Today started out a little slowly, but we were up and moving around by 7:00 and were so happy to have a slice of Rosalie’s pizza to share for breakfast. We complemented it with tea, coffee, and orange juice from the motel lobby. The pizza reheated just fine in the microwave; although it was a little “floppy,” it still tasted great.
It took a little longer to decide on what rest-day activity to choose for today. One idea was to explore the area of the carriage roads that we walked yesterday, but to walk farther and see if we could complete the small trail out to Paradise Hill Road that I found last year (across the carriage road from the Sweet Fern Path).
Well, eventually we decided to investigate the rest of Old Norway Drive. After we parked, we noticed a man walking around in the garden of the house with the concrete monument that we spotted yesterday. I couldn’t get his attention at first, but then a woman pulled up and parked in the driveway, and the man began walking over to her. I took the opportunity to greet him and ask if he knew of the history of the monument. The original owners of the property had owned a B&B, he said, and the monument was simply the signpost for the B&B. He had no knowledge of it ever being anything else, like any kind of survey monument. He said that they have plans to fix it up and repair the light that should be shining on it, and use it to display their house number. I wished him well with the property. It was a pleasant encounter. Then we headed off on the old road.
The first hour or so of the hike was great. We saw some interesting mosses and lichens, a caterpillar, spider, some more old metal junk in the woods that we couldn’t identify, and a tiny jack-in-the-pulpit in fruit.
But as we approached the northern end of the road, we had an encounter with a very nasty woman. Long story short, we asked her to leash her dogs (because we have been attacked in the past), and she started yelling immediately that she didn’t have leashes, didn’t have to leash her dogs because this was private property, and that we had to get out because it was private. We told her that there were no signs stating that, which there are not from the southern end, and she went full screaming Karen on us, whipping out pepper spray and pointing it at Rich’s face (yes, Rich had pepper spray too, but intended for aggressive dogs and not aggressive Karens), and she eventually called the cops. Were they actually going to show up? We were about 50/50 on that.
But … they were waiting for us when we arrived back at the southern end of the road. They said they had no issue with us being there because there was no indication from the southern end that it was private, that the parking area implied that it was OK, and that they know people walk there all the time. However they were quite sure it was not town property, as we had heard from an acquaintance of ours. And they agreed that the private property sign at the northern end of the road was probably placed by a landowner who was just tired of people parking/walking by their house and on the part of the road they own.
So when we came back to our hotel we spent some time looking at the property maps for the area, and we found that the abandoned section of the road has a series of different owners, including College of the Atlantic. In summary: for now the cops are fine with people walking there as long as they don’t cross any posted signs. Not all of the neighbors are fine with that, and certain individuals may be exceptionally nasty. There are no leash laws in effect. So you visit Old Norway Drive at your own risk.
After that somewhat demoralizing encounter (at least with the woman; luckily the cops showed the professionalism that one should expect from law enforcement, although that they certainly don’t always exhibit) we were unsure what to do for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up checking out the area at the intersection of West Street Extension and Duck Brook Road, thinking we might look for an old foundation (“Russian Tea House”? Who knows.) But it wasn’t clear if we could legally park at that intersection, so we passed on it today. Neither of us was looking for another confrontation.
We ended up just going back to the room for two hours, before supper, and doing some property boundary research as noted above.
Our dinner at Brasserie Le Brun (where, I just realized, we went on the first Sunday of last year’s trip, too) was the most relaxing part of the day by far. We started out with some badly-needed and very intriguing cocktails: Death in the Afternoon (absinthe and champagne) for Rich and Center of Attention (gin and tonic with blackberry) for me. We had no idea what to expect from the absinthe, and to be honest I was very surprised that Rich ordered it. But we were both thrilled with it! My first thought was that it smelled and tasted like Good & Plenty candy (not a bad thing, if you like black licorice, which I do) but not as sweet. As we sipped it, we noticed other interesting herbal notes. The gin & tonic was also intriguing and refreshing, and Rich commented that it would be very easy to drink a few without realizing the effect it was having, and then be unable to stand up afterward.
While we were trying the drinks, some warm crusty bread came out, served with a delicious chive butter. I would like to make something similar at home to serve with my homemade bread! And next was our appetizer, an equally delicious wild mushroom “tart” with a puff pastry crust.
Our entrees were something we’ve been looking forward to all year: filet mignon, but two different ways. Rich chose the steak frites, and I had the au poivre. Apparently they are doing something new at Le Brun this year, and offering those two meals with a choice of five or six different cuts of meat. It was everything we were hoping for! The meat was as tender as ever, and the frites were perfectly thin and crispy, and it came with the malt vinegar aioli that I enjoyed so much last year. My filet au poivre was amazing as well. The multicolored fingerling potatoes that came with it were perfectly textured and seasoned, and we both thought the sherry cream sauce was amazing. We also got a side order of asparagus, lightly grilled and topped with bearnaise sauce.
Somehow we had a tiny bit of room left for dessert, so we ordered the strawberry rhubarb cream cheese tart. (We were also considering the stonefruit shortcake, which we may try next time if we come back this trip.)