Distances
- Biked: 3.4 miles for the day – Trip Total: 285.7 miles
- Walked: Not Tracked for the day – Trip Total: 17.1 miles
My final day in Maine. I woke up with a headache, I think a hangover from the junk food. I got some coffee from the lobby and headed back to my room. I got all my stuff packed back up. I noticed that my Note 3 had managed to get back up to full charge but was still being finicky about the charging cable so I set it to airplane mode to conserve power. I did the check-in for my flights on my tablet and got everything else squared away. I checked out of the hotel and went to my bike. I still had a couple hours before I needed to go to the airport and the bike shop wasn’t open yet for me to return my bike.
Marcy’s Diner
I was starting to feel better and a little hungry so I went to Marcy’s Diner. A Portland favorite breakfast spot. They serve inexpensive diner fare from a small menu and specialize in a selection of fresh homemade muffins that they offer grilled. There was a small group of people waiting but they were doing an excellent job moving people in and out. I was waiting for no more than 5 minutes before a spot opened at the bar and I was seated. I ordered a grilled blueberry muffin with one over-easy egg on the side and coffee. It was delicious. I put butter on the warm crunch side of the grilled muffin and it was excellent. The decor was also really fun. The only downside is that they were cash only and that used up most of the remainder of what I had in my wallet.
Grilled Blueberry Muffin and an egg at Marcy’s Diner
Decoration at Marcy’s
After breakfast I strolled around the area of the diner which I guess is the arts district of Portland along Congress Street. I found an ATM and grumpily paid the service charge, since I would need cash for a cab back to the airport. Then I swung on my bike down to the Old Port for one last time. I poked into a couple of the souvenir shops and pottery shops. At a souvenir shop I bought myself a Maine T-Shirt, no longer worried about the extra weight of souvenirs. I admired the local pottery in the shops and it made me really want to resume working in the clay studio as I had done earlier this year. Perhaps I can find a way to work it back into my schedule.
I started biking back to the bike shop, making one last stop at one of the locations for Coffee By Design, the local roaster I had tried the day before and Standard Baking Co. I picked up a bag of their Italian Roast for home. They gave me a voucher for a $1 off any item in one of their cafes, so I guess I have to go back now? I could have got a free cofee but had already been drinking quite a bit and didn’t want more before the airport.
Photo of Coffee By Design Cafe (from their Website)
Dropping the bike off was a breeze. They didn’t even inspect it. Just said thanks and called me cab which arrived with a couple minutes. The driver was friendly and we chatted a bit about the biking and the excellent weather I had all week except for the one spot of rain. There wasn’t much of a crowd at the airport and getting through security was a breeze. I noticed this time in the airport that there was a lobster restaurant in the terminal (not a big surprise) but you could get live lobster right there and they would package it for you to carry on the plane (Or they would ship it to you). All the stores were also selling Wicked Whoopie Pies, a Maine brand of the New England treat. (A sandwich made of two cakes with a cream filling, usually chocolate cake with a marshmallow filling but they had many flavors of course). I didn’t have any whoopie pies on this trip, nor did I have any whole boiled lobsters (though I did have lobster, crab, and lots of blueberries in many of my meals).
Live Lobster in the Terminal
The plane was a bit larger than I was expecting for a regional flight down to Philly and they didn’t make me gate check my bag. So that was nice and easy. The landing in Philly was quite bumpy, it seems that I always get bumpy air in Philly, what’s with that? I had a short layover in Philly and another pleasant surprise was that my connecting flight got moved to the same terminal I arrived in so I didn’t have to run anywhere. I had enough time to walk down the concourse and pick up a soft pretzel and a small salad with a bottle of water. I had the idea of grabbing a pretzel on the flight down and was disheartened when the first thing I saw in the terminal outside my arrival gate was an Auntie Anne’s (gross butter filled pretzels). Fortunately further down there was the traditional Philly pretzels, as well as a place selling cheese steaks, and an itallian place selling stromboli. The pretzel I got was prepackaged in plastic with lots of preservatives, but it was made by JJ Snack Foods in Pensauken, NJ and had an expiration date a few days out indicating to me that it was a relatively fresh item not intended to sit on shelves indefinitely.
My Philly Soft Pretzel with Mustard
I waited until I was in the air on my way back to LA before enjoying the pretzel, but grabbed a pic. I was able to snag Gulden’s Mustard packets at the grab-n-go selling the salad, rather than the no-name yellow mustard packets at the pretzel vendor. It tasted pretty good, though would have been a lot better if it could have been warm …
The flight back was pretty smooth and not overly packed. I got an aisle seat like usual, but the center seat between me and the window was empty giving me and my neighbor at the window plenty of space. I took a short nap, around 4pm PDT (7pm EDT) so I’m hoping swinging back to West coast time will be relatively painless. Getting onto East coast time wasn’t a problem with the collection of “naps” I got on my red-eye connections.
Landed safe and sound in LA and got the Supershuttle back to my place. My Maine adventure concluded.
Maine Cycle 