Final Two Days- Freeport- Portland- Kennebunk-Eliot- Kittery, ME and Portsmouth, NH

We stopped and started places all along our way from Brunswick to our B & B in Eliot.  First, we stopped at the LL Bean Home Store in Freeport which was mammoth. It filled blocks with different stores. There were different lessons listed for different times.  Fly casting was the morning that we were there.

I think that we stopped in a little town called Thomaston for lunch that had a corner grocery that had the old wooden floors and felt like you had moved back in time.

We didn't see much of Portland but did enjoy visiting the Portland Light house.

          This was the store front of a place where we parked to get our directions straight.

We saw some very beautiful homes as we drove through Kennebuck and then headed to our B&B in Eliot.  That was the shock of shocks.  The advertisement says, "Stay in one of our 6 charming rooms...Breakfast is served on fine Lenox China.  One would think that it was an old farm with class.
When we got there I ran through the kitchen to use a bathroom and couldn't believe the clutter and mess.  The bathroom was worse.  It was not dirty but had holes in the vinyl floor and things piled literally everywhere. Only the toilet seat and sink itself were uncovered. 
I wanted to run but you lost the total amount if you cancelled within the last two weeks.  I couldn't figure out where they were going to find space to prepare the breakfast.

On the other hand, the dining room, with the Lennox china looked like this.

The bedrooms were clean but the popcorn ceiling had fallen off in many places and it was a bit scary because it was raining with lots of wind and I wasn't sure there wouldn't be more on our heads or beds.  The very old shag carpet was loose and  torn raggedly  along the seam by the bathroom.
 Both of the hosts had had professional careers. It was hard to figure.   He showed us through his barn and it was like "The Hoarders".

We spent our final day in Portsmouth, NH and visited the Strawberry Banke Museum for most of the day.  It was raining for the morning and the advertised costumed people walking around simply didn't exist.  I think we must have been late season for it.  The museum is a collection of over 40preserved buildings, many with period furnishings dating from 1695 to 1955.  There used to be wild strawberries that grew along the banks of the river and the community got its name from that.  It is an urban renewal project and much of the area would have been demolished had then not started the outdoor museum. They was a barrel maker and blacksmith working and several houses had people who played the role of period people who would have lived in those houses.  My favorite was a German-Jewish lady who showed you her kitchen and she spoke with an accent and was cooking and bottling on a coal stove.    I can't find any pictures from that museum.

We went through the USS Albacore which was an experimental submarine in the 1960's.  Boy those doorways were small and awkward.

We had dinner in Kittery which is a town of blocks and blocks of outlets store, most of which were closed when we got there, and then we went home to pack for the early morning flight.

I had asked the hostess to pack sack breakfasts which were very helpful because we had to be out at the car at 4AM.  With the help of the GPS we got directly to the Boston airport in just over an hour with no problems. The mileage on the car was 3243 miles. 

Things I would advise for someone planning this trip:
1. Make sure that your GPS is current and works in Canada or rent one with the car.
2. Make sure that your phone has Canada minutes.
3. Pack something to cover up for swimming since the pools are usually floors below and across the lobby.
4. Make sure that you have a street address for any sight that you want to visit so the GPS can tell you where you want to go.
5. Plan to spend on food.  Prices were often high with no choices for cheaper meals. (Great food overall, however.)
6. Although it would take away the spontaneity of things it would be good to decided on at least a few of the places that you really want to see in the larger cities and then find them on the map and plan the travel.  You can loose so much time going from here to there or passing almost by things while you head to another place.  
Things that really worked:
1. Make your reservations months ahead of time.  Sometimes our rooms were as much as $50 cheaper than the prices listed in the room.  We called about changing one and was going to be $55 more than what we had paid at the same hotel earlier.
2.Get your car through Costco through Enterprise.  I had to remind the Enterprise guy but they did honor Costco's agreement that the additional driver is free.  They also had unlimited mileage which some of the others didn't.  Some would not let the car leave the US which they did.

We had a great trip but these things would have been most helpful.