Making Our Way to Maine
I’m not going to spend much time talking about the leg of the trip that covers landing in Boston to arriving in Rhode Island. But I simply cannot skip one part about that little road trip that bears mention.
Once we picked up our rental, we pulled up our hotel address in Rhode Island on the GPS and discussed which route we’d rather take. Because we’ve flown into Boston and left from there with a rental car on several occassions, we were well aware of how shitty the traffic is in that city. Or were we?
We decided that, rather than getting on the interstate to make our way out of Boston, we would take Route 1 for a more leisurely, relaxing, and potentially more scenic drive. Even though it would take us longer to get to where we were going, we both decided it’s the route we’d rather take.
Holy shit, WRONG ANSWER! Around every single turn, I kept thinking “surely it’s about to get better.” As I mentioned in Part One, I was not feeling well on most of this trip, and day one was no exception. Because I was not at the top of my game, I had asked Denise if she would bear the burden of driving us through Boston – we both already knew it would require a heightened level of concentration. But neither of us had any idea just how bad it would be.
Two lanes turned into one with very little warning (if any at all), while so packed with cars that it was impossible to easily shift over into the lane that remained. I’m pretty sure that we were the only car on the road following nationwide driving rules. They simply don’t exist in Boston. It was like a bumper car track, only with real cars and a real highway.
When we made it to a multi-lane traffic circle…I can only say that God helped us escape it. It was one hundred percent the biggest cluster fuck of traveling vehicles I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve been to New York City, and to Los Angeles. Neither compare. Both are child’s play compared to the tangled mess of traffic we drove right into in the middle of this traffic circle.
I cannot even tell you how many lanes there were. It was impossible to tell. Cars were just jammed into the circle with no rhyme or reason, no kind of order, and definitely no blanket set of rules. Each driver just did whatever the fuck they wanted. And none of it made any sense. The only visible sign of order at all is that we were all pointed in the same direction.
There were cars coming into the circle from different entry points regardless of whether there was space for them or not. We somehow wedged our way into what we thought to be the middle lane of possibly three lanes in the circle, but we quickly realized that was a huge mistake. Because eventually we would need to be on the outer loop to exit out of the circle, and there was no way to get back over. I started to envision the Griswolds in the scene of European Vacation where they were stuck in the roundabout. Fortunately, we didn’t spend the night driving around in it.
Finally, I told Denise, “When I say go, you just punch it! Just GO!! Don’t try to look behind you, just trust me and GO!!” So, as soon as I saw the slightest clearing to get over to our right some, I yelled “GO!” And she did!! And we finally made it out of that mess. It made all of the other horrible traffic we encountered in Boston suddenly not seem so bad. And if you’ve ever driven in Boston, you realize the significance of that statement.
Should you ever find yourself needing to drive in Boston and trying to decide which route to take, just trust me when I tell you to stick with the interstate.
I end this with a quote from one of my all-time favorite movies, Forrest Gump: “That’s all I have to say about that.”
Chalet Shithole
While our plans had to be rearranged somewhat because of Hurricane Lee, we made the most of it. We spent a little more time in Rhode Island and in Mystic, Connecticut than originally planned, and it was fabulous. I will come back to that leg of our trip in a later post. But for now, I’m going to talk about some of our time spent in Maine.
We left Connecticut and started heading toward Portland, Maine. We had seen the Portland Head Light on a previous trip, but it is so beautiful that we wanted to see it again. On our way there, we stopped in Kennebunkport, Maine for about an hour because it is just such a beautiful place. This was another repeat stop for us, but some places are worth seeing as many times as you can.
By the time we made it to the lighthouse, it was dark, and the gates at the entryway were closed. That was a bummer because we really wanted to see what it looked like lit up at night. But, we went on to our hotel in Portland with plans to return to the lighthouse in the morning.
All went as planned, and when we were done at the lighthouse, we hit the road for our next destination a few hours away. Now, for the sake of the town and any potential future tourism, I’m not going to mention the name of it. But I will tell you there are supposedly a lot of moose there. And we had been told on previous visits that this particular area was the place to go for our best chance at seeing a moose.
When we were planning this trip, we looked up the area and saw that they offer moose tours. We both get so excited just seeing moose crossing signs – that’s the coolest thing to me! We don’t have moose in South Georgia. Each time we have been to Maine, we have hoped to see at least one, but this time we planned to make sure we did!
We headed to this town where we had reservations to stay at a lakefront chalet with a lake view for two nights. We were both pretty excited about it. There were beautiful mountains around the lake, and lots of moose!!
As we hit the hilltop on the highway coming into this town, the view in front of us was absolutely breathtaking. We could see part of the lake, and beautiful mountains in the backdrop. It was so beautiful that my eyes filled with tears.
Little did we know that was going to be the best part of our time spent in that town.
We pull into the assumed parking area of the “chalet”, and my very first impression was, “Not impressive. At all.” The place looked like a cheap-ass lodge built maybe in the 1960’s that had never been updated in any way. To be fair, we knew from the website that the rooms were not quite up to the standards we are accustomed to, but we figured we could handle the fact that it was “less than” for two nights because the lake view and seeing moose were worth the sacrifice.
As I was driving through the tiny parking area, I look over at Denise to see her face. It told me she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. And it only got worse from there.
There were no parking “spots” or any other indication of exactly what was designated for such, only pavement. And there were no signs to indicate exactly where we were supposed to go to check in. Finally, I see some very faint white lines on the pavement and decide that must be where I’m supposed to park. As I pull in, Denise asks, “What are you doing? You can’t park here!”
We both got so tickled and I said, “There’s no where else to park! I see lines here. I think this is supposed to be a parking space.”
After we got out of the car, Denise said, “Girl! This ain’t no parking spot!”
I’m laughing pretty hard when I say, “Well, where the fuck else is there to park? I don’t see any other designated spots for parking. Screw it, let’s just figure out where we check in. We won’t be in that spot long anyway.”
We see what looks like a private home nearby. There is one of those banged up aluminum type screen and glass doors that has some kind of sign on it that indicated that must be the “office”.
We go inside and there is a window to our left with what is clearly an office space on the other side of it. But there is no one there. We still weren’t sure we were in the right place. As we were standing there waiting for someone to notice us, we hear a kid screaming and crying from somewhere inside, and a woman yelling at her saying, “I’M NOT SHREDDING YOU ANYMORE CHEESE!!” I can’t make this stuff up!!
This battle between what we later learned was mother and young daughter went on for a couple of minutes as Denise and I just stood there, unsure of what to do next while giving each other some serious “what the hell is going on in there?” looks.
Eventually, this Plain Jane woman and her little girl make their way into the office space, and seemed surprised to see us standing there. We let her know we were there to check in.
This woman who I will call Sue (because referring to her as the “Plain Jane” woman would make it impossible to distinguish her from the rest of the women who were local to the area) had a very unwelcoming demeanor and was looking at us strangely the entire time. She asked us in an accusatory tone, “So, what brings you to this area?” I can only assume she, like many people we encounter when we travel together, must have assumed we were a lesbian couple – something that soon became clear would not be accepted in this area because everything about it was so old school.
Once we were finally checked in and had our room key, we drove around to the building our room was in. It was in the back corner of the property. We had a room at the end of the building that was next to woods, and the lake was on the back side. I’m pretty sure we were the only occupants in the entire building.
It wasn’t until we parked in front of the building and spotted our room on the second floor from the car that it dawned on us; we were going to have to carry our heavy ass suitcases up a flight of stairs.
I admit, we are both kind of travel snobs. Not terribly snobby, but if having an elevator is considered a luxury, then it’s safe to say we like luxury when we travel. We also like to bring a lot of clothes and shoes and things…you know…just in case. In other words, neither of us travel light, and both of us are used to having elevators to get our precious “things” up to our room.
If anyone saw us, two to a bag to carry them up the stairs, let’s just say they got a good show. And we were both still naïve enough at this point about this place that we found a lot of humor in the process – so much so that we were both having to stop and cross our legs to keep from peeing in our pants from laughing so hard while maneuvering those heavy ass bags up the stairs. How we managed to get them all up the stairs without either of us falling or dropping a bag remains a mystery.
When we unlocked the door and entered our room for the first time, a new level of “eww” hit us because the place smelled horrible. It was a cross between the room having been closed up for a really long time with no circulating air, moth balls, and just some other funk I can’t describe.
Our hope was that turning on the fan and opening the sliding glass door to our balcony that overlooked the lake would take care of that problem. It did not. Everything in our suitcases still had a hint of that smell for the rest of the trip.
We checked out the room, which was, again, less than our usual level of luxury. But we knew that going in and tried to overlook the 1970’s bed spreads, etc. I must say I was mildly disappointed when I couldn’t find the coin box to drop a quarter in so the bed would shake.
We walked out onto the balcony and just stared at the beautiful lake in front of us. Many of the residents there had seaplanes parked at their docks, and we even saw one come in shortly after we arrived.
“Now this is the life” I said to Denise.
“Yep, it sure is! Just look how beautiful.”
Denise recently reminded me that, at this point, “the lake still had some sort of mystical power over us”, and that power made us blind to our reality.
We decided to get in the car and drive around some to see more of this massive lake. But we soon discovered that you can’t see much of it from the road when driving the parameter due to all of the private property that borders it. That meant most of what we would see of it would be from the “chalet” (I’m still hesistant to call it that without the use of quotation marks because the word feels way too fancy for what it really was). So, we decided to go find somewhere to get some drinks and snacks for the room.
We found a convenience store and loaded up on what we needed. While we were there, we both bought lotto tickets because Denise had seen that so many winning tickets are bought in New England (and I had won $200 on a ticket I bought in Cape Cod the year prior).
The guy at the counter was less than courteous as he basically belittled us for the fact that we were buying tickets and, in no uncertain terms, let us know we were both wasting our money. Denise then shared with him that she had heard about people winning with tickets bought in New England. He scoffed when he replied with, “Well, coming from someone who sells them every day, I can tell you that is wrong.”
It gave Denise and I great pleasure for her to walk up to his counter again the next day to collect her $40 winnings. Jackpot? Hardly. But a lot more than she spent on a ticket in the first place? Yep!
So far, the people we encountered in this town were not welcoming at all. From Sue, who looked at us like we were alien creatures and couldn’t understand what could have possibly brought us to this town, to the clerk (possibly owner?) at this store, it was clear they were not keen on strangers coming around.
We got a lot of stares everywhere we went. The kind of stares where you can see someone’s head turning as they keep you in their gaze while you’re walking down the street. It was odd, and eerie.
Chalet Shithole, as we have since dubbed the place, was located very close to a place that advertised seaplane rides. Since this town was not exactly hopping with tourist (we seemed to be the only ones there), we thought we may have a shot at getting a ride on the spot. We first tried to call, but got an answering machine. Since we were so close to it, we decided to head over and see if we could find someone to ask.
The office door had a “closed” sign on it, but we did see a couple of women walking around the property. At this point, I don’t think either of us were surprised when we saw these women dressed like they were fresh off the set of Little House on the Prairie (minus the bonnet). It was the same way all of the women we had seen so far were dressed. And all of them had long, stringy hair, no make-up, and definitely no hair coloring. And we both got the very strong sense that women in those parts knew their place in society.
One of the ladies asked if she could help us.
“Yes, we wanted to look into booking a ride on a seaplane”, I said.
“Oh, ok. Well, when are you wanting to go?”
“Is today possible?” I mean, shouldn’t be a crazy question since there were several planes sitting there and certainly not a lot of activity going on at the place.
“We don’t have a pilot today. But we may have one coming in on Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“That won’t work for us. We leave Tuesday morning. We definitely would have signed up in advance had we realized this was something we could do here.”
“Well, you can’t really sign up in advance because we never know when we will have a pilot available.”
The two ladies chatted with us for a few minutes, inquiring about our stay, where we were from, etc. (we made a point to include the fact that we are cousins) and made a suggestion that we try to catch a boat tour of the lake from a place just down the street.
As Denise and I are walking back to the car, we looked at each other in disbelief.
“What kind of tourism business doesn’t let you book shit like this in advance? I mean, how the hell do they stay in business?” I said.
“Girl, this place is starting to feel creepy to me. This is some weird shit.”
“I’m right there with you!”
We got in the car and headed to the place suggested to inquire about the boat tour. As we had come to expect, when we got out of the car, locals stopped in their tracks to stare at the two chicks who were clearly not from the area. We got to the door to discover the place was closed, although according to their posted business hours, they should have been opened.
Although it was closed, the boat used for tours was right there for our viewing pleasure, along with an informational card with prices, tours offered, and some details about the boat: It was a steamboat built in 1914. And from the looks of it, not much had been done to it since it was built. Apparently, it would still float, because it was in the water. But the worthiness of this vessel was questionable, at best. We decided to pass on trying any further to book a tour for the next day.
We eventually made our way to a nearby restaurant to grab a bite to eat. Just outside the entrance we saw a flyer advertising boat tours of the lake, which said to inquire within. When we went in, we asked about the tours, and our waitress had no information to share with us. She had no idea, as she said they were not affiliated with those tours. I’m now sensing a trend – every place we go is either closed when it should be open, people are around but tell us they can’t help us, or presumably open but no one is around to help us.
This is where it really started to feel like a Stephen King novel. With all of the suprisingly long stares we got from so many people, and the fact that so many places we tried to go turned us away in one form or another, it was easy to imagine phone calls going on that went something like: “They are headed your way now! Quick, throw up the closed sign, turn on the answering machine, and lock the doors!”
The waitress did later come back with a phone number written on a napkin for us to call about the advertised tours. After phone tag a time or two, we did finally talk to the guy offering the tours. We asked about a tour for the next morning and his response was something along the lines of, “Well, I’ve got something I’ve got to do tomorrow, but I might can take you the next day.” Did he already know we would be gone by then? Makes one wonder.
Seriously? WTF kind of place is this? They clearly don’t survive on, or even count on, any kind of tourism. Every place we tried to book something with had no kind of schedule or pre-planning process. It all seemed very “fly by the seat of your pants” like to me.
When we got settled in for the night, we were both spent. The day was long and unfulfilling, the tub/shower was gross to the point I’d wished I’d brought along some flip flops to wear while showering, the carpet around the mini fridge was wet due to something leaking from under the fridge, and the smell in the room was still just as awful as when we first walked in. We thought it couldn’t get any worse. We were wrong.
The beds were like laying on plywood and the pillows were no different. They had zero softness or fluff and were flat as a board. If you tried to fold the pillow (because forget trying to bunch it up some for a little bulkiness), it instantly flung back to its original shape. The sheets were rough and scratchy, just like the pilled-up underside of the 1970’s bedspreads that we were both scared to touch.
It was a shame that the only days on this trip that I actually felt back to normal following my bout of diverticulitis were spent in this place. We got there on a Sunday. We were due to leave out on Tuesday. Before we went to bed Sunday night, we were both already thinking we were ready to go. But, we had a moose tour scheduled for Monday afternoon, and that was the entire reason we were there in the first place. So, we decided to stick it out.
The next morning, when we were both done trying to get some sleep (I don’t think either of us got any at all overnight because everything was so incredibly uncomfortable), I looked over at Denise, she looks at me, and she said something that has become a tag line we now use on a regular basis: “I. Have seen. Enough!!!” as she flings the stiff sheets off of herself and sits up in bed.
I got so tickled at her and how she said that and we both laughed our asses off! She then goes on to tell me that since she couldn’t sleep, she instead planned our escape from this Chalet Shithole we had found ourselves in.
We briefly pondered packing up and leaving right then. But we both really wanted to see at least one moose this trip. After re-evaluating our situation after the sleeping accommodations had been given a fair shot, we once again agreed to try to endure the madness. Our moose tour wasn’t until 3pm and it was a four-hour tour, so we knew it would be too late to make our way to Bar Harbor by the time we got back from that.
Moose tour time finally came. It was misty rain and cold, but we were told we would be in the vehicle for most of the tour, with stops along the way to get out for photo ops. So, that was fine. It was fine until it got close to time to depart and we saw how many people this tour company was piling into the van.
I believe we had a total of thirteen people – maybe fourteen, not counting the guide – and one large dog. I was stuck in the first row (the shortest seat) next to two women who apologized for the fact that half of my ass had to hang off the seat, and I had the seatbelt latch digging into me the entire time because they were “wide” (their words, not mine…accurate just the same). Additionally, one of the women in my row had several coughing fits so severe I was sure she was going to vomit right there in the van. I was grateful that my body was full of antibiotics. I’m assuming the remaining passengers weren’t so fortunate.
Did I mention the majority of this “tour” was on dirt roads out in the middle of nowhere, so the fact that the seatbelt latch was digging in my ass was now intensified with every single bump we hit? The longer we drove around without seeing a moose, the more tension you felt in the overall mood inside this van. The only person who seemed to be having a good time was the guide.
After all of that, we did not see a single moose. Four hours of misery and not one moose. Our guide claimed there was one way off in the distance that you needed binoculars to see. But even with borrowing her binoculars, no one else saw it. I’m convinced she made it up to make us believe we got our moneys worth. We did not. We did not see a moose, and we did not get our moneys worth. The tour was completely overbooked, uncomfortable, unsafe (as I couldn’t have latched my seatbelt even if I wanted to), and miserable.
Denise and I both got out of that van as quick as we could when we got back to the pick-up point. We walked to the car in the rain, both got in, shut the door, and looked at each other. I don’t know if we actually both said these words at the same time, but our faces definitely did. “I. Have seen. Enough!!!!”
We headed back to Chalet Shithole, closed our suitcases (we hadn’t unpacked anything because…gross), helped each other get them to the car, and we hauled ass out of there, caring not one ounce that we had already paid for two nights there and were leaving early.
From the moment the “chalet” was within eyesight as we were driving to it, to the moment we took off as fast as we could in the dark and pouring down rain not sure where we would sleep for the night or when, everything just went from bad to worse. By the time we left, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
While Denise drove, I worked on finding last minute hotel reservations in Bangor, a few hours away. I found a place and booked it via a third party and we thought we were all set. When we were about thirty minutes away from this hotel (roughly around 10:00pm – 10:30pm), the front desk called me to tell me there was a mistake and they did not have any available rooms. I’m convinced at this point that some witchy voodoo shit was going on where we had just come from, and they called ahead and told the hotel not to take us. I don’t really think that, but with the weird shit that kept happening for the rest of the trip, it does make one wonder.
The entire experience reminds me of several past bad relationships I’ve been in. “He looks good on paper. How he describes himself sounds pretty good, too. Let’s give this thing a go.” “Dang, that was a red flag, for sure. But there still seems to be a lot of good there, so we will just sweep that one under the rug.” Next thing you know, red flags are springing up everywhere, and you wonder how you ever fell for him in the first place! Then you try to get away, and start wondering if you’ll make it out alive. Once you finally do, little impacts seem to linger and follow you where ever you go! Apparently, I’ve yet to break this pattern in my life.
We did finally find another hotel in Bangor and got a good nights sleep in soft beds with high thread count sheets, and fluffy pillows.
I always try to look for the positives in shitty situations. What did I glean from this experience? I am more of a travel snob than I realized, and I am not willing to rough it ever again. Even if it means spending a lot more money to stay nicer places. If I can’t afford to do that, then I just won’t go on the trip. So, I learned something new about myself from this experience. I also learned that I have zero desire to ever return to that particular area of Maine, which is so unlike the other places we have visited in that state – the landscape is beautiful, but the people? Kind of scary. Definitely creepy. And a dash of eerie.
Keep an eye out for Part Three where I will tell you the rest of the weird happenings on the remainder of our trip that truly make me think there was a hex on me.