Fourth of July Flop

We had big plans for our Fourth of July celebrations. The day started out kind of chilly and overcast with rain off and on. The cloudy 70ish degree day was quite the difference from the over 100 degree day they were having back in Wisconsin, so no complaints. But we should’ve known the day was doomed from there. Unhindered, we pressed on with our plans.

First, we ate dinner at Jack Russell’s Steakhouse, which I wrote about in my Maine Travel Guide post. Up until then, this had been one of our favorite places to eat in Maine. We look forward to it every year. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver. The menu had changed completely since last time we were there. Our jumbo shrimp skewers were gone and replaced with tiny shrimp in a garlic butter soup...??? No idea. They also didn’t have the crab or cheese or spinach or whatever dip it was that we fell in love with two years ago. We did try crab stuffed portobello mushrooms for an appetizer, and those were pretty tasty. The steaks were still good, and the lobster was good, too, but I don’t think we’ll be returning. We can get good steaks elsewhere and good lobster nearly anywhere in Maine.

The highlight of our night came when we were driving around after dinner (or was it before?) and saw this incredible rainbow where we could see both ends! We stopped on the road with at least five other cars to take pictures. As we were taking pictures, randomly a bagpiper in full garb came out of nowhere and started playing his bagpipes. We were confused, but I got a picture of that anyway.

The next item on our itinerary was to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain and drink wine until the fireworks started. Wellllll, it was way too foggy up there, and there was no way we were going to see anything, let alone fireworks, so we dejectedly drove back down the mountain. Since fireworks were now legal in Maine, we had the bright idea to pick some up and fire them off back at the house. We had to stop at Walmart anyway, so we decided to check there. They had a whole section of what appeared to be fireworks. We purchased one of the bigger packages called The Blast Zone and headed back home.

After assembling on the dock, we opened the package and found hundreds of sparklers. Just sparklers. W...T...F... Talk about a buzzkill. We lit them up with as much gusto as we could muster while hubs’ parents and uncle laughed at/with us. I did see one firework behind a tree, so there’s that.

Credit: Scott

When we got sick of lighting sparklers, we went inside to play some games. Hubs’ eyes were bugging him from wearing contacts (oh yeah, he lost his glasses off the boat the day before), and he felt a cold coming on, so we ended up just calling it a night instead.

And that was our flop of a Fourth of July. We made up for it in the coming days with an amazing lunch at Mainely Meat and a sunny walk on Cadillac Mountain, and I did see multiple firework shows as we were driving back to Wisconsin Saturday.

Credit: Scott