One of Two Goals Met

Thursday, October 4, 2012

One of Two Goals Met

I was beginning to think that the only kind of weather this place knows is wet whether; it is raining or recovering from a real rain that makes puddles. We had just the barest of sprinkles this morning when we awoke. We thought that the rain would stop. But, not on your life. It got worse. But we went about our business any way.

Today was the day that we were going to Freeport. It was a good day for it; you didn’t want to be outside. Might as well go inside and spend your money. The only thing we knew about Freeport was that the flagship store for L. L. Bean is there and so is the Desert of Maine.
We decided to go to L. L. Bean’s first. Since we didn’t have an address for L. L. Bean and “the man” in the navigator didn’t seem to know anything about the main store being in Freeport we decided to just go to Freeport and we were sure there would be signs to the store.

So we followed “the man’s” instructions until there was a detour. He was not too happy when we had to turn onto a road other than the one that he wanted. Finally we listened to him and he took us to Freeport. But there were no signs to L. L. Bean. So we turned left and went a couple of miles down the road. We didn’t see anything that looked like an L. L. Bean store so we stopped and asked the navigator where the store was. It told us that the nearest L. L. Bean we 87 miles away. We turned around and went back to where we entered the road through town. Within two blocks we saw a sign to L. L. Bean’s Parking so we took that road along a very long building. We found out that that building was, indeed, the store for which we were looking.

The first part of the store was for hunting and fishing items. We went around the building, past a café and saw a huge boot. It is another one of L. L. Bean’s trademarks. That boot was in front of the main store. We went inside and were surprised how big it was. Then I remembered that someone told us that everything in L. L. Bean’s catalog is in the store. It was fun just to mosey around in the store.
While looking around the men’s department we found a display of moose with antlers locked in mortal combat. They did not survive because they could not get unlocked. They finally died of starvation. Someone found the antlers still locked and donated them to Maine’s Wildlife agency to use for educational purposes. They partnered with L. L. Bean to have them mounted. There were a series of signs that explained the process of formulating the size of the moose, detailing the inner structure and then putting the hide on the forms. The explanation made me enjoy what I was seeing all the more.

At 1pm we went to the van to get something to eat and then we traveled back to a different L. L. Bean store to look for some sheets. All of the things for the home were in this store. After making up my mind about what I wanted I couldn’t find several of the items that I wanted. But that was okay because what I wanted could be ordered with the same discount that was being offered at the store . . . if you remembered to ask for it.

We came out of there and looked past L. L. Bean’s Bike, Boat and Ski to a couple of blocks filled with outlets for almost every kind of store imaginable. On the other side of the street starts an area called Freeport something-or-another with so many more outlets including an L. L. Bean Outlet. I was told to go there to look for socks.

It was just an amazing place and an amazing experience. Poor Tom. He is not a shopper to begin with and he had to stand and sit through this whole day of shopping. There was no time for the Desert of Maine but we weren’t sure that we were going to go there anyway.

We headed back to the campground with the same experience with “the man” when we made the detour. It was after 5:00 by the time we arrived back at camp. After a little organizing to make some space to move we worked on dinner and then did the dishes.

We really didn’t feel like it but they needed to be done tonight. We will be going to New Hampshire tomorrow and expect to be out all day again. We will be going into New Hampshire to ride the Kancamagus Highway and visit The Cog on Mt. Washington with the possibility of riding The Cog to the summit. It will be another long day but we know it and are looking forward to it. The weather is supposed to be better than we have had in the past three days. Then the next day, Saturday, will be moving day.

I hope you all have some really great weather to enjoy the Fall.