Entertaining Visitors

If it were me, where I live now, that would depend on what sort of things they're interested in, which would, in itself, occupy some of the necessary conversation.

We have Baxter State Park, which is the end of the Appalachian Trail, as well as Mount Katahdin, the biggest mountain in Maine, within about twenty minutes of my house. For those who are not into mountain climbing, there are several waterfalls and other shorter walks, as well as a strong likelihood of coming across a moose, which impresses people who have never lived in moose country.

Within reasonably short drives are several lakes, large ponds, and rivers, some of which are beautiful, as well as islands, one of them rising like a small mountain out of the lake.

Of course, I could also take them to our camp and the land there, which is near the Canadian border, with a pretty good chance of seeing moose along the way, depending on the time of year. Plus, we we go my way, the whole trip is scenic.

For those who are into oceans and lighthouses, we have plenty of them as well, although that would involve couple of hours driving time. Maine's beaches are rustic and rocky, however, and not really swimming or surfing material. In other words, they look pretty but there isn't much you can do with them.

Those looking for high culture are out of luck, I'm afraid. We have no large cities in Maine, and the largest cities we have are the ones I hate the most. Oh, I could drum up several historical places, but they don't tend to impress people who have spent time in Boston.

For Stephen King fans, we have figured out what he had patterned many of the settings in his books from. Most of the places that play a part in his books are real places in Maine, although he has a habit of taking places that might be hundreds of miles apart and placing them in the same town or place in his books. For example, in his book, Dreamcatcher, people often think that the setting was near Millinocket because he mentions the Millinocket School District buses, but most of the setting for Dreamcatcher was in the Jackman, Maine area, more than a hundred miles away.

However, you'd have to have a lot of time on your hands for that to be any fun. I've only figured a lot of that out because I have driven all over the state, often repeatedly, and have read most of his earlier books. When he returned to writing after he recovered from being run over by a drunk, his books weren't the same. I didn't care for the new stuff and haven't even looked at any of his more recent books.

 

It left him very bitter and changed the nature of his books, but I don't want to sidetrack the topic of this thread, I mentioned King only because people are sometimes impressed when they can see the places where his books are based, and I enjoy it because that we've figure out ourselves and not something we've read in a tour guide.