I love my wife. She makes life an adventure whether it’s dragging me to the Houston Grand Opera or signing us up for a dude ranch. So when she suggested that two days after returning from the Cayman Islands that we hop on a flight to Boston (enjoying the SWA companion benefit) and drive several hours to the Maine Lobster Festival and then the next day, drive several more hours later, enter into Canada to explore; I said “yea, sure”
I’ll say it again, I love my wife. She did so much planning for this trip. Including places to stay, routes to drive, restaurants to visit, hikes and sights. Midway through we planned to visit my cousin in Halifax.
What could go wrong? Well two things:
- The price of lobster rolls that we had planned on as our source of all food for the week was between $20-30 for a serving size we would call the snack for a snack here in Texas (granted the companion butter dip was the size of a soup bowl).
- A positive covid test our first morning in Maine.
Well fuck! This is not a pleasant moment. There’s a lot going on including the guilt of who I may have interacted with, the shame of now being one of the infected, the disappointment of derailing our trip, and the feeling of “now what”. We went over our options. We determined that continuing our trip and crossing the boarder was not an option both due to the rules of Canada and human decency (this was later expanded to “fucking human decency” when asking some of our hotels for a cancelation and refund.). We narrowed down our options to (1) drive the 33 hour route back home or (2) isolate the required amount of time in Maine until we could fly home. We decided to stay in Maine or …… to ReMaine!
We logged on to Airbnb and found a nice & quiet looking oceanfront cabin in Friendship Maine. Interesting educational moment for me was that to check carefully on the facilities as a couple of places had actual outhouses. We then cancelled our planned places in Canada. Most places were understanding and traveler friendly but two places (Moonlight Beach Suites in East Lawrencetown and Down By The River B&B in Fredericton) should be avoided.
Maine is a wonderful place. We enjoyed scenic drives, walks in Arcadia National Park, visits to quaint fishing/tourist towns, and blueberry picking. We found nice outside restaurants and breweries where my wife could order and I stayed isolated at a garden table. The food was mostly lobster or haddock but I did enjoy a duck burger at Camden while overlooking the wharf
(With the remaining ducks).
We were driving around in a rental car with Florida plates. Every now and then another tourist would remark that they were also from Florida and were in Maine for the fresh cool air. We responded that we were here for the same plus women’s rights, that lack of book burnings, the ability to say “gay” & learn history, belief in science, and escape from a governer with a Vegas porn style toupee.
My wife discovered, and embraced, Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. We also drove by Stephen King’s house. My wife wanted to pull over but I felt that having two KN95 mask wearing, Dunkin Donut coffee drinking people slowly passing your house in a rental car car with Florida plates might be too much for the King of Horror.
Maine was great, my symptoms very mild, and the trip very relaxing. We will plan on a redux but will probably fly into Quebec and explore from there.
We made it back to Austin, TX with half a pound of blueberries and a lesson in flexibility.
Comments