We had a half day together with Val and Steve on our last day in Maine (Thursday October 12). Our plan was to check out the pond by the house, which we did, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I’m kind of regretting not kayaking on it, but we did so many other fun things.

Then we went to breakfast at The Friendly Toast in Portland, which Kiersten had recommended because they have vegan options. I got the vegan scramble and it was so so good! And Steven and I got a pancake to share that was decent, too. Steven said he liked two of my meals better than his on this trip – this scramble, and the grilled cheese I got Monday.

After that we went to MEow Cat Lounge in Westbrook.

A cat lounge hadn’t even been on our radar and for whatever reason it popped up when I was on my phone Thursday morning so we all decided to go. It was nice – they had a decent sized shop and room with all the cats. It made me realize how much I missed our cats and that I was happy to be on my way home to see them.

We dropped Val and Steve off at the airport (with plans to figure out our next get together soon because we all LOVED spending time together and vibed so well! I figured that would be the case but it made me really happy that it was.) then went back to the downtown Portland area to kill some time. We walked around, dropped off postcards, and I got another vegan donut.

I kept getting compliments on my shirt – at breakfast, at the cat cafe, walking around, at the airport. So nice! My friend Lauren in Australia gave it to me. It’s from KilkennyCat Art.

Then we headed back and dropped off our rental car and went through the very easy security into the tiny airport (they had, what, 14 gates?). I ADORE small airports. And love that they had free wifi so I could do a bit of posting and catching up on Instagram.

Our flight left on time around 4:40 ET. I spent the entire flight writing recaps of the trip and getting all the photos ready. It was a good use of a 2.5+ hour flight! Chicago ORD was so busy, and we landed then taxied for 20 minutes then waited at our gate for another 20. Sigh. Oh, Chicago.

But! When we got to the luggage carousel our bags were just coming out! And we went right to the parking garage and got the heck out of there and were home by 8:30 CT. I unpacked, had a PB sandwich, petted the cats a bit, then went to bed!

We had such a wonderful time in Maine and New Hampshire with Val and Steve. The only thing that would have made it better was it we hadn’t both gotten colds! But we didn’t let it slow us down and still got to see and do so much. I’m really grateful we finally got to see this part of the country, that we had great weather, and great company, and got to see Kiersten and Charlyn too.

These recaps have been very “I did this then this then that” style for ease of writing for me, and because I write separate private posts about inside jokes and other random things from the trip. All that to say, these come off a bit stale and robotic but please don’t interpret that to mean anything other than I am a lazy writer! We had a wonderful time away and it made me really excited to plan something for next year with Val and Steve!