New England: Worth the trip for the lobster alone

Photo of the bay at Camden, Maine

MARK’S ARTICLE – October 21, 2009 “In search of more lobster”

CAMDEN, MAINE – Vacations would be so much more pleasant if it weren’t for all these tourists. You couldn’t stir people with a foremast bilge gaff.

I just made that up. I was looking for something nautical sounding to match the area. A fishing town we be in. Fishing and touristy it be. Oh, and lobstery. I really like that about this place.

Kay wanted to make the New England trip mostly to see the fall colors. I came for the lobster. The foliage is just butter on the crustacean for me. So far we’ve each had two lobster rolls and a whole lobster.

It was the first whole lobster I’ve ever had. And, I was the only one in the restaurant who put the little plastic bib on. I smashed the daylights outta that poor lobster. Sent lobster spray all over the room. People were ducking. It was delicious.

We actually got the best lobster roll in New Hampshire. I believe Conway was the name of the town. Twitty’s birthplace. Maybe. Kay took a picture of the lobster roll. So far it’s my favorite picture of the trip.

I should probably tell you that we’ve also seen some beautiful country. Breathtaking. You know how on Texas maps they’ll have scenic highways highlighted? There is none of that on our New England map. Every road is scenic.

When we first got here, we stopped at each overlook and snapped pictures. Dozens of stops. Hundreds of photos. After a few hours we pretty much quit with the photography. – “Oh, my goodness! Look at that!” – “Yeah, yeah, it’s a pond with some pretty trees. I’m lookin’ for lobster, here!”

In New England they don’t have lakes. They have ponds. Ponds are as big as our lakes, but just not named right. Golden Pond was really a lake. Did you pick up on that? You ol’ poop. (If you didn’t see the movie, don’t read anything into that remark. It was meant to be cute.)

Oh, and speaking of New Hampshire, did you know that their Farm to Market Road signs have the outline of Arizona on ‘em? Looks like that from a distance. I thought New Hampshire went in with Arizona to save some money.

Turns out the New Hampshire image is actually the outline of that Old Man of the Mountain Rock they’ve got. The one whose face fell off a few years back. Now it’s just Old Faceless Rock. Sad. But, the citizens will not let the image die. They keep it on their highway signs. Looks a lot like the outline of Arizona.

Besides lobsters, beautiful foliage, lots of tourists, and Arizona signs, they also have moose here. I haven’t seen one, but I’ve seen the warning signs. Every hundred yards they have a highway sign that reads “Brake for Moose.” Without those signs, people would just run right over ‘em.

At the bottom of the sign they have a serious warning meant to scare the willies out of you. Says something like, “A billion people die each day from hitting a moose.” You’d think by now it’d know to stay outta the road.

I’ve got a bunch of other fascinating stuff to tell you about the trip, but I see my time is up. I’ll hafta write a sequel. Till them, I’m on a lobster quest. This time I’m getting the Lazy Lobster plate. That’s the one where they do all the lobster smashing for you. It cost a little more, but well worth it. I’m here to tell you that I beat the daylights outta that poor thing.


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