Monday was Mer’s day, and she pointed us toward the Augusta area, where we jumped on Route 24, which is a scenic drive alongside the Kennebec River. We headed south along the road, and she gave me leave to take any little side roads that I wanted to take, so in general I tried to take small roads that would keep us as close to the river as possible, since I figured that would be the most scenic.

We did stop in the small riverside town of Richmond. Richmond is an interesting little town in that it has a beautiful situation. The river runs alongside the town, and the main shopping street is on a hill overlooking the river. Mid-river is the nature reserve Swan Island, which I was very excited about. It turns out you can get a boat over to Swan Island, but you need to make reservations. That may be in the plans for next summer. Anyway, the town has these wonderful advantages, and the main street is cute, but there are also several buildings either empty and/or in disrepair. It seems as if the town cannot quite make out if it is succeeding or starting to decline. I hope it makes it, as it has a lot of promise.

We continued our scenic drive south, and finally ended up in the town of Brunswick. One of Mer’s college friends, Julie, lives there with her husband and two daughters. Julie’s husband, Paul, owns a cafe in Brunswick called The Little Dog (Paul and Julie indeed have a well-behaved little dog). Mer wanted to see if they were home, but first we had lunch in The Little Dog. Monday was Paul’s day off, so he was not there, but the food and hot chocolate were excellent, and we got to eat outside on the sidewalk, which Mer always enjoys.

On the way back to the car, we noticed a gelato (Italian ice cream) store that we had never seen before. It was called Gelato Fiasco, and we decided to check it out. They had the real-deal Italian ice cream (sometimes places just call themselves a gelato store to sound pretentious, when they really sell normal ice cream). Gelato is denser and more flavorful than standard ice cream, and is always served in much smaller quantities. Gelato Fiasco made their own gelato, and they had tons of flavors. Mer and I were both excited that they offered cookie sandwiches made from huge chocolate chip cookies stuffed with your choice of gelato. We each got one and ate those out on the sidewalk as well. It was a rather grand lunch, in all.

After lunch, we went over to Paul and Julie’s house, but no one was home. We decided we would take a walking tour of nearby Bowdoin College to pass some time, and try back later. So, we left the car on the street and walked over to Bowdoin, where Mer wanted to find the Admissions Office to see if we could get a tour. We found the office, but had missed the most recent guided tour, so we took a self-guided tour booklet and started off. We did not get very far, as the second building we came to was the library. It turns out that both the poet Longfellow and the author Hawthorne had graduated from Bowdoin in 1825, and the college library had original documents from both authors. We decided we had to try to check those out, and so we went up to the special collections area of the library on the third floor. The librarians were very helpful, and after we filled out a short form, they went to pull some items from their collection. In the meantime, I checked out a display case that had some letters and other items that had belonged to Joshua Chamberlain, a Civil War hero, Bowdoin College president, and former governor of Maine. I especially enjoyed reading a short letter Chamberlain wrote to his wife when he thought he was dying from wounds he had received. It was eloquent and touching, and happily, Chamberlain survived his wounds.

The librarians brought up some items from special collections. They included a handwritten copy of Longfellow’s poem “Excelsior!” and a letter to his sister. From Hawthorne, they brought us his well-marked copy of Bowdoin College’s rules for 1824 and a first edition of The Scarlet Letter. It is amazing that they let us handle these; the letters from Longfellow were in plastic sleeves, but the Hawthorne items were not. Hawthorne’s copy of the rules was interesting in that the covers were filled with his practicing his signature. I’m not sure why, but that is what was scrawled all over it.

We went back to Julie and Paul’s house after we left the library, and Paul was home with one of his daughters. He kindly let us in, and we visited for about a half hour before Julie came home. Julie had to walk their dog, so we joined Julie and the other daughter (who had not been home with Paul) for a walk along Bowdoin’s athletic fields, which included a wonderful path through the woods. I love walking while talking, and the woods were pretty as well as cool from all of the shade. The walk lasted over half an hour, and Julie and Paul encouraged us to come back for supper later in the week if we were able to.

We head back to Dad’s, and found that Kellee had used a gift certificate she had received at Christmas to buy us each two different kinds of whoopie pies. We ate them both, after supper, while watching episodes of The Big Bang Theory, which we had brought with us. I’m not sure we needed more food, but they were very good, including an unusual peanut butter whoopie pie that was made with cookie ends instead of the standard cake ends. While the purist might wince at that, it was pretty darn good.