We visited the Mystic Aquarium. We saw many pretty fish, rays, seals, Beluga whales, penguins, and bats. Yep. Bats. Why bats seem to be at every aquarium I've visited is beyond me. Ok, so that was my first aquarium, but Melody says they all have bats. But I digress:

Rhode Island: the only major thing we hit there was Providence which from what the map showed is the only thing in Rhode Island.

Massachusetts: We saw the I95 & the I495. Yep. That's it. Planned on going to Salem, wound up somewhere in New Hampshire - fired navigator, bought new maps, continued.

And now to our goal, yep the goal ALL vacationers have when they think "Bright Lights and Big Cities" - Maine.

Maine: We originally stopped in Kitterery. Apparently everyone and their brother who goes into southern Maine stops in Kitterery, on Route 1. We picked up a Maine road map at the overly attentive Maine Welcome Center ("Can I help you? Oh.. ok... Can I help you yet? No? Oh, that's too bad... How about now???? - says psychotic travel info people") and continued on our way. Due to some more incompetant map reading, I figured that Kitterery was about 55 miles from Bangor. We decided to take Route 1 up the coast. Bad move.
After 45 minutes on Route 1, we realized two things
A) Bangor is 160 miles away
B) Route 1 up the coastline is the equivalent of taking Route 25 from Middle Island to Manhatten. Long and painful. We did stop at a charming little beachside town called
Wells: Filled with cottages and hotels for the beach crowd and about 4,000,000 antique shops for the tourist crowds that seemed to be filling the place to capacity. One odd note was some of the food type eatery places had some rather unusual marquee items. For example:

Wells' House of PIZZA and ROAST BEEF (Maybe I'm just being picky?)
and
Lacostantino's (with a billboard stating) - LOBSTER ROLLS and ITALIAN ICES!

Yum.

So, to sum up: We jumped back onto the I95 and headed to scenic Portland where we are currently shacked up at again, this time for a lot more money than last time. We have decided to use every possible amenity and take any other ones we don't use. I was thinking about the microwave personally, but Melody reminded me that they DO have my credit card information. Damn technology! Foiled again.

From the road, this is J and I'm outta here...this may be the last update for a while, not too many internet providers at "Buck's county cottages - bears welcome"

See ya.

Current mood: Quite enthusiastic
Current # of points: 800+
# of people I wanted to kill today: None

Then ~~ Now

Farewell? Yeah... - 2005-09-13
Vacation, Chapter 2 - 2005-08-15
Vacation, Chapter 1 - 2005-08-15
Work update or: - 2005-08-09
Third time's the charm - 2005-06-21