Camping in Maine

We just returned from a fantastic camping trip to Maine. The weather was perfect, we had no agenda (besides eating a lot of lobster), and I tuned out of social media. It was a great way to spend a few days.

We stayed at a really cool campground called Wolfe’s Neck. It was a campground, a farm, and an educational center about a half hour north of Portland in Freeport. They had cows, chickens, goats, a camp store, cafe and farmer’s market. It was basically the best campground that we have ever been to. You could get lobster rolls and ice cream at the cafe. What else do you need in a campground?

Dave made some great meals while we were there. We had steak, swiss chard and mushrooms one night. Yum. I made gin gimlets with some local gin that we picked up in Freeport.

We spent a day wandering up the coast and went to Camden and Boothbay Harbor. On the way up we stopped by a lobster stand, Sprague’s. It’s across the street from Red’s, which is really good (better), but the line at Red’s was way too long. Sprague’s was a pretty good lobster spot.

Camden Maine was a really cute town. They also had a couple of REALLY great housewares shops. There was one shop called DAAC Designs that was basically my dream shop. It was the perfect combination of vintage and antiques and handmade new stuff. I bought a vintage piece of pottery that had multiple holes in it for flowers I assume. I’ll have to show it to you soon.

Boothbay Harbor is such a quaint and beautiful town. They also have a lot of great restaurants. We wanted something besides seafood, so we went to an Italian place called Ports of Italy. It was SO GOOD! Seriously. We are really picky when it comes to Italian food, because Dave’s family is Italian so they all know how to make some great stuff. But this place was really impressive. And it wasn’t only the food that was great, the service was top notch too.

Below is my favorite house in all of Maine (based on what I’ve seen so far.) It’s right in the middle of Boothbay Harbor bay. There is a footbridge that connects both sides of the harbor and this is right in the middle. It is so darn cute I can’t even handle it. Everything in Maine is cute. I’m pretty sure Dave was sick of me proclaiming the cuteness of everything that I saw.

We spent a few hours in Portland and had a delicious meal on a boat restaurant called DiMillo’s. I could probably eat lobster every day, but that would be a little ridiculous, not to mention really expensive. I did however manage to eat it on 3 of the 5 days that we were in Maine.

We also spent some time hiking on Casco Bay (the bay that our campground was on.) Our campground had a few places to hike and we were right beside Wolfe’s Neck State Park, which had some great trails. The Maine coast is so beautiful. Because of the geography, there seems to be ocean all around you. It’s not a straight coast like we are used to, it’s a series of peninsulas that all jut out into the ocean. There are times that you can see the ocean on the left and right of you, you’re surrounded.

The quote below was written on a State Park marker overlooking Casco bay. I think it did a fantastic job conveying what we really need to remember.

The islands of Casco Bay have much in common with the mainland. Many of the same flowers, trees, birds, and mammals live in both areas. In each of these natural communities, plants and animals function together as an ecosystem, sharing the earth’s raw materials and the sun’s energy to do their work before passing these things on to others.

Actively involving even the bedrock and the atmosphere, these ecosystems blend into and influence each other so much that our earth is really one great interdependent ecosystem. Just as the shore community below merges into a deep water system and then joins the islands of the bay, we are connected to those islands, the oceans and the continents beyond.

We human beings have been very successful members of our global ecosystem. We have reduced our competition, diversified our ways of making a living, and increased our production of offspring in order to gain a larger share of the earth’s resources. However, continued use of these strategies has a very high price. The quality of life in the future depends on our learning new strategies now to balance our demands with the needs of our ecosystem as a whole.

Being in nature really helps to ground and connect you back to the universe. We need to be in this state more often and spend less time on our phones and computers.

This blog post is already way too long, but I also have to mention the Maine Beer Company. They have excellent beer, and design wise their brewery was the best I’ve ever seen. It was all minimalist and cool. Not to mention their tagline is ‘Do What’s right.’ I loved everything about it. My favorite beer that they had was called Woods & Waters, which actually pretty much sums up this post perfectly.

Let me know your favorite spots in Maine. Or let me know what questions you have about it. This was our second trip (you can find a blog post of our first time here).

Maine is a beautiful and magical place. You can see so many stars at night, because there is way less light pollution. We both saw the most amazing shooting star while sitting by the campfire.