Wayside road signs outside churches, halls and eateries are really special because they change all the time. My two favourites on this year's trip are:
No. 1. "GOD BLESS THE USA. EAT MORE LOBSTERS" which was outside the local gun and arrow club in Phippsburg. This sign illustrates the strong religious fervour and patriotism of the club's secretary at least. More than that, it shows solidarity with the local lobstermen who find themselves in the embarrassing position of having too many lobsters to sell. The price fell to $3.14 a pound. I'm impressed with the amount of information on this board, which includes the date of the next meeting, the web-site and phone number, despite only having capital letters and no full stops.
No. 2. "WHAT IS MISSING FROM CH CH?.......... UR". I've seen this somewhere before, but it worked better in big print on this sign outside a church in Derry, New Hampshire. The back of the sign was full of unexpected information, including times of services in Portuguese. I don't think I saw a single person of Portuguese or Brazilian extract in my week there. 'Intriguing isn't it? Perhaps we should go to church more often and learn a new language at the same time.
When driving the back roads, we approached every white wooden church at a snail's pace, hoping to read and photograph the sign outside; much to the annoyance of the few motorists behind me. On Highway 1 the wayside attractions would have to be much bigger. We're talking "gigantic", as in the "Guinnes Book of Records" here.
Coming past Yarmouth, ME on the highway you pass The Big Map which is actually a giant globe in the atrium of the offices and HQ of the map company, DeLorne. To quote the company;"Eartha is a 3-dimensional scale model of our earth with mountains and landforms in full 3D, that rotates and revolves, simulating the earth’s real movements. Eartha was given the title of "World's Largest Revolving/Rotating Globe" by the editors of the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999, and still holds that record today. It measures 41.5 ft in diameter. Unveiled July 23, 1998 Eartha took two years to build and represents earth as it is seen from space. It rotates and revolves on a specially designed and built mechanized, cantilever arm".
They keep it lit up at night, which is when you get the best view of it from the road. You can check the temperature and the time as you drive by too, if your car doesn't have those functions. I rather fancy a proper visit and guided tour next time I'm there. Is it a folly, an advertising stunt, or a useful piece of science? I'd say a bit of all three.
Freeport, Maine is also known as "Bean Town" because it's commercial rebirth revolved around the relocation of the LL Bean outfitters store from Portland to the side of the highway. Generations of "Summer People" and "Fall hunters" have stopped here on their way Down East to buy outdoor clothing, fishing gear or ammo. As the years have passed, the clientèle has become more middle class, urban, dog-walking and fashion conscious. The store has changed from a huntin', shootin' and fishin' place to a sort of John Lewis with guns. You can buy a bike, a classic Old Town canoe or a yellow plastic, ocean-going kayak at LL Bean's but most people buy slacks, button-down shirts and woolly jumpers, and they do it 24/7.
The modern town consists of a long "strip-mall" consisting of outlet stores for all the big names such as Reebok, Timberland, Abercrombie and Fitch, Patagonia, and a host of others. It's no longer my kind of town, but we still go there to get fishing gear from Bean's and to visit our favourite bird-food shop, Freeport Wild Bird Supply out near the BFI.
Bean's Freeport Indian is the polite description of the BFI. He's a huge, 25 foot tall Indian Chief facing the onslaught of the white-man from Boston and all stations south, and he seems to be saying "How! Why not stop by and get some new moccasins from LL Bean's?" He's been there since the 1960s. Today the BFI's south end of Main Street is the quiet end with fewer big names. Businesses come and go almost annually here because most traffic now takes the next exit off the highway and enters the town in the middle.
Surprisingly, there is still an old and attractive part of town, only a stone's throw from the outlet stores. We regularly drive the back route from Freeport to Brunswick that takes us past old wooden houses, small farms, woods and marshes. There are wild turkeys in the fields, bald eagles over the woods and no traffic. Your'e in Maine.
Apart from lobsters, Maine is famous for its blueberries, most of which are picked from semi-wild blueberry barrens on the hills Down East. I say "semi-wild" because most barrens are heavily managed to be blueberry monocultures using quite a lot of chemicals. They do attract wildlife though, especially upland sandpipers and of course, where there are berries there are bears.
You don't see a lot of roadside stands selling blueberries straight from the farm but there is one on Highway 1 near Columbia Falls. Blueberry World is more of a blueberry theme park really, rather like a homespun version of Norfolk Lavender's place in England. It's known locally as the Giant Blueberry.
At one time, the purple, globular building housed a drive-thru blueberry stand, but they realised they could sell more stuff if they lured you inside. I almost bought a Davy Crockett hat but changed my mind after my wife threatened me with a plastic Bowie knife. My son, who is without shame, sat on the blueberry throne and was photographed as the Blueberry King.
You can spend an amusing half hour at Blueberry World without finding anything you might want to buy. We bought blueberries of course, but we found them tasteless compared with others we found on our trip. Don't let that put you off though; go there one day.
The Big Fisherman stands at the end of the road, on the Bay of Fundy with Canada behind him. He's the easternmost large statue in the USA and probably the northernmost too, outside of Alaska anyway. I checked him out on the Roadside America website which told me a bit more than is written on the plaque below him.
"This 12 foot tall fisherman was built as a prop for the Hollywood/FOX shooting of Murder in Small Town X in 2000. It was a mini-series. A whodunit of sorts, with ten contestants. The winner walked away with $100,000. The man who won was a fire fighter in New York City who later was killed when the twin towers fell.
The fiberglass fisherman was donated to the City of Eastport, and three years later it was sent to Nebraska to be refurbished. The statue made it back in time for the 4th of July Parade in 2005. It is now setting in its place on a pedestal at the city wharf. [Patrick Keough, 07/18/2006]"
The plastic statue is now dedicated to the New York Firemen who died on 9/11, so although its a bit tacky, like a huge garden gnome, you have to give it some respect. I wouldn't want him in my garden, but he looks great on the quayside in Eastport.
No comments:
Post a Comment