Nobody 835

Sunday, October 10, 2010
Nobody 835

Nobody Asked Me But:

"Love alters not when it alteration finds." Shakespeare – Sonnet 116 (Slightly changed by Robert B. Parker)

More on Parker and Spenser below - In the meantime, on with Part II of The Turner’s Great New England Adventure.

Whenever a hotel offers you an upgrade over the room you reserved, check it out before saying yes. Sometimes they are doing you a favor, but often they are taking care of themselves. It was the latter when we checked into Samoset, a Central Maine resort in Rockport, near Camden one of my favorite small cities. That’s why I call the middle part of our three stop New England journey a tale of two rooms.

Part 1: The “upgrade” – Instead of a room in the main (or is it spelled Maine) building, we were checked into one of the condos. The golf course/ocean view from the balcony was beautiful; the two rooms with tiny bath were not. They weren’t terrible, just mediocre. They looked and smelled kind of lived in. Barbara complained mildly, and the clerk on duty offered to move us the next day, but we decided moving would be a pain in the ass, so we stayed. (I am sure my wife did it mostly to please me with my bad habit of choosing too often the easy way.)

After our drive, we were tired and decided to eat at the resort’s casual restaurant. I would like to say the food was as bad as the service but it wasn’t – it too was just mediocre.

Nights one and two were restless ones for my light sleeping wife. The people lodged above had the colossal nerve to walk across the floor. Strike two.

Day two brought another disappointment. Barbara had loved the infinity pool on the resort’s website, only to be told, contrary to information she had received earlier, that it had just closed for the season. She was not a happy camper until that evening. I was in the office center trying to fix an e-mail problem on our computer at home, and she started talking to the young woman on duty. When the two finished their conversation, we were upgraded and moved to our choice of rooms in the main building and told that, yes, the sitting area around the pool was most certainly open.

Her apology was followed by the delivery next evening of a creative dessert tray and the home-coming surprise of a message left on out phone apologizing again and informing us that Samoset was paying for one night of our four-night stay. The new room was terrific, as was setting by the pool. What did Shakespeare say? “Always leave them laughing.” Or was that Donald O’Conner?

I just checked my e-mail and noticed an incoming from Lake Champlain Chocolate. How could they be so cruel?

Our four days in the area and two good nights at the hotel were excellent.

We trice went to Camden and, of course, headed for Camden Cone, which, naturally was closed until the last afternoon when I had a black raspberry cone. It was very good but no better than fifth on my rating list. We had a couple of good but not great meals in Camden, walked the streets and checked out their wonderful library, which looks out over the small harbor and even allows a member to check out Kindles for two weeks. We misread a sign on the door of one of our favorite bookstores, The Owl And Turtle, and showed up for a signing after it was over.

Rockland and Rockport are small and next to one another. Rockport is a yawn of a town, but Rockland had a nice one-street business district with surprisingly good food. Samoset is listed as being in Rockport but seems closer to Rockland. Confused? We too.

In Rockland, we had good Mexican food at a small family restaurant and very good baked goods at Atlantic Baking Company. However, it was something we couldn’t get at the latter that led us to a terrific food discovery. While having breakfast our second morning, we noticed that Atlantic had a great sounding soup, so we decided to return for a bowl along with fresh bread for dinner. However, when we returned they were sold out, so we wandered into what looked like a pizza place (Thorndike Company) where Barb had ice cream earlier. We were not expecting much. Surprise! My brisket-dipped-in-its own-juices sandwich with a layer of coleslaw added was one of the best I have ever had. My wife’s chicken salad sandwich was also excellent. And our ice cream was some of the trip’s best – rankings later. It was Giffords, a well-known Maine ice cream but without a home store. Barbara’s coconut with little flecks of chocolate covered coconut mixed in was her co-favorite ice cream on the trip, and mine was the best black raspberry.

We spent a large part of one day exploring Belfast, a small town about 30 miles north of Camden. We wandered the streets parked and read by the water and, you guessed it, found some great, new ice cream. Neither of us had heard of John’s of Maine, but their mocha chip finished high in our rankings.

Four add-ons:

(1) One morning, on the way to Camden we stopped at a doughnut shop in a house. Willow Bake Shop has been making very good doughnuts there since 1949.

(2) On the way from Rockland to Kennebunkport we finally stopped at Red’s, the famous walk-up in Wiscasset. The first thing one sees after crossing the long bridge on Highway 1 into Wiscasset is a rain or shine line waiting to eat one of Red’s lobster rolls, rated by many as the best in Maine – or the world, take your choice. We have meant to stop many times and finally did. Our wait was an hour but my lobster roll was very good, although, as I confessed last week, I am more a like it than love it fan of Maine lobster. Still we had fun talking to other people in line, Barb’s hamburger was very good and her onion rings among the best she has had. (I sampled them and agreed.)

(3) Confession – Much to my wife’s chagrin, one evening after dinner we stopped at a Coldstone where I had a French vanilla with raspberry mix-in. It was not the best ice cream treat I had on the trip, but neither was it too far behind.

(4) I know this is hard to believe, but according to the SB locator app on my iphone, the closest Starbucks to Samoset is 37 miles. Hell, if I’m standing at the South Pole, there is one closer than 37 miles.<<<

Next week – Part III I finished my last Spenser novel while sitting in our back yard and sipping on an Illy’s iced coffee with the warm but not hot sun gently toasting my legs. It seemed somehow an appropriate way to say goodbye to one of my all-time favorite writers, Robert B. Parker, who died last January. His last book, “Painted Ladies,” was a very good entry in the series, although I missed Hawk who was doing some secret work in Central Asia.

The quote that led off this Nobody was one Parker had used before and a favorite of mine, so it was exciting to find it is his last book. It reminds me that the best love is centered more on acceptance than demand, on what we give more than what we receive.

I have long thought that I had something important in common with Spenser. Good looking, rough and tough – but sensitive, no those aren’t it. I know, we both have Aeron desk chairs.<<<

Unbelievable but true – In 1965 the average CEO earned 24 times the pay of the average worker. Today the ratio is 411 to 1.<<<

And finally, for my continuing list of life’s greatest moral questions:

Where can I find a decent parking place?
Will there be an open bar?
Who gives the call to order in an anarchist society meeting?

Pictured here is a sign atop an art museum in Rockland.