Thursday, 23 August 2018
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| sort of today's route |
Not far from my campground I missed the turn for Bald Hill Road and drove for more than 2 miles before I could even find anywhere to pull over, let alone turn around. After puzzling over both my maps (remember, I don't have a smart phone or GPS) I noticed I was parked near an office and decided it was time for some help.
I met a very nice woman there, who wholeheartedly embraced the project of getting me to LL Bean where, she said, they were having a 25% off sale. She printed off Google Maps directions for me. She also told me, when I asked, that she was originally from Aroostook County (that's the huge one that covers most of the northern part of the state), and pronounced it a-ROO-stook, rather than the A-roo-stook I'd imagined. She said when she moved down to Poland (where last night's campground was), she thought she'd moved to the Bahamas because there it was, Mother's Day, and there wasn't a snowbank to be seen. Conveying in that one anecdote more than she could have imagined. Her daughter lives in Grand Prairie, TX, and now speaks with a Texas accent, the woman said, but she didn't think there was such a thing as a Maine accent. I assured her there is, though I haven't been able to put my finger on what makes it distinctive.
Anyway, armed with new directions, I got completely lost again in very short order, after I had trouble reading the format and following the directions while still driving (hard to do with my reading glasses on). So I wandered around, using my trusty Pres. Franklin Pierce compass to aim generally southish, and suddenly found I was on one of the roads in the Google directions. Aiming the wrong way. So I turned around and headed back, and then abandoned the directions when I saw a sign saying that if I didn't follow them I could go down this other road for 7 miles and hit Freeport. So I did.
It looks different when it's not raining.
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| LLBean's photo - I didn't have my camera |
I went into the store intending to spend a fair amount of money if I could find what I've been noticing I don't have - a decent all-season rain-resistant jacket and some winter version of tennis shoes, my current ones being air-cooled for summer. I really looked and really wanted to find something. Just not there. Apparently I'm too picky. I want a jacket with a hood, and with both a zipper and snaps, and with pockets. Why oh why is that too much to ask. Not one of the many many styles of jackets in that store had all these features. I asked 2 salesclerks for help. I finally told one to pass on to the designers that some of us have hot flashes and need ventilation while protecting ourselves from the wind (thus, the snaps). And that some of us walk our dogs and find ourselves in sudden rain showers and want a hood to keep from getting soaked. She was in her 50s and looked sympathetic and said she'd pass it on. You never know.
The dogs got 2 walks in the LL Bean area - it's a huge campus, plus lots of other stores have sensibly opened outlets there: GAP and American Eagle and so forth.
The parking lot was nearly empty when we got there, and completely full when we left, and if the woman parked next to me hadn't come out when I was trying to leave, I would probably have been stuck there till she did.
Then I tried again with the online directions. Actually, the original set Bing had come up with looked dumb to me, so I asked it for adjustments that were much less convoluted and more direct. But once I got out in the real world, I discovered even those weren't as direct as they could have been and adjusted to the different route I could see in real life.
These people here too have promised a wifi signal and, unless it's completely nonexistent, I'm going to stay here a second night just to rest and regroup a bit.
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