A Ramble in Skowhegan

Today was our first day in Skowhegan, and we decided to talk a walk to get to know the immediate neighborhood.  Our campground sits on beautiful Kennebec River --

-- about 2.5 miles from the town of Skowhegan.  We walked into town along the river.  The town itself is an old factory mill town, and you can still see that in some of the old buildings on the river.  There is an old electric power generation plant that we could see from a former railroad bridge that has been converted to a pedestrian bridge spanning the entire river:

The main street of historic downtown Skowhegan is Water Street.  It presents a number of quaint shops, many of which are oriented toward tourists, but there are also vacant store fronts aplenty.  One of the most unusual was this business known as "Leakos Auction":

We weren't quite sure what the business was, but the mural on the front was definitely unique.  The left side of the mural reads:

Instructions

on how to make the

"Hap Gotcha Fly"

Use a red tip frill

toothpick

Attach Snell #10 hook

and a

black feather with

white painted dots

all held

on by red thread.

Across the bottom of the mural are the following words:

If ya going to fisher the Kennebec look up "Hap" in Bingham

Maine He'l show ya where.  Using his "Gotcha Fly" you catch

lots of fish like the kings of Manhattan pictured here.

P.S. "Hap" has been arrested for showing people where to fish

without a license and also using dynamite.  (This story is not

true.  Just a little bit of Maine humor).

We heard that New Balance's factory is in Skowhegan and that a factory store was near the center of town.  We found a sign and headed over there for a little discount shopping on some quality active wear!

After shopping we headed over to the Old Mill Pub, situated overlooking the river.  

The day was very hot and by now we had walked perhaps 4 or 5 miles.  We had a cool beer and some lunch to bring us back, and then headed back toward our campground.


Exhausted after 7 miles of hot pavement, we took a refreshing dip in the campground pool, then headed back to our site to start dinner.  Here's a photo of our rig parked in the Two Rivers Campground.  It's Friday and everyone was flocking in to spend the weekend camping by the river.  In fact, the campground is more crowded than almost any we've seen so far.  Nearly every site is occupied.

This didn't stop us from celebrating.  We started a campfire, grilled rosemary chicken with onions and pablano-soaked garlic over the campfire and paired it with cole slaw.  YUM!  Kathy then demonstrated the proper way to roast a marshmallow to a perfect golden brown, and then eat it without getting as much as a spot of marshmallow on her lips, chin or fingers.

We chatted with a neighbor and have retired inside after sundown to watch "Ice Age" on the campground's cable TV.  Some campgrounds offer cable TV and some don't.  Tonight we take advantage of it and just relax with a few laughs.