Rained out of Hiking. Let's Go Shopping!
Jun. 28th, 2021 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerMaine Week Travelog #32
Freeport, ME - Monday, 21 Jun 2021, 1pm.
Once again our plans on this trip changed and we called an audible. Our plan for today had been to finish up the trip with a hike to Angel Falls— which we've postponed twice already— and then drive to the airport in Portland for our flights home. At least, that was the plan as of yesterday evening up through early this morning.
The weather was fine early this morning as I ate breakfast outside on the porch. But then as we started pulling our packs together it started looking a bit iffy. "Should we hike or not?" we wondered. We decided a few clouds wouldn't scare us off. But then, in the space of 10 minutes as we finished loading our packs, the sky opened up and poured rain. "That's it," we decided. We dumped our hiking packs, changed from hiking clothes into street clothes, and repacked our suitcases.
Our decision not to hike may seem abrupt, but that's because we already had a Plan B in mind. We'd go shopping. And sightseeing. And hiking, at least in spirit— by seeing the world's largest boot!
![Visiting the L. L. Bean store in Freeport, Maine [Jun 2021]](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/canyonwalker/33413618/747728/747728_original.jpg "Visiting the L. L. Bean store in Freeport, Maine [Jun 2021]")
Down near Portland, in the town of Freeport, is the headquarters of L. L. Bean. While famous for their catalog store they also have this huge bricks-and-mortar store— fronted by a huge boot! I read about the boot over a year ago in some article about odd tourist attractions. Knowing we were headed out to Maine sooner or later, Hawk and I filed it away on our mental list of "Things to do, if we have time and we're in the area." Well, with hiking rained out we had time, and Freeport wasn't too far off from Portland.
In addition to having fun photographing and posing with the giant boot we also spent 45 minutes or so shopping inside the store. Huge outdoors-goods stores aren't exactly novel to us; we've been members of the REI co-op since practically just weeks after moving out to California.. whoa, almost 25 years ago! We wrapped up our trip without buying anything. Now we're headed to PWM airport and home.
Freeport, ME - Monday, 21 Jun 2021, 1pm.
Once again our plans on this trip changed and we called an audible. Our plan for today had been to finish up the trip with a hike to Angel Falls— which we've postponed twice already— and then drive to the airport in Portland for our flights home. At least, that was the plan as of yesterday evening up through early this morning.
The weather was fine early this morning as I ate breakfast outside on the porch. But then as we started pulling our packs together it started looking a bit iffy. "Should we hike or not?" we wondered. We decided a few clouds wouldn't scare us off. But then, in the space of 10 minutes as we finished loading our packs, the sky opened up and poured rain. "That's it," we decided. We dumped our hiking packs, changed from hiking clothes into street clothes, and repacked our suitcases.
Our decision not to hike may seem abrupt, but that's because we already had a Plan B in mind. We'd go shopping. And sightseeing. And hiking, at least in spirit— by seeing the world's largest boot!
Down near Portland, in the town of Freeport, is the headquarters of L. L. Bean. While famous for their catalog store they also have this huge bricks-and-mortar store— fronted by a huge boot! I read about the boot over a year ago in some article about odd tourist attractions. Knowing we were headed out to Maine sooner or later, Hawk and I filed it away on our mental list of "Things to do, if we have time and we're in the area." Well, with hiking rained out we had time, and Freeport wasn't too far off from Portland.
In addition to having fun photographing and posing with the giant boot we also spent 45 minutes or so shopping inside the store. Huge outdoors-goods stores aren't exactly novel to us; we've been members of the REI co-op since practically just weeks after moving out to California.. whoa, almost 25 years ago! We wrapped up our trip without buying anything. Now we're headed to PWM airport and home.
