Nick: Skowhegan.
Brian: Gesundheit. –things that this country has to offer, and it is our great pleasure to share them with you in this format. We left Ryan’s quaint pad in Exeter, feeling refreshed and ready to tackle America’s finest attractions, and headed north into Maine for two reasons. One, it was the only convenient time to check that state off our list, and two, Maine hosts a variety of world record holding inanimate objects.
Nick: Or so they claim…
Brian: I too am skeptical friend. But let’s not jump the world’s largest gun. We ambitiously created a list of 8-10 towns and set out for the first one at around 8am, within which resided the world’s largest chocolate animal carving. Naturally, it was a moose. And I’d have to say I was pretty impressed. The candy shop itself was quite remarkable, in that it was like stepping into a time machine to the 50’s, or so the cashier’s haircuts would lead you to believe. One of them started questioning us about our trip, and she was surprised when we revealed to her that there were several record setting attractions in her state. Despite her surprise, she had no problem giving us directions to the world’s largest boot, and the world’s most visited lighthouse. We left confused, but ultimately satisfied by the experience.
Nick: After the moose, we hit up a giant Indian statue a couple towns over. The Indian was not special. He was large, sure, but it would not be accurate to say he towered oppressively over the landscape. And I think that’s really what Monday was supposed to be about, wouldn’t you say?
Brian: Yup.
Nick: Next on the list was the world’s largest rotating globe. The globe gets respect, as it was pretty gigantinormous, and it did rotate majestically. There was also a map store that specialized in atlases, but as we’ve grown rather fond of L.U.C.Y.-
Brian: That’s our car’s GPS system
Nick: We didn’t want to make her jealous with an additional navigational tool.
Brian: Once she gave us wrong directions for two days after we used the iPhone to find the nearest Arby’s.
Nick: After the globe, we got a little turned around then eventually made our way to the world’s largest big boy sculpture? Something like that? It was distinctly Sovietesque, and as such, was terrifying. And also not really that big at all. Bummed at the so-so statue, we weren’t sure anything could revive our spirits. But then, as seems to happen now and again in life, the universe conspired to make our day suddenly awesome. By total chance, we were cruisin’ through Lisbon Falls, Maine, when we saw signs for the Moxie museum. Now I’ve always known that Brian and I practically ooze moxie, I mean, how else could we maintain such a high level of excellence in all that we do? But I must admit, neither of us had any idea what this “Moxie” was, so naturally we pulled over. To what looked like an abandoned convenience store. We went right in. Inside, we were greeted by shelves of hundreds of old glass Coke bottles from all around the world. We had our first clue, but the purpose of this place still eluded us. We wandered around a bit more. Suddenly, he emerged: It was the sage of sodas, the king of carbonation, the Master of the Moxie.
Brian: I think his name was Bill?
Nick: I’m going to stick with Master of Moxie. He was squat and plump with white hair and eyes that seemed as though they might contain all the knowledge of ancient civilizations. He began to tell us about Moxie, its attributes-
Brian: The only beverage to have two distinct flavors
Nick: Its origins
Brian: Invented in 1884 as a nerve tonic
Nick: and even about the giant Moxie festival the town hosts every year.
Brian: Apparently they pull in over thirty thousand people.
Nick: But when I asked him for a can of the stuff-
Brian: After all, we’d never even heard of it
Nick: -the man was baffled. I literally drank the last can in the place after dusting cobwebs off. Brian picked up a couple plastic bottles which were themselves but a few survivors in a cooler that loomed eerily and emptily in the back of the store.
Brian: When you come to the Moxie headquarters, you come for the history. You do not come for the Moxie.
Nick: I would describe the taste but then I would fail. The closest thing we can compare it to is Jaegermeister which, as it turns out, is not our favorite. It also tastes like old person candy.
Brian: You know those nasty pastel-colored spirals that taste like black licorice gone bad and have the consistency of chalk? You know, your grandma always had a bowl of them on the coffee table and every couple years you eat one because you’ve forgotten how bad they actually taste? Moxie tastes like the essence of old, if oldness could be distilled into a liquid.
Nick: Well said. OK, so I know we talked A LOT about the Moxie but it really left an impression on us and our digestive systems, so it needed to be in here. The next stop was the world’s largest frying pan. Turned out to be the world’s largest disappointment as the pan was residing in the world’s largest kitchen cupboard for storage when we arrived in the town where it was usually on display. After the pan, things got ugly. Fast. After the pan, we entered a town called Skowhegan. Little did we know the horrors that awaited us…
Brian: I’ll admit it was my idea. Skowhegan also boasted a world’s largest Indian statue, and I thought it would be fun to compare Skowhegan’s Indian to the one we had seen earlier that day. I imagine our blog as a beacon of righteousness and truth in the sea of smut known as the Intermet, so answering the question of whose Indian is bigger would be a natural extension of our purpose. We never should have entered that forsaken town. Skowhegan is clearly the Indian word for “Deception”.
Nick: Let me explain. A post on some travel website said that the stature was a certain intersection in this town. We get there, see nothing. No problem. We had the same problem in Wakaponeta, and we all know how that turned out.
Brian: If we don’t know, we should definently go back and read the first post or two.
Nick: Nevertheless, you’d hope that the world’s tallest Indian statue would be fairly easy to find right? False. After wandering around the gas station parking lot for at least ten minutes, we finally found it behind a tree. Yeah. It was lame. At this point, it’s getting late, we’ve been on the road for hours, and the last couple attractions have been huge flops. It was under these conditions that we were then met with a list, a long list, of obstacles and annoyances that seemed more abundant than the NASCAR sticker covered pick up trucks that seemed to swarm in Skowhegan like locusts. Brian will take you through it:
Brian:
1: No Moxie. Surprised? Yeah, it was awful, but you can’t just have one.
2: Charriers. The “classy” steak house in town. Somebody renovated a Sizzler in the 70’s and then left it to be managed by a team of meth heads. We didn’t need more than a drive-by to know that we hated it.
3: Worst Indian Ever:
a: They know it’s bad so they hide it behind their gas station.
b: It was built by a Frenchman named “L’anglais” which means “The Englishman”. Get it together.
c: They claimed that the Indian’s were a totally peaceful people. We love Indian’s, but we know that they had wars. Stop being deceptive.
d: Portrayed Indians negatively: The Indian statue was super ugly and disproportioned.
4: Expensive camping that sucks:
a: I don’t want to play mini-golf at my campsite.
b: I don’t want to get yelled at for driving 13mph in a 5mph zone. The car doesn’t even idle that slowly.
5: Stupid name. Skowhegan? How do you even say that? Ugh.
6: The residents love Enduring Freedom. Don’t you usually endure bad things like pain or ridicule? The residents of this town apparently think freedom is something they have to “put up with”.
7: They have they #1 Pizza Hut in the nation. Another world record holder, but Pizza Hut blows therefore so do the Skowhogs that eat there.
8: Disappearing Wal-Marts. I swear it was there when we drove by 5 minutes ago.
9: Misleading bathrooms. Why would the gas station attendant say they were outside when they weren’t?
10: They have a Lake George. The last Lake George we went to (in New York) had pirate mini golf everywhere and sucked. I can’t imagine why this one would be better.
11: Awful music. We didn’t hear a single song we recognized on the radio the whole time we were there. Give me Miley or give me death. (Except 16 will get you 20 so not actually, but kind of.)
12: No beautiful people. Maybe not anyone’s fault, per se, but it’s fuel on the fire when you are pissed off, tired, hungry, and you are being forced to see hideous people.
13: The classic rock station is called The River. That’s stupid… rivers beats rock through perseverance every time. Pick a name that is more metal. Blood Omen?
14: Skowhegan is where skunks go to die. Smelliest town in America.
15: We cleaned our windshield at the gas station and it got dirtier. I literally think there were more bug guts on it than before.
Nick: You can blame it on the residual Moxie coursing through our veins, but we hated everything about this town and its lying ways. If you have the chance, and you won’t because it’s so far away from anything anybody could conceivably ever want to do, give this desolate wasteland a big pass.
Brian: We finally were fed up and to let off some steam drove all the way to Acadia National Park, which, had we been there during the daytime, I’m sure would have been beautiful. We are masters of pitching that tent in the dark. End day 8. Song of the day? You guessed it: Cherokee Nation by Paul Revere and the Raiders. So inappropriate. B & N out. Not Barnes and Noble.
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