Portland, Maine & Sunday River Ski Resort

Time traveled: 11h 16m
Miles logged: 619 miles

Before leaving this country for work-related travel, a good friend, Kristen, made it to Vermont for her second ski weekend. But we did not spend it in Vermont this year. We headed out to Portland to see one of our other friends from college, Steph (more commonly known as, Smac). The weather on Friday was as perfect for driving as one can ask for in New England - sunny with clear, ice and snow-free roads. I just leaned this is a rarity since Vermont state law enacts a "Safe Driver" policy in winter rather than a "Clean Roads" policy. What this means is that if you spin out on the highway, you can get ticketed since you were not driving safely on the state's neglected, unsalted, and unplowed road system. Guess which policy I am more in favor for...

Well, the weather was perfect so we took back roads through northern Vermont and New Hampshire, right through the Green and White Mountains. Beautiful.

We made it to Portland in the middle of the afternoon, and immediately made our way downtown for some good eats at Bull Feeney's, a great authentic Irish Restaurant. With many local brews in our bellys and a huge, delicious Shepherd's Pie in mine, we made our way over to the Cumberland County Civic Center for....get ready....Disney on Ice, complete with skating dwarves, princes and princesses, and a Gus Gus. Hahaha. I can't believe we actually went!!

The evening was topped off with a few more local beers at Gritty's. Their Scottish Ale was super good. But we left soon after some of the guys at our table became creepy:

Guy: I see you're dressing for St. Patrick's Day?

Kristen: Or just green.

Then he grabbed Smac's hand because she was twirling her hair or something like that. Needless to say, we left.

We were woken up by an amazing sunrise the next morning. The next two days were spent at Sunday River Ski Resort, nearly 2 hours north of Portland and not far from the New Hampshire border. HUGE mountain with 15 lifts (I think). Needless to say, we were not bored!

No chowdah for dinner, but we did get some lobsters that night from The Three Sons Lobster & Fish Market right on one of the piers downtown. I appropriately named our dinner, Clawd and Shelldon. Shelldon was pretty much dead and didn't put up too much of a fight when I threw him in the pot of boiling water, but Clawd definitely did NOT want to be boiled alive... Oh well. They were tasty!

After two days of skiing (and getting stuck with Kristen in a ravine at the bottom of a glades trail!), we hit the road early Monday morning back for Vermont so I could have time to pack and get ready for Berlin. I started writing this while my flights from BTV to JFK were delayed and am now finishing it, sitting in my German home-away-from-home!