Portland, but it could be anywhere
5 July 2022
5 June 2022
Our hotel room faces southeast. I'd pulled the shades down, leaving the paler of the two to cover the bottom foot of window. I'd counted on that light to wake me up for sunrise. It had, but I'd mistaken the white of the shade for cloudy glare and gone back to sleep.
It's a clear, puffy-cloud sort of day out there. This afternoon, we're going to meet up with a pair of college friends. Plans are unsettled. They're driving in from Boston and we have dinner reservations, but beyond that, we don't know when they're arriving or what we'll do. For now, though, Jack wants to get to a couple of bookstores, I want to walk on the western paths, and we both want to see what's on at the Portland Museum of Art across the street from the hotel.
Jack remembers a sushi place near one of his favorite bookstores, so we do that for lunch. Then I'm off to find the western paths while he goes back to the Old Port wine shop.
The Bayside Trail starts at the bottom of the hill on the western side. To get there, I pass some unremarkable buildings, a few empty lots, and a homeless encampment. Jack and I have noticed that nearly everyone we've seen on the streets in Portland has been significantly younger than we are. The encampment is no exception.
On my way down the hill, I see a sign that reads, "coastal evacuation route." Could I live here? I don't want to live anywhere that is part of a coastal evacuation route.
The trail goes behind a few big box stores and businesses. It takes me north, paralleling Route 1 to the west, off to my left by a few blocks.
Other than the suspended bike overhead, there's nothing much to take photos of on this path. I cross a few streets, including the 4-lane Route 1A, before turning around. I want to get to the Cove Trail, but if I keep going this way, I'll have to walk all the way to the end of the peninsula in order to get to where the two trails meet. There's not enough time for that.
I double back instead and walk along the street until I get to the entrance of Back Cove Park.
It's pretty and all, but the cove is surrounded by highway on three sides, and the noise is present always. I'm thinking, "Y'know, I can do this on the D&R towpath, and it's much quieter. And prettier."
I start along the trail, counterclockwise. There's no time to go all the way around, but I see from my phone's map that there's a connecting path at Route 1A.
As the path approaches the highway, there's a construction site, some sort of sewer improvement project, with chain-link fence along the trail. As I walk under the highway, I realize that the connector I'm looking for has been cut off.
I turn around, intending to go back the way I came.
Then I find a gap in the fence between the trail and the road. I walk through it. Clearly people have created this shortcut. The walk back up the hill into the heart of town isn't terrible, but it's not pleasant either. I'm getting hot and sticky.
When I get to the top, I check in with Jack and tell him I'm going to head towards the Eastern Promenade along the northeast side. All of these paths do connect with each other; I just don't have time.
There's no time to dally on the promenade either.
I do a fast walk along the road instead of the path by the water. The road becomes Fore Street, which is closer to where Jack is waiting on a bench somewhere near the bookstore.
What I walk through to get there is typical city stuff, not really meant for tourists to see. Could I live here? I guess, but why? Everything I want and need, from biking to glassblowing, from little parks to bigger hikes, from little river towns to bigger cities, is back home in Central New Jersey.
By the time I find Jack, I'm sticky and thirsty. I get smoothies for both of us at the cafe near the benches. It's getting on to 4:00. There's no time to clean up in the hotel room. I wash myself off in the cafe bathroom instead.
Our friends arrive, miraculously finding an on-street parking spot. We walk down to Old Port, slowly, chatting, stepping in and out of shops. I take random photos along the way, like this fence of locks.
Is this a real piece of Berlin Wall?
We all wonder how much these seaside condos cost, and what the flood insurance is.
This is a wind turbine.
One of these boats is named Wabanaki.
A gallery has some way-cool glass in it.
There's the Wabanaki, full of passengers.
We head back up the hill to where we've got dinner reservations. I take a picture of a building without checking to see what it is I'm taking a picture of.
The sun sets on a wall of graffiti as we leave the restaurant.
Up on the ninth floor of hour hotel, by the elevators, is a western window. I take two pictures of the sunset with my phone.
Our plan is to leave early enough tomorrow morning that we can stop at Len Libby, in the Portland suburb of Scarborough, for chocolates, and then get to the town of Alfred, Maine, where there's an antiquarian book dealer Jack wants to get to.
When tomorrow morning arrives, the sun wakes me because I remembered to leave the shade open. Our window is too south-facing, though. The sun is very nearly out of frame.
So I focus on the harbor instead.
Over breakfast, Jack talks about the books he'd get if he had all the money in the world. One would be a first edition of Samuel Johnson's "A Dictionary of the English Language." They go for fifteen thousand dollars at the very least, so we're not any more likely to own one than we are to move to Portland, Maine.
Alfred, Maine is southwest of Portland, due west of Biddleford, and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I go where Waze says to go. It's all what we'd consider country roads back in central New Jersey. We might not even be in Alfred proper. We come to a T, the book store, which is in a house, directly in front of us. To our left is a general store. And that's it.
If Jack has been bored and miserable at any point in this trip (or perhaps for all of it), this place is perkign him up. Within twenty minutes, he's found a stack of books, including a volume that would set us back $600.
"Get it," I tell him when he wavers. "You deserve it at this point."
While he's puttering about, I find a French-Abanaki dictionary, which I have no reason to buy, and a short book called "The Lobster Gangs of Maine," the story of competition among lobster fishermen, which is too intriguing not to buy.
When we go to check out, Jack has a big stack. I go to the car (where the chocolates are threatening to melt) to grab some canvas bags. Jack is talking to the owner, who just acquired somebody's entire Johnsoniana collection. Uh oh.
"I have a first edition of the dictionary," he says, and disappears into the back of the house.
He returns with a two-volume, folio-sized book in good condition. Jack sighs and starts to leaf through it. "How much?"
"Six thousand."
That's all? "Get it!" I encourage him, while in my head I'm moving money around our bank accounts to cover it. He can't pass this up.
He doesn't pass it up. The dealer wraps the volumes for us and helps carry them to the car. We buy sandwiches for later at the deli across the road. The place is inexplicably crowded for being in the middle of nowhere. It's like the Sergeantsville General Store, but without the bicyclists and dumplings.
Jack is a happy camper now. We'll be digging out from under this trip for a while, but it was worth it.
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