Back in the USA

Yesterday was a long day. Up at 5:30 to make an early flight out of Florence. Breakfast was a bit odd, but I decided it was after noon somewhere.

Then a quick stop in Frankfurt where I bought some dense German bread at the wonderful (really!) airport bakery. Nobody makes bread like the Germans!!

Then into Boston where I took a bus up to Portland Maine. My cousin Meriby met me and we had just enough time before we had to pick up another family member from the airport to fit in an emergency trip to LL Bean in Freeport. This is their headquarters and it’s astonishing. Like Disneyland for grown ups. It’s open 24/7, 365 days a year. They only day it’s ever been closed was when LL Bean himself died. They have a campus with five separate buildings, one for hunting and fishing, one for camping gear and outdoors clothing, another for home goods… Yikes. A tour group came in while we were there (at 8pm on a Weds!).

My emergency is that I can’t get flannel sheets in Italy and I’m such a cold sleeper that I _need_ them to sleep from November to April. …what can I say?!…

OMG, they have an entire department for Monogramming!!

Today we’ll drive up to Castine. Should be very pretty: along the coast, through forests. I hope we’ll get fall colors. And we did!

We stayed at my cousin Meriby’s place. She has renovated a 1800s public tavern.

As we drove to Castine, Marilyn needed (!) a ginger ice cream. Most ice cream places are closed, shuttered down. Hey, it’s 41F and late October. I guess it’s too cold for ice cream? But we found a place and Marilyn is holding my strawberry sundae milkshake!!