The Lobster Capital of Maine - Stonington

We spent the day over at Stonington, ME.  It took about an hour to get over there from our Forest Ridge Campground in Ellsworth, ME, on some smaller county and state roads.

It was foggy much of the day but we had glimpses of some interesting things.

First we came upon a Produce Market and had to stop.

There were a mix of crafts and produce on display.

I stopped for a few moments and talked with the owners of the VW pickup truck who brought some produce to the market.

The guy in the green sweatshirt was the owner of the 1964 VW.  It had been completely restored and painted and had the nice canvas cover over the top.  It was a real beauty and had been in his family for a long time.  I asked how it did on the road and he said it could even get up to 50 mph!

Next, on to Stonington.

Our new friends Randy and Pat recommended the quaint little town and we found it to be a great day trip.  It immediately looked like a Maine fishing town.

There were boats in the harbor and a number of working warehouses in site on the water.

The town is small and we drove through it on Main Street before turning around and finding a parking place.  Parking is free so that was nice.  Just like most of the parking in Bar Harbor.

Our first order of business was to find a place for lunch.  We looked at this little row of cottages and the restaurant associated it.  But we went inside and waited for a table only to find out it was a private dining area for guest at these quaint cottages.  Yikes!

 The fog was rolling in and out and we opted for an inside restaurant on Main Street.

The bay window was a great place to see the bay, enjoy the meal and chat with some other vacationers in the restaurant.
The sights in town were another exclamation mark in our Northeast Trip.

 After lunch, we strolled down to the wharf and went to the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries.

Here's what their website says about the mission and purpose:

Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries is a non-profit organization that works to secure a diversified fishing future for the communities of Eastern Maine and beyond. We do this by developing and implementing innovative programs that provide value for today’s fishermen and drive more sustainable management approaches for future fisheries. An essential component of our work is connecting the knowledge of fishermen, the findings of scientists, and the world of policy makers.

We talked with Sam, an intern from Iowa who showed us samples of some of the fish life on display.
We saw a purple lobster, crabs, mussels and some other sea creatures.

A manager at the facility said that the working warehouse in town were really busy and harvesting a lot lobster.  In 2017, they had a banner year with over 20,000,000 pounds of lobster in Stonington alone.  An average year is about that for the entire state of Maine.

It was a beautiful warm day and we really just walked around and enjoyed the small town feeling on the waterfront.  It was surprising to me that there was not a larger commercial advertising presence.  The only sign I saw that named the town as the biggest lobster port in Maine (and therefore the world?) was the small sign at the edge of town.

I suppose, to their credit, they liked the small town atmosphere and were willing to put up with the high traffic in the summer time, but at the same time they didn't want to bring in huge numbers of tourists and change the culture.

Before we left the area, we drove around the outskirts of town and saw some neat neighborhoods with little homes perched on the side of the hills for good views of the harbor.

We also came upon a large boat repair facility with a huge boat mover.

The whole contraption was being 'driven' by a guy who was walking behind it and operating it from a remote control joystick.  We don't see that every day!

We loved our time in Stonington.  It was a memorable day.

This definitely was a 'find' and a great way to spend the day.  Seeing Stonington was a bit of change from Bar Harbor and Acadia and a chance to see an interesting place.

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

4th Cliff and Heritage Days in Scituate

We've been at 4th Cliff military campground for a few days.  We are about 1/2 way between Boston and Plymouth.

It's a great location.   We've taken a couple of day trips into Boston/Quincy and another down to Plymouth and Hyannis Port (Barnstable) on Cape Cod.

This is a return trip for us to Fourth Cliff.  Our family, along with Kirk and Susan and their two kids, camped here in tents.  It literally is on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  I remember having the best time here with them.  We walked along the beach and bought some lobsters which we cooked in a large pot for dinner.

I remember waking up and looking out of the front of our tent and watching the sun come up.  Something like this.

For some reason, I don't remember the marsh and river behind us that is also very beautiful.

The compound has a number of new cottages that are full.  It has 16 RV sights but has lost a few because of erosion.  The tip of the loop fell into the ocean last year during a storm.  We wandered over to the beach at low tide and walked around to see the damage.

The next day we took the car into the city for a day trip.  On the return, we stopped at the little village (Humarock) near our campground and peaked inside this warehouse, hoping to find some seafood.

It looked like a wholesale commercial seafood market, but we found it also sells retail.

 We opted for two lobster after we found out they would steam them for $5.  It was money well spent.

The big tanks hold almost 25,000 lobster in their busy season we were told.  Wow.

The closest town to us is Scituate (SITCH-yoo-it).  We stopped on the way back from Quincy to pick up a few things at the grocery store and we heard the town was having "Heritage Days" on the weekend.  It started on Friday night with some bands playing and "luminaria"/lights around the Scituate coastline.  

We ventured in on Saturday to see the booths and happenings.  They had the downtown area closed off so we parked in a large church parking lot a couple of blocks away.   

We found the booths and slowly made our way along some. 

The first one that really caught our interest was "Woodmont Circles".  We stopped and chatted with the vendor who was really nice.  

Lindsey does all the woodcutting and design work.  A lot of great looking offerings.  She told us all about their vacation out to Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks a couple of weeks ago.

Lots of booths

Before we left, we stopped at a booth were a candidate was running for State Representative.  He had a whole group of volunteers manning the booth and passing out cold bottles of water.

It was fun talking to these two high schoolers.

We saw all we wanted to and left after about an hour.

On the way back to our car, we saw the sign that indicated the name "Scituate" means "cold brook".  It was founded in 1636.

We love checking out small towns (18,000 pop.) in America!

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!