Our second day (Monday October 9) in Maine was our chillest day of the trip! We all slept in a bit, then went on a run on a trail I found nearby. It was so fun to run in a group of 4 on a beautiful trail with perfect weather. And I got to color in a new state on my map!

When we got back, Val and I jumped in the hot tub for a bit, then we cleaned up and headed into town. Val braided my hair every day we were together, starting Monday, and I loved it!

Steven had a very important mission in town – to get a pizza from Monty’s Fine Foods. He watches Barstool Pizza Review and that Italian market was recently featured and rated high and Steven wanted to try it. We’d actually planned to get dinner there the night before, but we arrived close to closing time (oops) and they were sold out. They told us to call back at 10:30 am the next and try to place an order for pickup, so that’s what he did and we successfully ordered a vegetarian and vegan pie.

The guy on this Pizza Review channel is really funny, and does this bit where he says “one bite, everyone knows the rules” then proceeds to take many bites, while saying that many more times. So we said that A LOT this weekend, and ended up rating almost everything we ate and did. It was fun.

We took the pizza to Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, where we were meeting Kiersten! We’ve been blogging friends for years and had never met and I was so pumped to meet her. I absolutely loved her energy and how friendly and open she was, AND how knowledgeable she was about the area. We felt like we had our own tour guide! Everyone loved her!

And she brought us vegan and regular donuts from The Holy Donut. You can’t go wrong with donuts!!! We all decided she should start her own business where she does city tours while everyone eats donuts. We still need to work out some of the business plan.

After we ate our pizza (Steve got a lobster roll – I had no idea how expensive those were! Almost $50 for it! He absolutely loved it. He’d had one the last time they were in Maine and that was the ONE thing he wanted to do in Maine.) and donuts we walked around Fort Williams Park to see the cliffs,

old fort, abandoned mansion, and the Portland Head Light (lighthouse).

Steven had told me the one thing he wanted to do in Maine was see a typical Maine coastline with cliffs so we knocked that off the list right away!

We all really enjoyed the scenery and chatting with Kiersten. And the beautiful weather. We somehow had completely comfortable, nearly perfect fall weather each day of our trip. Lucky us!

After Fort Williams we went to Spring Point Ledge Light in South Portland, which is a lighthouse you walk on big boulders to get out too. It was so fun and I was kind of shocked it was open to the public, but I absolutely loved it – it felt like such an adventure.

We went to Cheeze Louise, a grilled cheese place in Portland, for dinner,

then chased it with gelato (sorbet for me) from The Gelato Fiasco. That was the best sorbet I’ve ever had. I am usually annoyed with icy dull sorbet but it was delicious!

We also stopped at a cool shop that had goods from Maine artists and I got some fun stickers and both Val and I got the “Run ME” shirt!

We said our goodbyes to Kiersten and traveled back to our Airbnb and did a bit of planning for the next day (we decided to go to Acadia National Park) then got in the Hot Tub before calling it a night (oh, and Steven and I watched one more episode of Silo).

It was such a lovely first full day. Kiersten was an absolute delight and I loved our time together. And, just loved all the time together with Val & Steve. We spent so much quiet time with them on this trip – lots of car time and walking – that we had many wonderful opportunities to connect and share. That’s really what I love the most about these trips! I realized I used the word love a million times in that paragraph, but hey, it describes it perfectly.