Road Trip to Maine during Pandemic

 We picked a weekend during the short two or three weeks of harvest season of the wild Maine blueberries to drive to Maine.

We were not sure how we felt about traveling during the pandemic, and so close to Ric and Amy's wedding date.

At the last minute, we decided to go for it. Thank goodness for Amazon two-day delivery, so we could purchase what we needed for the road trip.

We bought a super fancy refrigerator/freezer that could run plugged into the car lighter plug or into the house AC plug, so we could keep the wild blueberries cold on the ride home. It was also convenient to carry our breakfast food and lunch snacks for the long drive.

Fancy new cooler

We worked half a day Friday and left the house at 1:30PM. We drove and stayed overnight in Portsmouth, NH, with a quick stop in Hartford, CT to pick up a pizza at the Blind Pig and eat in the car.

We left early the next morning and made it to Alexander Wild Blueberry Farm by 10:30AM to pick up our four 10-lbs boxes of blueberries (one fresh and three frozen.) Their regular hours were 1PM-6PM but they extended their pick up hours to 10AM-6PM during the pandemic. This was very helpful so that we could get home at a decent time.

Beautiful farm

Fresh wild Maine blueberries with banana bread

We immediately helped ourselves to a serving of the fresh wild blueberries as soon as we got settled back into the car. The wild blueberries popped in our mouth and burst with sweet and tart flavors, and tasted as amazing as we remembered them from last summer.

We started our drive home, a 12-hour drive from Alexander farm. We did our research and decided to stop at the Pine Tree seafood market in South Portland, ME, for Maine lobster.

Tiny seafood market in Portland ME

Inside of the Pine Tree seafood market

Extra long lobster roll for $17.99

One pound of lobster meat (4 tails plus claw meat) for $40

It was a great decision to stop at the Pine Tree seafood market in South Portland, ME. It only added 5 minutes to our time, and we picked up two lobster rolls and five containers of one-pound lobster meat. 

We discovered that one container of the lobster meat contains four lobster tails and claw meat, more than enough to keep us super happy!

We ate the lobster rolls and one pound of the lobster meat in the car, finding room in the coolers for the remaining four pounds of lobster meat.

The lobster meat tasted very sweet and fresh. The rolls were no where as good as Red Eat's, so maybe next time we just buy the lobster meat and feast on it and skip the roll.

Overall, it was a very efficient trip. We arrived home on Saturday night at 10:30PM, a decent time that allowed us to unpack and go to bed before midnight. Having left the previous day at 1:30PM, we have taken a trip to Maine and back in a day and a half, bringing home 40-pounds of Maine's wild blueberries and 4-pound of lobster meat to enjoy the next month or two.