August 16th: Portland

The weather was beautiful the next morning, and we had some free time before everyone was driving down to Portland, so Mark and I decided to start the day off with a run through a nearby park.

There was a really pretty path along the water right near our Airbnb.

I wish more of my runs had views like this! (Though that's part of why I especially enjoy going for a run when we go on trips...the scenery is almost always fantastic!)

The path looped past a water treatment plant, then went past a marina and by a little park. We crossed a tiny set of railroad tracks at one point and didn't think too much of it until we saw...

...this! Turns out they have a narrow gauge train that runs every day, and they offer rides on it. We stopped and waved at the people on the train, and they waved back.

It was so cute! It kind of made my day.   :)

We ran a bit further, then took another short break to watch a couple sailing classes. The kids were paired up on small sailboats and following the instructors around a little floating dock. It was pretty funny to watch...some of the kids seemed pretty sharp and some...not so much.

We made our way back to the house, got cleaned up, then walked to Coffee By Design for some coffee and pastries for breakfast...

...then walked down to check out a distillery and brewery we planned to visit later with everyone else. We found this cool mural on the way back. We hung out at the Airbnb for a bit, then everyone eventually showed up.

We started with lunch at Otto. The guy who let us into the Airbnb had mentioned this place the night before and it sounded delicious. He wasn't kidding! They have all sorts of fancy pizzas, and the mashed potato, bacon, and scallion pie was awesome.

After lunch we went to a couple different breweries and a distillery. I tasted some of the stuff they had at the Maine Craft Distillery. One of their things was made with carrots, which was pretty crazy. We hung out in their comfy chairs outside, then eventually made our way over to the port area and wandered around the quirky shops for a while.

Mark and I wound up running into Alex in one of the bars, then Paul and Amanda showed up, too. We all had a drink or two and hung out for a bit...

...then moved on to Bar of Chocolate. We had stopped here last year and it was delicious, so we met up with Granny, Uncle Robert, and Mark's mom and all had another drink before moving on.

It was raining by this point, so we grabbed dinner (lobster roll!), stopped in a few more shops, then said goodbye to everyone for the night so they could drive back to their rental house. Mark and I decided it was a little too early to end the night, so we wound up bar-hopping for a while after they left and eventually wound up back at Bar of Chocolate for some port and cake (at midnight...oops). We eventually wandered back to the house and went to bed.