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Retired publishing executive ecstatic with the idea of spending most of his time on the coast of Maine

Monday, September 22, 2014

A Week in Maine – Day 1, Milo and Brownville

     Not exactly unusual for us, five days in Maine. But the locations were unusual, mostly, including some brand-new phantasmagorias.
     We left Massachusetts on a September Monday morning before 7:00, stopping at Starbucks (of course) for fuel. The early start got us to Milo well before noon, in time for a lunch at Coburn’s Family Restaurant (grilled cheese, pickle, and chips for $2.99). Two guys came in after us to sit at the three-stool bar; the waitress asked, “Do you want the lemon or the raspberry today, hon?”
     We met daughter and boyfriend at Wildwoods Trailside Cabins in Brownville a few miles north of Milo, our lodgings for the next three days, and a place catering as much to snowmobilers in the winter as fishermen/hunters/hikers/MA refugees in the other seasons. When I asked the proprietor about canoe rentals in the area, she graciously lent us two of hers, and the help of a man in lashing them in the bed of Max’s pick-up. There was time for a beautiful late-afternoon paddle on Upper Jo-Mary Lake - as opposed to Middle Jo-Mary and Lower Jo-Mary, both north (?) of Upper - an hour to the north in the middle of timber company lands, which featured almost completely undeveloped shores except for a campground, and a family of five juvenile mergansers, and a loon swimming just 20 feet away and calling (never been that close to a calling loon), and glorious views of Mt. Katahdin. The paddle ended as the sun went down, and the temperature dropped ten degrees, and we drove back in the dusk and then the dark, hoping against hope for a sighting of moose, and finishing the evening with a steak dinner grilled outside.



Day 2 tomorrow.



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