Destination # 16 - Maine

Maine! I've always been a little curious about Maine. To me, it's one of those states that you don't actually hear a lot about until you do and then you want to hear more because it's a peculiar little (only not so little at all as it turns out) place. My friend from RI has a family lake cabin up in Rangely, Maine that we were fortunate enough to be invited to visit on this recent New England adventure. We road tripped it from Providence RI up through MA, NH and deep into the back woods of western Maine to a little town by a big lake called Rangley. Rangely's tag line is "a quiet little drinking town with a big Moose problem." When said friend laid out our options for activities; "you can go fishin', you can go moosin' or you can go hikin'", I was immediately sold and insisted that we do all three. Due to the weather, however, which I will expound upon shortly, we were only able to do two of the three, for fear of sinking the boat. Wild moose (is there any other kind?) make up the primary resident population in Rangely, Maine. "Moosin'" involves getting up at dawn and driving down a road looking for moose that have come out of the woods to lick the salt off of rocks in the boggy areas. She guaranteed that we would see a moose on our visit and we did not fail. We saw two, in fact, and MAN those creatures are big (weighing up to 1,500 Ibs) and ugly, and as I understand it, rather ferocious, especially in the late summer and autumn seasons when the bull's massive antlers are fully grown (average 6.5-7.5 feet) and they fight each other for access to the female moose. I'll admit that it rarely surprises me how little we humans stray from the animal kingdom. I can't help but wonder if the male moose bulls fight over lesbian moose too or just the straight and particularly slutty ones?

We couldn't go fishing because it rained. A LOT! OH MY GOD DID IT RAIN! People! I have lived in Seattle, WA. for the past 15 years, arguably the wettest and dreariest state in the U.S. and I have never seen so much collective, non-stop, crazy ass flippin' rain in my life. It didn't just rain. It POURED buckets of water from the sky for 82 straight hours, without a single reprieve. I do not jest or exaggerate. We thus referred to the first half of our trip as "The Great New England Soakah!"

I did not, however, let the rain stop me from going on a quick jaunt along the Appalachian Trail (a.k.a. "the A T" if you're cool like that). It's always been a dream of mine to hike a piece of the AT and a sheet of water falling from the sky was not going to stop me. Bucket list item complete! It was a beautiful and wet 500 foot hike, indeed.

Maine is similar to our gorgeous Western Washington as it is lush and green and dense with flora and fauna. One of the most charming moments of our stay in Rangely, Maine was when our waitress noted that there must be hundreds of dead bodies hidden in the woods of Maine, "right outside this door" in fact! As if this were a very common, well-known thing. Like... DUH! Although I must admit that now that I've seen the back woods of Maine, I would totally hide a dead body there if the need ever arose. I'm just sayin'... ayuh!

Are you wondering if I'm ever going to talk about the damn food? Yah, me too. But first let me just give a quick commentary on the accents because they are FAN-FRICKIN'-TASTIC! For a blow by blow tutorial on how to speak like a Mainah, check out this site. "Ayuh" is the commen affirmation in Maine. As in, yes, agreed, sure, noted, uh-huh, etc.. You have to say it real low-key and monotone like though otherwise it won't work. "Wicked" is also a neccessary descriptor for most everything in Maine. Here is a sample sentence.

"Course that blizzahd they had the lahst night theyah was a wicked pissah, ayuh!"

But enough about that.

The obvious thing to do for Maine would be lobstah, however, we didn't wish to risk ruining a perfectly good and perfectly expensive lobstah in attempt to cook one when we really had no idea what-so-ever what we were doing. So instead we turned to the next thing down the glamour scale from lobstah; hot dogs! Seriously, people. Hot dogs! Red hot dogs to be exact which is specifically a Maine style hot dog with a natural casing and dyed a bright red/kinda hot pinkish color. Why? Because Mainah's are WEIRD! Red hot dogs are served in a quintessentially New England style top split bun which I must admit is a superior bun to our side split hot dog buns out here (or everywhere else for that matter.)

Recipe for Maine style red hot dogs:
Purchase red hot dogs from a grocery store in Maine
Cook them up however suits your fancy
Shove them into a top split hot dog bun
Eat yah face off, ayuh!

Maine is awesome! Lobstah, weird-ass hot dogs, top split buns, dead bodies in the woods pride, beautiful views, the Appalachian Trail, lobstah rolls (lobstah served in a top split hot dog bun, ayuh!) and lastly, the best accents evah!