Questions regarding visiting and moving in Sept/Oct

[dmyankee]

Originally Posted by Maineah

I've seen the engine at the snowmobile club. We walked all around the crash site one spring before the undergrowth was up. We walked to the left all the way to where the cutting stopped. There is an amazing amount of debris up there. Although I understand why people bring crosses, plastic flowers, photos, plaques and that stuff up there it really has weirded the place out a bit for me.

"Weird" is to kind of a word for it! I like the good old days when I could point a visitor looking for something unusual to do, in the direction of the site. Most never knew it existed. It's the roadside shrine mentality that turned it into a freak show. The SAC emblem at the entrance is a nice touch, though.

Right across from the entrance, when the wood yard was just cut over, a few years back, I took a customer to scout for a Moose hunt. There were 17 in the field with six bulls grunting and fighting among themselves, teying to impress the cows. He called his partner up on the coast and slung the phone out the truck window so he could hear all the antler crashing!

[corel]

According to the calendar Winter last 3 months, but we all know that varies by a lot depending on where you live. Just curious, how long is the Winter in Maine? I was guessing 4-5 months, how close am I? And about when does it start and end?

[dmyankee]

Up above the 45th here, we got snow the third week of Nov. and the last of it went the later part of April. Heating season begins sometime in September and I've fired up the stove on several cold days the last month. The leaves on the trees just matured to size this week.

[corel]

[quote=Maineah;4065283] For safety and parcticality most rental units do not have a supplemental heating system and rely on oil, gas, K-1, or electricity for heat.
QUOTE]


What is K-1? I'm not familiar with that term.

[dmyankee]

Kerosene. It's used in outdoor tanks because it will not gel up in the cold. It runs about a buck more than #2 fuel oil.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

A B-52 is a really big airplane. When it goes into the trees it gets scattered over a wide area. The pilots managed it for quite a while with no vertical stabilizer before they lost control. It's amazing that anybody survived at all after crashing in the dead of winter.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by dmyankee

"Weird" is to kind of a word for it! I like the good old days when I could point a visitor looking for something unusual to do, in the direction of the site. Most never knew it existed. It's the roadside shrine mentality that turned it into a freak show. The SAC emblem at the entrance is a nice touch, though.

Right across from the entrance, when the wood yard was just cut over, a few years back, I took a customer to scout for a Moose hunt. There were 17 in the field with six bulls grunting and fighting among themselves, teying to impress the cows. He called his partner up on the coast and slung the phone out the truck window so he could hear all the antler crashing!

It has an Apocalypse Now feeling around it. You're just waiting for some guy in Nam fatigues to jump around a tree at you. We used to go there long before it became a tourist attraction. You're right the SAC plaque is a nice touch but it led to people feeling like they had to put something there to show respect when that crap really draws away from the silent horror of the site.

[corel]

So we've bumped up our vacation, we're coming August 29 - Sept 7. And instead of driving we're flying. So we'll have a full week to check out the state.
Can you offer some areas to check out? We'd like to see a little bit of everything, South, North, the coast.....
Also if you can offer affordable, clean places to stay (hotel, motel, b&b) that are away from the crowds that would be much appreciated.

Thanks again, you guys are a wonderful resource.

[Acadianlion]

Not much time. I think you should buy that Atlas, and fly in to Manchester, New Hampshire to rent a car. Then drive to Portland and spend a couple of days in and around greater Portland since that is the best chance for your husband to land a job. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Maine by far.

After that, drive to Bangor. Go straight up Interstate 95 to the city, and spend a day traveling around that area. You will go past Augusta on that route.

Finally, head down Route 1A to Ellsworth, and from there, take Route 1 all the way down to Brunswick. That way you can go through the towns of Belfast, Camden, Rockland, and see a little ocean.

You really don't have much time to see very much in the number of days that you are showing, and you will spend a LOT of your time looking at pavement.

It doesn't sound to me as though you are at all aware of how much difference there is between the "two Maines". If you live in an urban area in California, you will be amazed at how relaxed and pleasant metropolitan Portland seems. Compared to that, I think the Bangor area will seem close to being a frontier. And in the time that you have you will have only begun to get a hint of the diversity that exists here.

A few years ago, I owned a small business that operated leased machinery that was serviced out of the Portland distributors. The woman who was the office manager there, came up to visit us one day driving along with their route salesman. I had been told that she had been born and raised in the greater Portland area, and had never been outside of that area, and never to downeast Maine. Our store was located in Hancock, which is on Route One and a very nice town with a very wealthy summer community on the Point.

Anyway, this young woman spent several hours looking at our facility, and talking with my wife. She was VERY nervous the entire time she was there, and at one point, asked my wife if MANY of the houses in the area had indoor plumbing. She was dead serious.

The two Maines exist, even if only in the ignorance of some of those from that "other" part of the state way down there.