Bar Harbor to North Conway
Then it was an egg/bacon/tomato quiche thing, they gave me scrambled eggs because of the bacon thing. It was good to have a savoury breakfast. Bob also gave us GLAD bags to put the uneaten raspberry and walnut cake in so I could take it to have for afternoon tea.
Sat with another nice couple for breakfast. Had the same, "where are you from?" "Where are you going?" "You're a long way from home." "I've always wanted to go to Australia." conversation. There are a LOT of Americans up this way, all of whom have driven up - long distances of 10 and 14 hours. So if they say they've always wanted to go to Australia, I say, "You could have flown there almost in that time."
Said farewell to Bob, who is quite the character, and on my way. If anyone is up this way, I can highly recommend Anne's White Column Inn!
Forgot to mention an interesting point yesterday - the difference between a pond and a lake is the depth and the fact that you can see to the bottom of a pond. Also overheard a guy at Jordan's Pond yesterday as he veered off to a different path to his wife, here in the most beautiful scenery, her saying, "it's this way, dear." Him saying, "Let's just get this over with already!" Made me laugh.
First stop is in Bangor, just over a hour away. The third of the literary stops and one just slightly (!) different to Anne and Little Woman - the Stephen King tour. (This section could be boring if you're not familiar with his work! And it was a three-hour tour so there's lots to say!)
Managed to find the meeting place - a car park opposite the Ramada Inn, of all places. Met Stu in his minivan (he was born and bred in Bangor and knows Steve) along with three others who were doing the tour. I can't remember their names - in fact, I don't think we did official introductions - they were already in the van when I arrived. The girl was from Bar Harbor but now lives, with the other two guys, in Santa Cruz - which, coincidentally is where they filmed the last scene from The Shawshank Redemption when he makes it to the beach. For anyone who doesn't know, he wrote this book.
Here's the van...
First stop was the unique cemetery that was the inspiration for Pet Sematary. Part of the movie was filmed here too. This is not one of his that I have read but the cemetery was really interesting.
Then the store where he used to go to that gave name to his great evil character - Randall Flagg, aka the Dark Man. He's appeared in many books.
Next, Steve's radio station. He has given a LOT back to the community of Bangor (after casting it as quite the villain in a lot of his books but calls it Derry and changed the name of two streets so people don't think this town is evil). He took over the station when the owners were wanting to sell it.
Also donated a children's wing at the hospital where he used to go and read to the sick kids.
The airstrip where The Langoliers was filmed...
..loved the book, the movie, not so much. The movies made from King books are either really really good or really really bad. This movie started off well but veered off into the world of cartoon.
Lots more points of interest and places of inspiration. He grew up here and took bits and pieces from all over Bangor to create Derry. 'It' is one of my favourites and there were quite a few spots from that book - the Standpipe...
The drain Georgie went down. (Stu added the hand)
The canal where they pushed the guy over at the start of the book.
And the Barrens...
..complete with the pipe to crawl down.
We also went to his house, right on the street with the gates open - this isn't paparazzi central here, everyone just gets on with their own business. Across the road lives one of the co-founders of Yahoo. He moved here because of this quiet and respect of privacy. Except for the van loads of fans doing a Stephen King tour across the street!
Beautiful old home in the most prestigious street. He had the gates remodelled to add bats and spiderwebs...
Stu was very keen that I had a picture out the front. Thankfully they weren't home.
They (Steve and his wife) bought out the guy who lived next door after he didn't look after it and it looked bad. Made it a guest house.
They also donated the town's swimming pool and a fabulous baseball stadium for kids. He doesn't like anything named after him if he has donated so the stadium is named the Shawn T Mansfield stadium after a friend's young child who died young. There is a small plaque out the front thanking Steve and Tabitha but that is all.
There was a Japanese friend watching a game who was a graphic artist and they asked her to design a logo. She came up with this...
..with STM for Shawn T Mansfield. Stephen King found out later that the middle 'T' letter is actually a Japanese symbol for 'king' so she managed to put Stephen King Maine on there at the same time. So she got him prominently in there, in a subtle way.
Stephen King was hit by a car and really badly injured. They thought he wouldn't survive. It took him two years to recover, the guy who hit him had lost his license something like 11 times and shouldn't have been driving. Apparently he received heaps of death threats and abuse. Strangely, he died two years after the accident at age 45, unexpectedly, on Stephen's birthday. No cause of death was found. Weird!
So that was that - great tour, enjoyed it a lot.
Next stop was the Bangor International airport to pick up a GPS - what was I thinking not having one originally??? I could get to places with maps (like ye olde days) but it was a hassle and took a lot of time and stress. So I rang up Budget this morning and organised to pick one up here. Stopped for a sandwich and coffee, coz it was now mid afternoon, and worked out how to use it. Got in the car and it was soooooo amazing - little voice just tells you where to turn and which way. It's all there for you - amazing and I love it!
This drive was beautiful, glorious scenery all along the way, waterways, cute little houses, just beautiful. Couldn't stop really to take photos but did pull over for this...
This is what is was like!! Just beautiful!
Arrived at the lodge to a very friendly greeting by the innkeepers and their two dogs. The air is very clean and it smells of trees.
Walked down to the town to have a bite at the local pub. Good veggie pasta.
So glad you enjoyed the King tour Cliffy. :-)
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