5 States 5 Weekends: Part 1

Lately I’ve been really boring so I decided to set myself a challenge to give me something to do in my spare time. After considering a number of possibilities like seeing how long it would take me to eat my own body weight in chocolate I decided that most of my ideas were ridiculous and that the challenge shouldn’t involve eating, education or exercise. I came up with the idea of going to a different state every weekend for 5 weeks. First step was Maine.

Calm Before the Storm

I’m on the Amtrak train back to Boston as I write this (thanks for the free WiFi guys) and figured I’d share some photos of sunrise I took in Portland, ME, this morning before I left. If for no other reason than we have 12-18 inches of snow coming tomorrow in a big storm and I need to convince myself that it’s still worth living in New England. Hope you like them!

Leave to Remaine

The other day I looked at my Facebook memories and realised that I used to be a lot less boring than I am now. I’ve done roadtrips across the entire US and explored countries on my own but lately I haven’t spent a night away from home in ages.

Determined to rectify this sad situation I decided to book a weekend on my own up in Maine at late notice. I booked round trip tickets on the Amtrak Downeaster to Portland, a 110 mile, 2.5 hour trip from home (Amtrak isn’t known for its speed). I was a little worried that it would be freezing and terrible especially as they got a foot of snow 2 days before my trip but it wasn’t too cold in the end.

There’s a number of inhabited small islands in the waters surrounding Portland and they have a daily mailboat service. For just 16 dollars I booked a 3 hour trip on the boat and got some great views of coastal Maine. It was cold as hell out on the water and I was the only one dumb enough to be up on deck but I love being by the sea. Hope you like the photos from my trip!

The Rain in Maine

Yesterday we spent a lovely day in beautiful Ogunquit Maine and I came away with a new understanding of how pretty the Maine coast is but no better understanding of how to pronounce Ogunquit.