Would you drive 500 miles for a sandwich?

As I pulled into the driveway at 9:30 last night, the thought did occur to me that "normal" people don't do this. But then I smiled to myself.
Normal is so over-rated.

Where to begin.....where to begin....Let's see. For this to make any sense at all, I guess we should go back to 2002. Now, I could have sworn that we had to go back further, but after googling the show I discovered "Sandwiches That You Will Like" was released in 2002! In my mind, I saw this as a teenager, but evidently it wasn't that long ago?? Mom, do you remember this? I re-goggled thinking maybe I had the wrong information, but from what I can tell, it's accurate. Had I not googled this my story would have started something like this: "I saw this in high school with Mom one Saturday afternoon and several years after - any time it was on I got sucked in - I have no idea why and so for many years I had...." but I guess the truth is, I saw this when I was 26 years old! Less than 10 years ago - but wow that seems like a lifetime ago!! Huh....Okay, so back to the point....

I saw this documentary about all types of sandwiches from all over the US. If you haven't seen it, and you like to eat sandwiches, it's really quite entertaining. And I'm not even sure why - but the people just sort of capture you. There were a few places that always sparked my interest. Since seeing it I have wanted a real Hot Brown from the original restaurant, a beef on weck (which I will get now that I'm closer to NY! Yeah!) and a lobster roll from Red's in Wiscasset, Maine. They looked SO GOOD! From the time I moved here, I have wanted to 1.) See Maine and 2.) Get me one of those sandwiches! Two years later, I had the opportunity and I went for it. Here's what happened to me yesterday:

I got up and watched an episode of Lie To Me (my latest obsession) on the computer while drinking two giant cups of coffee and trying desperately to wake up and be out of the house by 7:30. I left at 8:30. I had my new phone, a charged ipod full of podcasts and a thermos of even more coffee. (Really jonesin' for a black eye!) I turned on my GPS and put in Portland, ME. It was only 3 1/2 hours away by Turnpike and 4 1/2 hours by Route 1. My GPS said I could get there by 12:45. I filled up my car with gas. Set my trip mile-counter thingy to zero and took $40 cash out for lobster and tolls (in case I decided to go the Turnpike). I was off on an adventure!

For the first 3 hours I was mainly on the highway, passing rows and rows of green trees and brown/green grass - one mile looking much like the next. This allowed me to easily get lost in the podcasts that I had downloaded: ten 30-minute podcasts on marriage. It was early and my mind was fresh. I drank up every word - laughing, crying, praying, listening intently, desperately trying to soak up every drop of wisdom and advice. The bottom line is one of my goals in life now is to be the best wife I can....I want that to be something that people remember about me....that I was a good wife to David and that I loved him and supported him and that his life was better (not worse) because I was in it...whether I live until tomorrow or until I'm 102 years old....and I want to make sure that I have have the skills and the tools that I will need to accomplish that goal. It was a fruitful car trip this Sunday, in many ways, and this was one of them. I learned a lot.

I decided I would take pictures of all the cute things I was seeing along the way...maybe a video...maybe a blog with tons of photos. I stopped in the parking lot and took a photo of this sign. It made me laugh when I drove by it - had to circle back around. Abercrombie & Finch.....clever!

I turned the camera around after I took my shot to see how I'd made out and that's when I saw the red flashing camera battery. I had forgotten to charge the battery! I was SURE I charged it after my trip to Texas....I hadn't even thought to check to it the night before - I was that certain. RATS!! This happened to me before when I was driving home from Middlebury, Vermont. I was going to stop and take pictures of all the great things I was seeing and my camera went out. This was NOT going to happen to me this time! I was in North Hampton, NH (a larger city) and I stopped in at a Super Wal-Mart.....A NICE ONE.....a Dallas one! They had a HUGE craft section...I had to pull myself away knowing that time was too precious to be in a WalMart on a day like this so close to Maine. They didn't have the battery I needed. I walked around looking at disposables, cheap digitals....David had the video camera in NH and I had the new phone...maybe that would work? I walked around for about 10 minutes thinking and decided not to buy anything. If I wanted to, I could stop somewhere else, I told myself. And I'll save the camera and try to only use it a few times. Potty break and back in the car. I was close to Maine now!

I followed Route 1 up toward Portsmouth, NH and then over the giant bridge to Kittery, ME (which must be the home of Outlet Malls). I was a little disappointed. It looked like the Allen Outlets on steroids. This was Maine?? I kept driving through and just past Kittery it started to get more rural - more what I was expecting Maine to be. I passed a sign that said something about Maine Information, so I made the quick left that the arrow indicated. I walked in and found rows and rows of magazine racks, newspapers, marketing brochures.....anything and everything you would want to know about Maine. Giant signs marked the areas like a Barnes and Noble: Foodies, Camping, Canoeing, Shopping, Accommodations, Transportation, and on and on it went. I grabbed a few pamphlets (since I had no plan and no idea where I was going) and went back out to the car to look them over. I was getting hungry and I wanted my lobster (as just about every sign, billboard, advertisement or business name had something to do with lobster. There were mouth watering photos, large cartoon lobsters, outlines of lobsters....you can't imagine how badly I wanted one.) I would have taken photos, but I was saving my camera in case I saw something absolutely amazing and only had one shot left. (But a side note - I do want to make another trip and take photos of all the "lobster" shacks and other "lobster" places and do a photo collection of sorts on one of the red walls in the basement....I think it will be really cute.)

Anyhow, I flipped open the foodie brochure I picked up and started looking for a decent restaurant/stand to get my first lobster roll in Maine - a big event mind you. I had been waiting almost 10 years (and it felt like 20!). Portland was a big place - there had to be somewhere good around here. But that's when I saw it, Page 59, The Lobster Dock (http://www.thelobsterdock.com/), and the owner with his arm around none other than Bobby Flay. A lobster throwdown had taken place at that very spot and I was close to it! Well, relatively I guess. The truth is I really had no idea where I was. That's one of the bad things about relying on the GPS. You just google something.....put in the name or address...and obey the directions. You don't get a true sense of "where you are" on the map. So, I did what was natural. Put the address in the GPS from the ad and waited for the calculation. Arriving at 2:45pm. It was about 12:45 - 1:00 now - somewhere in there. So two hours didn't seem too bad. I was in Maine for goodness sake.....an ad with Bobby Flay....it was meant to be, right? I decided to go for it....no idea where I was going, but would enjoy the weather, the scenery, the whole "Maine thing".

I admit I was getting a little weary, (I had been in the car practically non-stop for about 4 - 4 1/2 hours or so), so when I saw the drive-thru Starbucks, I couldn't have been happier. One tall coffee lite frap with and extra shot later, I was feeling like a new woman. Cranked that radio up. Moon roof open and windows down. By now I had lost the top shirt and was in tank top and shorts and sunglasses (ummm...and yes have the funky "car tan" to prove it) and I was a happy girl!! Forget Portland now - never considered Red's as it was so far - I was off to where Bobby eats! And since I've eaten at his raw bar - I know he knows his seafood!

The balance of the next three hours (ummm...yeah that whole 2:45 thing was closer to 3:30 with all the small town traffic) was this: me singing, me dying to stop in each and every little darling town and shop for five hours, me slamming on the breaks almost hitting the car in front of me because I was looking at something really cool over my shoulder, me noticing that traffic sure did look WAY WORSE going the other direction......huh.....going home was going to be tough.

I was getting close to the spot when I saw another cute town sign (in New England they seem to take great pride in their town signs....they are usually wooden with cute little boats, symbols of their town etc and the date they were founded). Anyhow, it said "Welcome to Wiscasset"! What?? I had driven to Wiscasset - home of Red's? Home of the lobster sandwich I had been dreaming about for almost a decade without even realizing it?

I remember reading once that it was easy to spot off Route 1, so I just kept driving, eyes peeled for the little red and white stand. And there it was at the end of yet another cute Maine street full of shops and restaurants. It was right on the end, in fact, right before a giant bridge. I had to think fast, because the traffic coming toward me off that bridge was ridiculous! Everyone in Maine must be going home from the beach on Sunday afternoon after their week long vacations and there was no way I could go across that bridge and "u-turn" back. That would have taken an hour or so in and of itself. So I pulled into the last little alley/street and low and behold, there was a space and I didn't even have to attempt to parallel park!

I walked up and got in line. I was excited because at 3:30 there was only 16 people in line in front of me. We wrapped around the small building and back toward the bridge. As I stood there more and more people started to line up - you could tell the "dinner crowd" started at 4:00. It was also funny that so many people were as excited as I was to eat a silly sandwich! There were promotional advertisements everywhere on the building. They were selling photo books of Red's for $18.95. They sold magnets and shirts....it was really funny. The couple behind me was having the mayo vs. butter debate. He was mayo and she was butter all the way. The guy in front of me was with his family and you could tell they had no idea was going on. "Wow....they must have really good ice cream here," he said. The woman educated herself with the sample book on the table. The family of four in front of them completed their order: $84.76, I believe it was. He counted out $20 bills and I watched in amazement as they all joyously grabbed their plastic utensils and paper napkins like they had just "stolen" dinner at that price. I had time to wait and decided to eat a lobster roll here and go the extra 10 miles or so and have another at the Lobster Dock for comparison. I'd driven all the way to Maine after all and the traffic looked terrible. I decided I'd wait it out and leave later and then miss some of the afternoon traffic. Planned made and 30 minutes later, I finally got my order.

I ordered mine with butter, of course, and headed off to sit down. The atmosphere here is AWFUL I gotta say. Abbott's wins on the atmosphere as far as I'm concerned. The water - the kids running around - the birds and the boats. Then you head off for a walk along these lake front homes.....perfect!

The patio is crammed in the back between the shack and a working rail. The passenger cars came rolling through as we were eating and just about everyone winced and some even had their hands over their ears. The trucks and motorcycles and cars going over the bridge....I think you be wise to order them to go and escape to a nice location.

The sandwich itself was HUGE! I poked around in it for a second and noticed there was a huge tail, two claws...more like they just took your lobster out of the shell for you and put it on bread. It wasn't lobster "pieces" like Abbott's. They were bigger and sweeter than Harry's. Really good meat.....but it was refrigerator cold. The warm butter tried to bring it up to room temp, but it wasn't working. Now I realized why mayo was such an option - it was cold like lobster salad. But it was good and it was filling. By the time I had eaten it and got back to the car, the idea of going for a second one didn't seem quite so appealing. I decided to save it for another day and head back.

The traffic was monsterous, but I was so happy that I had done something that I had been thinking about for a long time. The time flew. I had accomplished a bucket list item....silly as it was. I had seen a little of Maine (enough to know that I am ready to go back anytime and vacation there and explore). I also think that from the small part of Maine that I saw, Vermont is still my favorite state in New England to drive through. I had a real Maine lobster in Maine yesterday. But it is a good feeling knowing that considering all factors (atmosphere, lobster quality and taste and how much you save on gas) our little corner stand, Harry's, is still the best. And the simple little sandwich carried over as a metaphor to me on the drive home....Sunday meant a lot to me on a lot of different levels. It was a good adventure. I'm glad I had the experience.