Rockland has a lighthouse museum, (and I think some of my five readers know that I love lighthouses), so our thought was, what better place to go when it's raining. I think we must have gotten there soon after opening as we were the only patrons when we arrived. The docent was a friendly sort and upon finding out we are from Michigan, she immediately told me that we have the most lighthouses of all the states. Which I wasn't surprised to hear, but I wouldn't have said it myself, not knowing for sure if it was true. My head is full of useless trivia, but that little fact was not one of them. Ah, but it is now.
We spent a wonderful couple of hours perusing all the lighthouse artifacts, the Fresnel lenses, and the miscellaneous histories of lighthouses and lifesaving stations. The histories of the life saving crews are especially arresting when you read about the conditions that they necessarily had to work in and the primitive (to our modern thinking) equipment they used. I was a bit surprised to see an old picture of the Charlevoix lifesaving station, which is very near our home, and I believe still in use by the Coast Guard. Funny that I had to go to Maine to find this out.
On our way out, we did our bit to support the museum by buying a couple of books and a linen calendar towel in the gift shop. I still remember my grandmother sending one of these to Mom each year; after the year was up, it would be put to use drying dishes, linen being the best thing for that job. So you could say that was a bit of a sentimental purchase. Or just an impulse buy. It does look nice in my kitchen though.
The museum is housed in the same building as the Chamber of Commerce. We spoke to the lady manning the desk about eating establishments, it being lunchtime. She gave us a few recommendations, but one sounded irresistable, The Brass Compass. According to her, the owner had competed in a throw down with Bobby Flay and won the contest, with her signature lobster BLT. Well, how could we not go check that out. Plus it was only a block away, so we just walked over.
There was a big banner out front proclaiming her victory over Mr. Flay, so of course it was crowded, with people lined up in the cramped entry way waiting for a table. Finally the owner walked over to one large table (obviously full of people she knew, and they were done with their meal) and nicely kicked them out as she had paying customers lined up waiting to buy lunch! It being a large table, and just the two of us, the waitress asked if we minded sharing with the two behind us in line. Not a problem, so down we all sat, happy to be that much closer to lunch. Rob ordered the sandwich (of course he did, it has bacon on it) and I got the crab cakes. Well you can't have lobster every meal. I tried the sandwich and it was pretty amazing, but truthfully I liked the crab cakes better.
After this fine meal, we drove back up the coast, or down east as they say there, to Belfast. There were some carvings there that a friend had photographed on her trip there that I wanted to see. It is an old town, being settled before the Revolutionary War so it has many architecturally interesting buildings, a photographer's paradise! We wandered in and out of some of the shops, but mainly just walked around. With me taking pics of course.
A lady stopped to talk while I was photographing one building, she noticed that the top of the building had a celtic cross, and told me all about a celtic cross in a gift shop down the street that I just had to see. We did walk down there, and the shop did have some interesting items for sale, but the best thing was this chair situated near the front door for those not so interested in the interesting items for sale.
We had eaten our dinner in Belfast the night before so we headed back south towards the inn, stopping in Camden for supper at Cappy's, where Rob and the waiter had a fine time discussing the merits of the myriad beers served there. Attempting to eat a light dinner, we both ordered the clam chowder. It was delicious and unbelievably filling, but we persevered and ordered the Maine blueberry pie. Now if you have ever tasted my mother's blueberry (or huckleberry as we have always mistakenly called it) pie, you would understand that the bar is set pretty high for me when it comes to that dish, and sadly, this restaurant's pie did not measure up. So I left somewhat disappointed, but really, it was never a fair contest.
Tomorrow... we go sailing.
