Today is Labor Day, the official end of the "summer that never was." Nearly everyone packed up early and headed for Boston or Portland or wherever they call home and we have the campground to ourselves. The traffic must be insane.
It is sunny but cool, too cold to head to the beach. But there is much more to do along the coast in central Maine. We have explored several of the National Wildlife Refuges. The fall migration in nearly finished and the birding hasn't been very good but we did manage to surprise two bull moose at the nearby Nature Conservancy site.
From Portland, Maine to Portsmouth, NH this is prime vacation land; Saco, Ogunquit, Kennebunk, Kittery. On a drive down the coast you soon run out of superlatives to describe the houses. 'Cute' leads to 'charming' and 'gorgeous' to 'magnificent.' The color combinations can be found only in the largest box of Crayolas.
This is also the land of outlet malls. Pick your upscale retailer and you will find it here. We aren't much for shopping but we did visit the LL Bean headquarters in Freeport. Each department - home furnishings, footwear, clothing, hunting and fishing, bikes and boats - has its own building. Even at 10:30 AM the giant parking lot was packed. The economy can't be as bad as people say! We also stopped at the DeLorme map store to see the largest globe in the world. As well-traveled as we are it was interesting to see the world in such perspective.
