T Stands for My Trip North-Part 1-Maine

     Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. Today I'm linking up to Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for T day. I've missed the last 2 week's of T Day as I was away. For those of you who haven't read about my travels, my husband, the dogs and I went on a giant road trip to the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, Canada.  It was a great trip, and my T day post today is about our first leg, which was all about a day and a half in Maine.

     In case you aren't familiar with any of the names I've used, here's a map.

The black dot with the black circle around it is home in New Hampshire (NH), and we traveled counter-clockwise around this red loop  over the 8 days we were gone.  (See the arrows  I added)

     Our first stop was Orono, Maine, which is where the University of Maine is located. This is where my husband and I met way back in our undergraduate college days. My first T day reference is here, because we went and had dinner at the only pizza place that was in town when we were students.

     If it still looks vintage, that is because it hasn't really changed in all those years since college. I bet it even looked like this before I went to college.😏

     There's something nostalgic about it being the same that takes you right back to being in your early 20's again. In some ways I hope it never modernizes, but I bet it will have to. Barring a big snowstorm we'll be back in February for a hockey game and hopefully then the downstairs tap room will be open, which it wasn't on the Sunday night we were here on our vacation.

     With our pizza we each had a micro brew. This beer wasn't around when we were students, but I really love the can.

And the beer wasn't bad either.

     We spent a night in Orono before driving north. When I had mapped out a route, because we were heading further east than New Hampshire is, the shortest route was to head over the border through northern Maine. I was actually excited about that route because back in my college days I knew a lot of people from northern Maine, but I had never  yet been that  far north in the state.

Into the Maine woods we go.

One of the newest US National Monuments is Katahdin Woods and Water. We decided to stop and check it out. 

     Of course the visitor's center was closed on the day we would be going by. However, when we stopped at a little "shed" where I was told we could pick up a map, we ran into a couple of Forest Service workers. After talking with them for a while, they told us the road was closed not too far down from where we were. They were starting to do some work to make the park more accessible to the public. 

     The workers recommended we turn around and take a side side road  north back to the highway, so that's what we did. 

I think this was the shortest visit to a National Park  area I've ever had. 😏 But the views along the side road were beautiful.

That's Mount Katahdin in the background. The American Appalachian trail starts or ends there.

      Here's the little house we rented in northern Maine for the night. We were maybe 10 minutes from the border crossing which we would do the next morning.  The inside was very nicely done, and it was a comfortable place to stay.

Maddie and Pete liked it too.

      My other drink for T day was this cup of tea I made. The kitchen of this little house had a nice supply of teas, which was great since I forgot to pack a few for myself.

And I love how I captured the steam coming off the mug.

That's all for me today. I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead.