Shopping, Hiking in Freeport

Today I made it to class without incident. I was early, in fact. To kill time until class I wandered around the Bridge Street area of Westbrook. They have some nice riverfront sidewalks near the Dana Warp Mill, where my class is located. Very park-like, despite the urban setting.

My classmates from New Jersey kept going on about how I should cruise up to Freeport. There are tons of impressive shops to see, I was told. And the flagship store of L.L.Bean is up there. A big, impressive site I don't want to miss.

So I drove up there and wandered around the stores for a while. All I bought were a few postcards. I didn't see anything I needed. There were a few shirts that looked nice, but I still didn't buy.

The town is odd. The "village" area is just a bunch of old homes and buildings filled with retail outlet stores, anchored by the big L.L.Bean store. For example, there's a house with a big "Reebok" logo on the front. It looks like a house some grandmother could live in, but it's filled with shoes. And the McDonald's is really different. It, too, is in a big, old house.

I got bored with the stores, not being a big fan of shopping. My guide book mentioned some hiking trails in a wilderness sanctuary just outside of town, the Mast Landing Audubon Sanctuary. The land was given the the Maine Audubon society in 1962 by a couple by the name of Smith. Volunteers maintain a nice system of trails through the Maine woods. Sounded better than shopping to me. I walked a mile or two of the trails and took a few snapshots of mushrooms, ferns, trees, and flowers that crowd the landscape.

After that, I hopped back onto the Maine Turnpike and drove back here to Saco for the night.