but I really, really needed to get out and get me some shoes. Yup, daddy needed a new pair of shoes! Big time.

A year ago, or so, when I was down in NC for some reason of other, I bought a great pair of Birkenstock shoes - dressy but not super dressy. Well, I am not so good with shoes. I wore them for everything all the time. And, recently, they were looking a bit worse for wear. I have been looking for a place that does shoe maintenance around Geneva with no luck. So I headed into Belfast, hoping that Colburn's, the oldest continuously (continually?) operating shoe store in America, would also have shoe services. They did! They made me a deal - if I bought a pair of shoes, they would shine my old ones. How could I turn that offer down? I had been planning on buying a new pair of shoes anyway - I needed something a bit more durable and working-ish. So, I ended up buying two pairs of shoes. Left one of the new pairs and the old pair there, as I didn't want to take the shoes back on my bike.

One of my new pairs of shoes!

Oh, right, I had completely put it out of my mind that I rode from Northport/Kelly's Cove to Belfast Downtown. It really wasn't far, just really hilly. Right out of the driveway, there is a hill. Seems like at least three good sized hills between here and there (and seven smaller hills). But it wasn't too terrible a ride. Only 5 miles or so each way. And the shoulder on Route 1 was, for the most part, six feet wide, which provided lots of room for me and zipping autos to share the road. I must admit that a couple of times it was a smidge frightening, but overall, I felt safe, and exhausted, er happy. There was one point early on when I was tempted to ask Juliet to come get me with my bike rack, but I managed to persevere and did the whole trip without too much trouble. And some fun! Yippee!

I bought this as a reward for riding to Belfast safely!

After the shoe store, next up was purchasing a new thumb drive - I left my thumb drives - picture to follow in another blog post someday - at home. How helpful. Sigh. The man at the shoe store gave me directions to the computer store, but I didn't really understand what he was saying, so I just wandered off in the direction I thought he said was right. I didn't find the computer store - but I did find a bakery, where I had a yummy chocolate croissant and a nice interaction with the sales person. Yay! She told me where the computer store was in a way that I could understand - she pointed at it. :)

Yummy, despite the weird name.

So I wandered to the computer store. Weird little place, but a nice guy (is everyone nice in Belfast?) behind the counter. He sold me a thumb drive for an exorbitant sum. Oh well. We all gots to make the benjamins! (Or something like that). Next stop, more food. 

Someone had mentioned Daily Soup to me. Silly, but I thought one could buy soup there. Apparently, I was wrong. You have to order soup and have it delivered to you. No soup buying where it is made - at the soup kitchen! Well, fine, no soup for me! Next stop, food truck Good n You. I had been thinking of trying more of their food, so had their pork tostada! Yum city! I could easily have eaten four of them! Or more!! But I didn't. I refrained. I was thinking of heading to Front Street for a beer, but decided that a beer would have made my eventual ride home a bit more taxing, and it had been taxing enough already, thank you very much. Still, I wandered that way when a little place caught my eye.

  

Good n You food truck

Oh. My. Yumminess!

I liked the location and the variety of cuisine offered: Thai, Vietnamese and Laotian!

The Thai Place

View from the Thai place!

I wasn't all that hungry, but I wanted to eat something. So I had a bowl of hot and sour soup, Thai style. It was good, though I think I might have liked the coconut soup even more. Maybe another day. It was a smudge chilly on the deck out of the sun, but it was still pleasant hanging out there and eating/drinking some yummy soup!

Thai Hot and something soup.

Then it was time to bike home. The ride back seemed a lot easier than the ride going. Psychological mind games or fact? Who can tell? In any case, before I knew it, I was back at the homestead! Yay! Juliet's plan - she, as I do, always has a plan. In this case, we were to meet after a movie and then go to dinner together. The movie was Life of Pi, which is a fine movie - just not one that I wanted to see, in a library, on a teeny screen, on uncomfortable chairs...so I opted to check out a new to me brewpub! Yay!

The new place is about 15 minutes away in Lincolnville. It took over part of a very old restaurant, The Lobster Pound. I had, over the past few years, tried to get into Lincolnville Center to Andrew's Brewery, but somehow never managed. Now he has opened a brewpub! Yay! I had only had one or two of his beers and though not overwhelmed, I am always willing to give beer a chance. I know, I know, I am very magnanimous! I will write more about my experiences in my beer blog - suffice it to say that I had a pleasant time and might venture back there one day. Not top of my list, but I will gladly give it a second chance.

I got done there and headed back to Belfast to meet up with Juliet and Mom and Paul. Sadly, it didn't happen. Not in a tragically sad for of way, but in an - oops, the movie lasted two hours and the restaurant we were to meet in was closed sort of way. Oh well. Life is that way sometimes. So we all met back at the house, ate a few nibbles and made our way to bed.

Phew! Quite a day. Yay vacation!