Portland,
Maine
Maine is a very sparsely populated, remote coastal state, famous mainly for
lobsters and Stephen King. Knowing this I was wary of travelling after
midnight, but needed to fill up with gas and find a place to stay for
the night. The gas station was completely deserted as I pulled in, but being
self-serve I thought I would be okay. No sooner had I got out of the
car
than I came face to chest with a Cyclops. I would have been face to face
with him if he hadn’t been over seven feet tall. He starts off the
conversation with “You’re not from round these parts, are you?” as
expected, and then proceeds to talk about Scotland for some unknown reason.
I manage to shuffle past him to the pump, and then he starts offering to
help fill up. Well, I wasn’t going to upset him by refusing, so I
let him get on with it. He was wearing a gas station pair of overalls,
the trousers of which stopped just below his knees. Now I didn’t
know if this was because the gas station didn’t have overalls that
fir people who are seven feet tall or if he had just taken them from the
corpse of the real gas station attendant who he had just brutally murdered,
and I wasn’t hanging around to find out. As soon as he lumbered
off to fetch me a receipt, I was into the Dream Machine leaving a trail
of
rubber behind me.
Portland,
despite being the largest city in Maine, is a small quaint place. There are
a few hills, a couple of interesting museums, and some lighthouses that really
define the lifestyle there. It’s sort of a laid-back version of Cornwall
without having to fight Bank Holiday traffic to get there, although in the
summer most of the population of the surrounding states comes up here to
relax. It also has an ancient observatory from where you can take in a view
of the
entire town. A cruise ship had just docked in the harbour, so it was interesting
to watch all the tourists pile off it and head for the selection of bars
and restaurants on the waterfront. One intrepid group of people actually
asked
me for directions to a museum, so I shrugged my shoulders, gave them my map
and headed for the easy-to-find bar instead.
