So Camden didn't really wow us. Instead of seeing Number 6 on the top 10 list, let's go higher.... all the way to Number 1! That meant it was time to explore Bar Harbor, Bangor, and Acadia National Park. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a thousand pictures...
... So what are you supposed to do in Maine? We watched some Top 10 Maine Attractions videos on YouTube to find out. Not wanting to be in the busiest areas during their high-season, we skipped straight to number six: Camden.
Camden is a town on coast and is super popular. We quickly found out why: the entire town is idyllic. It almost feels like a movie set for a "cute rustic coastal town". This was it, our chance to actually get lobster not from a food truck! Lobster is amazing. Lobster and butter is everything food should be, a perfect combination. Lobster rolls are great, don't get me wrong, but nothing beats the pure delight of a chunk of lobster dripping with butter. Our favorite place in Camden was actually a pub. They had the best prices and they were across the street from a few other lobster joints, but we learned the hard way that anything across the street had a great view of the ocean and they charged you an extra $20 per lobster for this view.... eat the cheap lobster, walk the beach to see the view after.
It's 3,355 miles from California to Thompson Corners, Maine. The pilgrimage of a lifetime!
People often undertake pilgrimages for religious reasons, or to visit one's hometown, or to see a monarch or something. All worthy causes.
We visited Thompson Corners for a different reason entirely. The worthiest cause of them all.
Getting there was a journey filled with trials and challenges. We had to escape storms and gravity wells, and push through hellscapes, wastelands, and worse, New Jersey.
And in mid-August, we finally made it to Maine. At last!
We spent a week at the Brewster Inn, and it was glorious. The host was an english guy that gave zero fucks. If I had to guess, he was over the whole hospitality thing.
BNBs are full of people who love to get up at 8am and have breakfast with the hosts. That's why they book BNBs! Alas, we are not that particular clientele. We wake up at the crack of eleven. They were confused that someone would book a BNB and not get the, you know, breakfast part. But after a few days, they seemed to love us, and said we were the easiest guests they'd ever had!
They had a screened in porch. People love to sit there on the rocking chairs and look out at the bright sunny landscape and enjoy the vibrant colors. We are not that clientele either. But when it started raining, we went straight out there and colonized it hard. We brought jackets, blankets, and laptops, and just soaked in that rainy landscape.
The hosts were even more confused by this. We could tell they were worried. They came out and asked us if there's anything they could do to make our stay better, and we explained to them that this was exactly what we hoped to see in Maine: a beautiful, calm, rainy landscape. It was perfect for us.
To this day, they're probably still confused by those two travelers who came to their BnB and sat outside with the rain and had no breakfast.
We went up to Katahdin Ironworks, which was pretty awesome.
The most interesting part was the ghost village behind the trees. Ten cabins, all in good repair. If someone told me they were busy tourist lodgings, I'd believe them... except there was nobody. Even though I could feel eyes on us, nobody was inside them.
At last, after a few days of enjoying the area, we resumed our quest.
Our pilgrimage to Thompson Corners was to see the birthplace of one of our heroes, Joseph Bishop.
Joe Bishop was a sergeant in the United States Army, and was in Maine when it was attacked. He managed to round up a few nearby comrades, and start fighting back.
The enemy had the element of surprise and was much more well-armed, but Joe and his rag-tag band managed to capture one of them.
Later, Joe Bishop became a full general, generally kicking ass on the front lines of the war against the Ruhar.
The Ruhar are an alien race of giant hamster-faced fur-covered humanoids which had superior technology. But Joe Bishop managed to save the human race, time and time again.
If you didn't know any of this, then I recommend reading the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson.
So, we got in the car, and typed in Thompson Corners to go see the birthplace of our favorite fictional hero.
Wait a minute.
Something's wrong.
Google Maps couldn't find it.
Well, there is a "Thompson's Corner"... but it was just an intersection. Nothing was there.
We were confused.
Why is Google Maps saying there is no Thompson Corners in Maine?
This fictional book said it definitely existed. It wouldn't lie to us, would it? Did we travel 3,355 miles based on a lie?
Weirdly, MapQuest seemed to think it was a few hours north, just south of Prentiss... but there was no town-sized label on the map there. And zooming in showed us it was just a small collection of buildings, definitely not a town.
Finally, looking at a Maine geological survey map from 1985, we got our confirmation. There was indeed a town named Thompson Corners, just under Prentiss.
So we launched, and continued our quest.
Joe Bishop is your stereotypical, iconic, backcountry good ol' boy. Joe drinks. And his sidekick happens to be a beer-can shaped artificial intelligence, that he lovingly calls "you god-damned beer can".
So our first stop was to pick up some beer from the first place we could find, which was a random gas station somewhere halfway into the Maine countryside.
Here's the thing... we don't drink. Neither of us has ever liked alcohol. We didn't know how people buy beer. Do they just like... go grab it? Do we have to be ready with our IDs?
We grabbed some beer and headed up. I think the clerk was suspicious, because she overheard me saying, "This is the first time I've ever bought beer." She took a while with my license. We suspect she was typing it in to check it was real. It all worked, so we took the beer and got out of there.
We got to the car, and I said, "Wait, are we allowed to have beer in the car?"
"I think it's okay if it's not open?" said Kim.
"Good enough for me, let's roll!"
After another couple hours, we finally made it to Thompson Corners. It was everything Maps promised it would be: a few buildings around an intersection.
We were expecting to see at least an old sign saying "Welcome to Thompson Corners" but there was nothing. Almost as if they were hiding the fact that this intersection used to be a town.
We wanted to get out and take a few pictures of the intersection, but there were some guys hanging out around a bunch of parked cars that wouldn't stop staring at our car. They were presumably locals.
If there's one thing we know, it's that you shouldn't mess with country locals, especially if you look like a tourist. And we looked like tourists. We even had a car carrier on top of the car. So uh... we didn't get out of the car and just kept driving around.
A mile away down the road, we finally found something that hinted at this place's long-forgotten past: a cemetery. Thompsons Cemetery, said the sign. Success!
So we got out, and took a couple pictures with it, with a beer can.
With that, our 3,355 mile quest was finally finished. We'd made it!
