Freeport Isn’t Free

Today is the last full day of our trip and we decided to head up to Freeport to visit the flagship store of LL Bean. It’s open 24 hours a day 365 days a year, but we decided to go on a Saturday, mid-day, of course. Before we went to Freeport we had planned on getting some coffee from Port Bean and then heading over to the beach to dip Porter’s feet in the Atlantic ocean the same way we did in the Pacific ocean. Porter, however, had other plans. For all the writing I did in the last post about how easy it is to travel with an infant, I must have jinxed our trip because mid coffee/walk Porter started flipping out. In fact it started last night, which can be summed up by this lovely little book:

Read the book here

He also wouldn’t fall asleep on our walk in the sling like he has been doing, so I took him out and Luke carried him. I decided that my big baby needed a stroller, so we took a pit stop at Babies ‘R Us and snatched up a nifty umbrella stroller.

After crying the entire way to Freeport, except for when I made his cow toy sing and dance while contorting myself in the car, we arrived at the LL Bean flagship store and Porter seemed quite content with his new stroller. Now I call it a store, but in reality it is a compound. Here is the panoramic picture of LL Bean World:

It’s huge. There are multiple buildings all with different purposes. We went into the retail store where there are taxidermied animals, a trout pond and loads of goodies waiting to receive the famous LL Bean monogram. Outside Porter and I posed in front of the giant boot:

It all was going so nicely so we decided to go to lunch. This is where Porter hit his limit of vacation schedule (which isn’t really a schedule, that’s the problem). The moment we sat down and ordered he started crying and couldn’t be soothed. I ended up taking him outside while Luke settled the bill and brought me my lunch. I scarfed it down outside while watching all the people who come to Freeport to go shopping. Turns out LL Bean spawned a whole town full of high end stores for shoppers from around the globe.

We then put Porter back in the stroller where he continued to wail and wail. The only thing left to do? High tail it back to the car, which was a 10 minute walk with a crying baby the whole way. When we finally got back to the car Luke put on the best song and dance for our baby that anyone could ask for. I didn’t know Luke had it in him, but he had Porter laughing for at least 5 minutes before I strapped him into his car seat and the wailing began again. Luckily he fell asleep in the car and took a 3 hour nap. Looks like our last night in Portland we will be dining in and taking it easy before flying home tomorrow. All in all though, it’s still been a great vacation and I can rest assured that my child has good and bad days, just like the rest of us.