A Week in Maine (Okay, a Sunday through Thursday in Maine)

Spent a week for work in Bangor, Maine.  Bangor is beautiful, but I learned some new things spending a number of days on the other coast.

A.  Wicked is an adverb. Who'd a thunk?  By way of example:  This lobsta is wicked good.  That ice cream is wicked good.  I gotta wicked bad case of the cramps.

So bummed I wasn't there on Thursday for the "wicked cheap" lobsta.

B.  Lobsta is a word.  See above.

He DID get his revenge on me.

C. Despite the letter's "-er" usually sounding like "uhrr", in Maine they are pronounced "aa."

The Muddy Rudda, one of Brewa (Brewer), Maine's finer eating establishments. 

D.  LL Bean is everywhere and everyone wears LL Bean stuff.  They still don't have anything I like.

Huge store.  Not one thing I wanted.

E.  Ice Cream, across the country, is a good thing.

Sitting on the side of a 2 lane highway, across the street from the random Dunkin' Donuts.

Gifford's Ice Cream.

Oh yeah.  It's wicked good.

F. Distance over Time means nothing in Maine.  It's like its own little worm hole in the space/time continuum.  (Yes, I am a geek.)  If you ask someone how long it takes to get somewhere, invariably you'll get an amazingly wrong -- dare I say wicked wrong? -- answer.

A friend explained it like this:

"On the East Coast, when you ask someone how long it takes to get from point A to point B they won't tell you how long it really takes.  They will disregard walking to and from their car.  They'll disregard driving to the freeway.  They'll think about that one record time they went from A to B.  They'll only consider that time to be from the moment their car was moving forward at freeway speed until the moment the freeway speed stopped.  Then they'll take that number and multiply it by .9.  The remaining number is how long they will tell you -- with a goddamn straight face -- it takes to get from A to B."

By way of example... how long does it take to drive from Bangor to Portland?  I was told 1 to 1-1/2 hours, tops.  Stupid me, I believed the three different people who told me this.  I didn't mapquest it at the time, but I have now.  See below.  It's 129 miles.  That is OVER two hours.

This is 129 miles.
Mapquest says it'll take you THREE hours to drive this.
It's a wicked long distance.

So glad to be back in California.

-Steve