Maine attraction

TRAVEL

HOME OF L.L. BEAN, THIS SCENIC AREA IS AN IDEAL DESTINATION FOR THE SPORTING AND SHOPPING CROWDS

Freeport, Maine, and the surrounding landscape are simply glorious. Tied to a fickle sea and rugged coastline, webbed with countless meandering streams, and spotted with tree-lined lakes perfect for kayaking, canoeing and fly-fishing, Freeport puts RVers in touch with the joys of outdoor leisure. During the short, intense summers - an endearing state treasure - flowers burst into bloom along two-lane country roads, and berries tickle the tongue with their juicy sweetness.

In order to keep the broad spectrum of visitors exhilarated, Freeport's coastal hospitality also offers a shopping Mecca. RVers are greeted with open arms and with designated, roped-off RV parking providing easy access for the largest of rigs just steps from the outlet action along Main Street in the heart of town.

Freeport, a 2 1/2-hour, 122-- mile drive from Boston and a short and attractive haul from New Hampshire, has the feel of an overgrown village and makes a strong first impression. Drivers with Maine license plates don't seem to be in a hurry, don't usually tailgate and will come to your aid if you break down on the road. However, old-timers say, "We are not as courteous as we were five years ago because newcomers arrive with big city habits."

It's not hard to figure that Mainers are a salty bunch, with 5,500 miles of tide line and 7 percent of its interior awash in fresh water Anglers of all ages can be seen testing their luck in a sport that carries no guarantee. For those who want a more reliably exhilarating experience, it seems every other local car is carrying either a kayak or a canoe. Even Maine's homegrown root beer, a delicious frothy sensation, is named Sea Dog. Another perfect fit for Freeport are the high-performance Lincoln canoes and kayaks, handcrafted by New England artisans in 13 colors, plus black and white.

Along the coast and at the earthy South Freeport Harbor, rag-tag crammers in their small boats can be seen pushing off to scour the mud flats and rugged pine-clad coastline at low tide, while lobstermen tend to their traps, hoping for the best. Lobsters, like some RVers, are intriguing gypsies without a home base, who move from Maine to Canada and back again with great ease.

Mainers like to say that almost every town in the state has a lobster business, including Freeport. True or not, lobster rules. Even local dogs beg for a bite, and the spoiled house cats demand their fair share with great gusto. Lobsters are sold from the back of old, oil-leaking trucks, from popular downtown street stands and in attractive lobster cookery restaurants. Not to be outdone, the local McDonald's sells a lobster roll, while other restaurants prepare everything lobster, from souffles, sandwiches and croissants to delightful salads, chowders and soups.

Mainers devour lobster meat from head to tail, then boil the shells for a tasty lobster stew complete with corn on the cob and piles of clams, known as "steamers" in these parts. I'm sure at Thanksgiving some Mainers substitute grilled twin lobster tails for turkey, and enjoy the leftovers in sourdough sandwiches with their famed cranberry sauce and blueberries.

Freeport's history, driven forward by the illustrious L.L. (Leon Leonwood) Bean and his huge sporting-goods empire, is the essence of Americana and the ultimate American dream.

Once an old ship -building center, and later anchored by a shoe industry that failed, Freeport was floundering, though residents were still dining on lobster and clams. In the early 1900s, L.L., ingenious, hard working and an avid outdoorsman, would fly-fish and hunt in the Freeport backcountry, but became weary of tramping about with sore feet that were always insufferably wet.

One day he sat down in his brother's basement, enlisted a local cobbler and invented the Maine Hunting Shoe, complete with workman's rubber boots stitched to leather uppers. In 1912, he sent out 1,000 flyers and sold hundreds of shoes. Five years later he moved out of the basement to the company's present location in the heart of downtown. The original complex on Main Street is open 24 hours every day.

The word quickly spread, and people from surrounding states drove in to shop at L.L. Bean for high-quality apparel for the outdoor person, plus a wide-- ranging selection of sporting goods, which included fishing gear. Kayaks and canoes were added later. L.L. Bean became a widely copied manufacturing, retail and mail-order success.

Steps away, on Depot Street, is the company's large factory outlet store, offering first-quality discontinued items, factory seconds and slightly imperfect products at up to 60 percent savings. Today L.L.'s grandson is the chief executive officer overseeing 11 factory stores, a huge mail-order business and the L.L. Bean Outdoor Discovery Schools.

The Discovery Schools, opened in 1979, long popular with RVers, offer lifelong knowledge and skills, furthering one's enjoyment of the outdoors. Courses include the intensive One-Day Fly-Casting Seminar on private ponds at Fogg House, complete with catered lunch; the One-Hour Drop-in Session; Two-Day Sessions; Women-Only Fly-- Fishing School; and a comprehensive Three-Day Fly-Fishing School covering fly-fishing tactics, fly patterns and the four-part cast.

Other popular programs include Outdoor Photography, including a Moose Photo Weekend; a 2 1/2-hour Sea Kayaking program in nearby Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park; a Two-Day Sea Kayak Workshop; a Quick-Start-Your-- Canoe Program; the Three-Hour Bike Maintenance Lesson; plus classes in shooting sports and archery, cross-- country skiing, snowshoeing, winter camping and much more.

Outdoor joys aside, Freeport is a find for bargain hunters with plastic burning a hole in their wallets. Other companies, realizing the Freeport village setting is enhanced by the grandeur of the outdoors, followed in L.L. Bean's footsteps.

Today, Freeport is recognized as Maine's premiere shopping destination. Shoppers can choose from some 120 stores, boutiques and shops with many of the biggest names in retail, such as Banana Republic, Dansk, GAP, Jockey, Maidenform, Polo Ralph Lauren, Nine West, Samsonite, Wilsons Leather and Zales. They offer everything from apparel and art to Oriental rugs, china and crystal, jewelry, luggage and housewares. Small, one-of-a-kind boutiques off Main Street sell handcrafted products from Maine, British goods and pottery from around the world. The quality is high and savings can range from 10 to 75 percent.

It was also pleasing to discover that outlets have sales. A pair of fine Reebok running/training shoes, originally tabbed at $79.95, was selling for $42. If a customer purchased two pairs of shoes, the second pair was half-price.

The buildings of Freeport are yet another excellent reason to spend time there. History buffs and others who adore restored, early-1900 architecture should spend an hour on the Freeport walking tour, which features 39 structures, many of which are in the National Register of Historic Places.

When McDonald's purchased the gorgeous two-story Italianate and Greek Revival Gore home on Main Street, residents organized the "Mac Attack" and collected more than 1,000 signatures to stop the demolition. The Gore home, as beautiful as ever, remains, but with a diminutive McDonald's sign over the front door and an interior furnished with tasteful reproductions and historic photographs of Freeport.

As unique as the McDonald's might be, Desert of Maine takes the blue ribbon in the one-of-a-kind category. The aptly named Desert of Maine, three miles southwest of downtown on Desert Road, is a 45-acre natural phenomenon of desert and sand dunes, stripped clean of vegetation.

The geological term for this incongruous desert is a glacial wash plain; more commonly it is described as fascinating. Tucked between towering pine trees and forest, the desert defies convention. RVers can explore this anomaly through narrated safari tram tours, nature trails and a farm museum in a 1783 barn.

The Desert Dunes Campground, adjacent to the Desert of Maine and set among tall pine trees, has 50 sites with 11 full hookups and two dump stations. A free shuttle to downtown operates three times daily. The entrance fee to the Desert is half-price if booked at the RV park. The shuttle will pop you into town where you can walk to the Harraseeket Inn on Main Street, across from McDonald's, and have lunch or dinner at the elegant Maine Dining Room or the casual, open-kitchen, high-energy Broad Arrow Tavern. Their award-winning lobster offerings are among the best in the region.

Before leaving Freeport, visitors must experience some seafaring history via a three-hour sail with Captain Tom Ring on the Atlantic Seal to Eagle Island and a visit to the museum home of Admiral Robert E. Peary. Ring, a former lobsterman, will explain how to properly cook a lobster, though you'll have to listen carefully to make sense of his strong New England accent with all the "R's" rolling off his tongue in strange places.

Admiral Peary, the first man to reach the North Pole (1909), built his home at one end of Eagle Island on a small bluff with views that reach out to forever. Peary said of his island home: "Sometimes I used to sit and look across towards what seemed to me the most beautiful island in all the world. I didn't tell the other boys, but it seemed like an island my mother used to tell me about in one of her fairy stories she sometimes put me to sleep with."

Visitors browse through Peary's library, hike the island, bring a picnic lunch and enjoy the abundant bird life. Ring's guests sail out of Casco Bay in a lather of breakers, past scores of tree-- covered islands, some with summer homes, others with lazy harbor seals dozing under a warm sun. On the starboard side is the Portland Head Lighthouse commissioned by George Washington in 1791, and in the far distance is Portland, the state's capital. Ring also offers seal and osprey cruises, and fall foliage cruises in September and October. His sailing season runs from Memorial Day weekend to September 10.

Freeport Merchants Association, 23 Depot Street, Freeport, Maine 04032; (800) 865-1994, www.freeportusa.com. CIRCLE 207 ON READER SERVICE CARD.

Maine Office of Tourism, 59 State House Station, Augusta, Maine 04333; (888) MAINE 45, www.visitmaine.com. CIRCLE 208 ON READER SERVICE CARD.

Copyright T L Enterprises, Inc. Apr 2002
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