Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Asking for Directions
Most Mainers are more than happy to help visitors find their way. Only a
very few will send you on a 20-mile circuitous route to first see if you are
smart enough to follow their directions.
Be prepared for some unusual landmarks. You may be told to go down
this or that road “apiece” and “turn at the Shell Station, then go three
miles north 'til you pass Doc Wheaton's place, then take the third right
after the second left.” The only problem may be that it hasn't been a Shell
Station for 20 years (it's now an Irving truck stop) and Doc Wheaton's
been dead for a decade and some family named Murdy lives there now.
Relax, remain flexible and be prepared to stop and ask someone else a
few miles farther on.
Also remember that few Mainers refer to distances in terms of miles.
Because road and weather conditions can vary widely most people will
express distance as time. How far is Bar Harbor from Bangor? On a map
it looks like 44 miles but in truth, it's “about an hour, hour-and-a-half.”
A few years ago while taking a canoeing expedition to far Eastern Maine I
hired some local folks to shuttle our vehicles around to the take-out point.
I ask the old woman in our truck, a cook at the sporting camp where we
stopped one night, how far it was from there to Vanceboro. Staring
straight ahead and without missing a beat she replied “about three
beers.” I suggested she might like to drive my friend's new Explorer after
they dropped us off.
Be prepared for some creative answers to your route-finding queries.
Asking Questions
Go ahead and ask as many questions as you like. How straight an answer
you get can be gauged by the twinkle in the eye and smirk on the face of
the person giving you an answer. By now most people in the popular tour-
ist areas have heard them all and then some.
Among the actual Bar Harbor waterfront classics:
You must have a pretty tough harbormaster! I noticed how he
makes everyone park their boats at the moorings facing the
same way. (The wind does it.)
Have you had a dry summer? Last time I was here the water
was clean up to there (said while man was pointing to the
ocean at low tide).
How do you make boiled lobster? (Pot, water, heat, lobster.)
How do we get to Bar Harbor from here? (Don't move.)
