Actually this part of the trip was more than just the great mans house but hey that title would draw you in for sure 😉

After a good nights sleep we set off towards Bangor, the town where Stephen Kings house (he mainly lives elsewhere now) resides and the town he based Derry on in his many books both standalone and within the dark Tower epic. (If you’ve seen IT for example… that’s Derry!).

Heading up through lovely lillt New England towns, in no rush and taking in the beautiful house types and winding wood lined streets (quote simialir at times to Scotland but with a NE twist) we arrived at Bangor around lunch time and wound our way round the town to our main (and most MINE) objective, Stephens Kings House.

We arrived in a plain suburban street , lined with trees and large New England style houses, rolled up to his and spotted it immediate – not many houses have gates and a fence interwoven with all manner of creepy and spooky images such as bats , and not many have a large totem pole in their yard !

There were a few other fans like me , clutching various King Novels ( I brought a very early copy of the first Dark Tower novel – The Gunslinger), in the vain hope that maybe.. just maybe the great man would be around to give it a sign (no such luck although we did see someone leave in their car and we will always be sure it was his wife) .

A few photos snaps, me fanboying over the house, some nice conversation with other lovely fans (amazed at my being from Scotland) then it was back in the car to go find lunch and plan our return to Portland with a couple of stop offs on the way.

First stop we had planned to stop off and see what is known as the “most photographed lighthouse in New England” – Bubble Nidick but as it was early in the day still we decided to take one of random road trip detours (thats what road trips are all about right!?) to Acadia nation park, South east of Bangor.

Winding across the island and with no real goal we finally ended up at a small harbour and just took some time to sit and watch the boats come and go. It was very peaceful and a good piece of real “down time” among what can be a pretty full on itinerary.

Reluctantly we climbed back into the bus and headed for Portland, but first Nubble Niddick . Arriving at the busy car park we find a wedding in full swing so crowd gather to watch , with the beautiful white lighthouse and red roofed house as a backdrop to their photos . Rather than fight through the crowd or risk interrupting we spotted an Ice Cream stand so headed for that. One thing they don’t do in the US is scrimp on portions.. a SMALL cone was MASSIVE and some of the best tasting ice cream we’ve ever had but my god it was not easy to finish before it melted , but hey we gave it a good shot !

Photos done, we hooped back in the car and made for our home for the night Portland. When we arrived we changed , freshened up and went for a wander on town to find somewhere to eat and grab a beer. After first of all finding almost nothing and beginning to think Portland was a bit of a ghost town by wife’s keen nose and eye spotted folks moving around a couple of streets nearer the harbour – lo and behold a whole run of brilliant bars and eateries!

We settled on a cosy and busy beer hall called the Portland MashTun that not only served THE best selection of beers I’ve ever seen with great humour and banter but their food was INCREDIBLE – from memory (we had a lot of beer) they were spicy chicken taco’s and my god they were good !… we slept well.. dreaming of the Vermont adventure to come tomorrow! More of that in the next post!

The folks next to us at the bar, as often happens on hearing the accent got to talking and we walked away with good cheers but also a hot lead on a superb diner in Portland to grab breakfast!