Yellow Vanagon: Maine: good people, good lobster and lots of blueberries!

Its been a whirlwind tour of the east coast and we are almost 2 weeks behind on the blog. Time to play catchup on what we have been up to!

We crossed the border into Vermont via highway 141 with relative ease.. the border official asked us if we had any citrus and made us toss the wild flowers we picked in Ontario but other then that he waved us through. Next stop was the coast of Maine to meet up with my college friend Matt and his (new!) wife Alyson, who drove up from Boston. I was especially excited about exploring Maine since it would be my first time in the state. I couldn't wait for lighthouses and lobster!

The drive from Vermont to Maine was very pretty, consisting mainly of back roads. At one point we saw a bunch of people on the side of the road... upon closer inspection we realized we were driving through a patch of wild blueberries! We figure we might as well join the locals and harvest some for ourselves.

Harvesting blueberries later to be used for blue berry muffins

Catching up with Matt and Alyson at Matt's mom's place in St George, ME was amazing. The house was situated right on a cove so we could sit on the deck with a view of the lobster pounds and watch the tide come in and out. Speaking of lobster, I was in heaven. I think I tried lobster a different way for every meal... steamed, lobster roll, lobster grilled cheese, lobster stew.

Steamed Maine lobster, comes with a rock for cracking the shell

more lobsters

It was incredibly nice to catch up with Matt and Alyson (still working on getting them to move out to the bay area). They knew all the cool spots to check out in the Rockland/ St George area: culinary highlights included sunny afternoon lobster rolls at a BYOB spot right on the water, drinks at the bar attached to the Inn that Matt's dad is running (his retirement project) which were served up by the retired Navy Admiral that now runs the bar, coffee and bagels at a cute garden cafe and fish tacos cooked by Alyson! Over all is was a weekend of good company, good drinks and good food

Beers and lobster rolls right on the beach

Matt also scored us spots on the Morning in Maine, a Sailboat owned and operated by his uncle Bob. We couldn't have asked for a better sailing weather. From the boat we had awesome views of the coast,including multiple light houses. We also got to see a Windjammer, the type of schooner pictured on the Maine quarter.

Us in front of the Windjammer

In addition to catching glimpses of the lighthouses from the boat, Matt and Alyson took us on a tour of local lighthouses. This included the Marshall point light house which is featured in Forrest Gump. We also saw the Owls Head light and the Rockland Harbor breakwater light, which included almost a mile hike out on the breakwater.