Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Note:  This is a "blast from the past" post as we work our way backwards to catch you up on our previous destinations. Please remember that we will not be doing any current postings for the next couple of months as we're visiting with family and friends in California. 

Visited September 15-18, 2020

By Janell

We headed up the coast of Maine toward Old Orchard Beach, and then we made day trips to the many quaint coastal towns nearby. (I'd call the towns "charming", but that word has gotten a lot of use lately.) Anyway, Coastal Maine is dotted with these little towns and plenty of photo ops. We loved it!

Nubble Light on Cape Neddick Point

This is one of my favorite photos!

And here you see my favorite photographer hard at work

The Beast is nestled into our campsite at Hid'n Pines RV Resort in Old Orchard Beach. Given the campground name, I'm sure there must be pine trees around somewhere, but you sure don't see many in this picture.

We were continually amused by some of the local mask-wearers

Kennebunkport was one of our favorite coastal towns in Maine.

Alisson's provided Covid-safe dining. We enjoyed lunch in the upstairs room, and there was only one other couple in the whole room.

So, there's an exception to all the cute towns on the coast of Maine:

Portland is a city, not a town, but it's still small and fun to visit.

Portland has some good breweries, so of course we had to check out a couple of them. This is Rising Tide Brewing Co., where they had an outdoor bar which worked well for Covid.

Due to Covid, Goodfire Brewing Co. was not open to enjoy beer onsite, but you could drive around to the back of the brewery and pick up some beer to enjoy at home.

This is Fiona, and she welcomed customers at Goodfire.

And then there's Old Orchard Beach. This town is all about the carnival on the beach (think Santa Cruz Boardwalk or Coney Island). Of course, not much was happening at OOB due to Covid. And as you can see, it was a gray day, which just seemed to add to the Covid-gloom.

Social distancing at the beach

L.L. Bean, headquartered in Freeport, is always a good stop. They have a huge store with any and every outdoor-related thing you could possibly want. They also have a discount outlet right across the way where you can find some super bargains. And despite what you see here, they still don't have shoes large enough for Marty (almost, but not quite).

We had a beautiful sunny day for our visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. The gardens were very pretty indeed, but we couldn't help but wonder how magnificent they must be in springtime. 

Bzzzzz!

On our way home after the botanical gardens we stopped for dinner at Red's Eats in Wiscasset; a place we'd read about online. Red's was voted as serving Maine's #1 lobster roll in 2020. That's saying something . . . Maine has a lot of places to buy a lobster roll! 

waiting to order ...

Red's has been operating at this site since 1954. We'd read that the line to order could take an hour or more, so we felt lucky to only wait a half hour. They're just a lobster shack with outdoor dining only; but you can see on the right half of this photo, that even outdoor dining was prohibited due to Covid. 

Looks as if we're in good company!

They're a cash-only operation; something one might not know until arriving at the order window. Fortunately though, they've got you covered: there's an ATM just left of the ordering counter.

Our lobster rolls were loaded with lobster and deeeelicious!!! They were so full of lobster that I could only eat half of mine. We're spoiled now; I don't think we'll be satisfied with a lobster roll from anywhere else! 

We did find a picnic table just a short walk away, so we didn't have to eat it on our laps in our car (would've been messy). This is the view of the Sheepscot River from our picnic table - the tide was out.

In this shot of our campsite, taken on the morning of our departure from Old Orchard Beach, you can see that the leaves are just beginning to turn color. In the four nights that we'd spent here Autumn had begun to make an appearance!