10-12-08 Biddeford, Maine

The weather this week improved considerable over last week, while the foliage has continued to astonish us. When we got here not many of the leaves had changed but now there are so many oranges, reds, rusts, yellow and green that it is amazing. Sometimes it just seems like the leaves are so bright they almost hurt our eyes to look at them.

We are in Biddeford, Maine which is the Southern end of Maine on the coast. The first day we took a drive into town to get the lay of the land. We never did figure out how to get around here though. None of the streets go East, West, North or South, they just go every which way. While out we went to this restaurant (Kerriman’s) that was recommended to us by the camp host where we are staying. They had the biggest and best cups of clam chowder we ever saw and not too expensive. We all plan on making a trip back there to get a bowl of it next time.

One day we drove up and another day down the coast. I must say that this is nothing like the California coast. In California you can go to almost any beach. Here in Maine over 65% is private owned so you can’t even go sit on the beach or let the dogs run. In fact, it is difficult to even find the shore. There’s nothing like a good California coast line.

They tell you here to go to stop and eat at all the little clam shacks on the beach, so that is what we did. This one restaurant that none of us can remember the name of had the worse soup and the toughest lobster rolls that we ever ate. The owner asked us how it was so Jerry told them that the soup was not that good. The owner said, “I should nave not tried to make two bowls of soup out of that, it was only enough for one. So, I had to add extra milk to it” Well at least he was honest. He didn’t offer to give us our money back though :) .


We visited Kennebunkport, Kennebunk, and Ogunquit all very quaint little towns. Of course no trip to Kennebunkport would be complete without visiting the "Bush Compound" This is the summer home of President George W. Bush. He inherited this from his parents and it is still used by his family members. In fact, we were told George Bush was there when we were visiting. We didn't see him though.


I visited a couple of capitols. One in Maine and the other in New Hampshire. Maine’s was somewhat disappointing, but the one in New Hampshire was very nice in a very cute little town. I ended up taking the tour with about 60 4th graders. Wow, I can’t believe how many questions they can ask!

Tomorrow we are off to Massachusetts for a couple of days.