Red's Eats: Maine's Most Beloved Road Hazard
For the last month or so I have had to drive up Route 1 from Brunswick to Damariscotta, then back down, each weekday afternoon between one o'clock and four. This is for my part-time job, obviously, as no right thinking person would knowingly drive this road in the summertime unless forced.
The drive is kinda fun most of the time. I have a '98 Corolla, so of course speeding tickets are my number one concern. But apart from being pulled over for doing 69 in a 65 mph zone by some overzealous law enforcement officer, the thing that really gets me......really churns my butter....really yanks my chain....is the fact that the self titled "Prettiest Little Village in Maine" chooses to put its number one tourist attraction approximately 7 feet from one of the busiest roads in the state, at one of its most jam packed bottlenecks: right before the bridge to Edgecomb . Red's Eats in Wiscasset is the culprit, and pedestrians aged 8 to 80 (oh hell, let's be honest. it's more like 65 to 105) are the reason for the bottleneck. It's not their fault. Everyone knows Red's Eats serves the greatest, most tastiest lobster in all the state. They must, since it would be impossible for anyone other than a master chef, like....Red.... (is there actually a guy or gal named "Red"? Has there ever been a "Red"?) to be able to boil water and toss the little bastards in, then wait until they are good and dead. Must be a secret recipe or something. Anyway....
Besides losers like me who live in the area, all of the autos and campers headed up to Desert Island from Boston and New York have to pass through Wiscasset. Many truckers headed to northern Maine and Canada must use this route to get from Brunswick/Topsham/etc. to their destination. A lot of hunters headed to parts unknown to kill something use this route (these are the ones I always am courteous to; any large pickup trucks I always allow to merge ahead of me and such...nothing like a well armed driver to induce courtesy).
The question is why has Wiscasset ("TPLVIM") put their number one tourist trap/attraction right next to a road that could be the number one cause of tourist injury? There's miles of coastline on that side of the river in either direction. Why not move the place somewhere else, so that the rest of us can get to wherever the hell we're going?
This news report on Red's said "you can't miss it". That's for damn sure. I wish I could miss it: would save five or ten minutes off my trip so I could get back to my apartment and start drinking earlier.
The drive is kinda fun most of the time. I have a '98 Corolla, so of course speeding tickets are my number one concern. But apart from being pulled over for doing 69 in a 65 mph zone by some overzealous law enforcement officer, the thing that really gets me......really churns my butter....really yanks my chain....is the fact that the self titled "Prettiest Little Village in Maine" chooses to put its number one tourist attraction approximately 7 feet from one of the busiest roads in the state, at one of its most jam packed bottlenecks: right before the bridge to Edgecomb . Red's Eats in Wiscasset is the culprit, and pedestrians aged 8 to 80 (oh hell, let's be honest. it's more like 65 to 105) are the reason for the bottleneck. It's not their fault. Everyone knows Red's Eats serves the greatest, most tastiest lobster in all the state. They must, since it would be impossible for anyone other than a master chef, like....Red.... (is there actually a guy or gal named "Red"? Has there ever been a "Red"?) to be able to boil water and toss the little bastards in, then wait until they are good and dead. Must be a secret recipe or something. Anyway....
Besides losers like me who live in the area, all of the autos and campers headed up to Desert Island from Boston and New York have to pass through Wiscasset. Many truckers headed to northern Maine and Canada must use this route to get from Brunswick/Topsham/etc. to their destination. A lot of hunters headed to parts unknown to kill something use this route (these are the ones I always am courteous to; any large pickup trucks I always allow to merge ahead of me and such...nothing like a well armed driver to induce courtesy).
The question is why has Wiscasset ("TPLVIM") put their number one tourist trap/attraction right next to a road that could be the number one cause of tourist injury? There's miles of coastline on that side of the river in either direction. Why not move the place somewhere else, so that the rest of us can get to wherever the hell we're going?
This news report on Red's said "you can't miss it". That's for damn sure. I wish I could miss it: would save five or ten minutes off my trip so I could get back to my apartment and start drinking earlier.
posted by joe sweeney at 6:02 PM
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