randomness on the road

This past weekend we spent a lot of time in the car, on back roads, seeing the sights of Maine. It's funny because I've told Sean over and over that he has never taken me around to see anything in Maine other than the area we live in. His joke is that there's no reason because it's the "same pine tree for miles and miles". I always thought that was a funny thing to say but I get it now.

I have spent more time living in Kansas than any other state. Kansas has a lot of small towns but now that we've gone on our road trip I think Maine actually wins the prize. I was telling someone in Maine once how I grew up in this tiny town of only 20,000 people in Kansas. They then informed me that Bangor has 30,000 people and is their 2nd largest city. I just had to chuckle.

What I did love about our road trip was all the randomness you could find along the way. For example, we came across a farmers market (not so random, I know) that we decided to pull over to in the pouring rain with only 8 minutes to go. Everyone had packed up but one lady - a farmer (I know, still not random) that was selling meat. She was so nice and we ended up buying pepperoni and pork shoulder from her. She even emailed me a recipe for the pork shoulder! She stood there with us and told us all about sustainable farming. It was a great and informative discussion. If the recipe turns out I'll pass it along. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures at this stop.

We stopped at a fine dining establishment for lunch. OK so it's not fine dining but I do have to say it was actually pretty good. We couldn't get over the number of people that stopped at this spot while we were there.

like this, ummm, vehicle…

It was driving down the street, no tags or anything. Come to find out it was a son taking his mother out for ice cream. How sweet!

We drove by several of these…

In case you can't tell, it actually says "INACTIVE HYDRANT" on the sign. The funniest one (which I didn't get a picture of unfortunately) actually had a piece of tape over "INACTIVE" and someone had written "ON" over it. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that one!

We stopped in a couple of these…

My favourite was this one. It was so big and we really needed an entire day to just go through the downstairs. The second story was all books.  Don't you just love the name?

We were down a really secluded road (checking out the oceanfront properties for sale - dreaming, not being serious) when we came across this…

Look how old that headstone is. I know you're going to think I'm such a freak but I find such beauty in old graveyards and gravestones. I couldn't get over how small this cemetery was and its placement was peculiar. I really am curious about it.

One of the other happy accidents we came across was the "Be Happy Stand". We were driving along and found a sign at an intersection that said "homemade ice cream at the Be Happy Stand". Of course we had to turn down the road so we could check it out.

There were the cutest little girls running the stand. They informed us that there were 3 rules:

• Sign the guestbook (which included your name, email and what makes you happy
• Pay whatever you feel is right (you could even take change out of the money bucket if you needed to
• The most important one - leave happier then when you arrived.

I was hoping they would send us an email but not yet. I got raspberry ice cream (which I was told the little girl had picked herself) and Sean got the blueberry. They were both very good. The kids wanted to pet Duke so bad but he was trying to protect the Jeep for us so all he did was "smile" at them (as the little boy explained it). They were nice enough to give Duke his own ice cream cone (minus the ice cream) which he really enjoyed.

Of course he got to lick the ice cream bowls (yes plural) clean too.

That was some of the fun things we came across on our tour of Maine. I look forward to future road trips (hint, hint Sean)!

****************************************************
Don't forget to sign up for the lobster giveaway.  You don't want an Amy to win by default do you (unless your name is Amy)?  You don't have a blogger account - no worries.  Just use "anonymous" but make sure you include your name so I know who you are.  Don't know how to eat lobster or not sure if you like it?  What better way to find out?  Don't worry it will come with cooking and eating instructions.

All you have to do is post a comment on the "a one year giveaway" post by going to the archives to find it or clicking here (link to "a one year giveaway")