Bangor, Maine - Stephen King House

After a tiring first day, filled with a lot of driving and, unfortunately, a lot of that driving being consumed in heavy traffic jams, we had a fairly decent first night of rest at Skowhegan KOA, in Canaan, Maine.

I had stayed there before, and that time had also been with my son. The difference was that he had been only a baby at that time, not even a full year old yet. 

That had been in late September/early October of 2006. my then wife and I were still relatively happily married, with our new child. I was a big Stephen King fan who also happened to love Maine, and had decided to take a trip that would combine those two things that I loved, as well as another thing that I loved - Canada. 

We visited quite a bit of that part of Maine on that trip, including Bangor and Bar Harbour, as well as going to New Brunswick for a few days, visiting Frederickton mostly, but a few other areas, as well. 

But mostly, the stay was focused around Bangor, and the place that we stayed at for quite a few days was that KOA in Skowhegan. It was a nice, quiet location, which is exactly what you would expect of camping in Maine. It offered some nice things, too, such as an ice cream social, as well as a haunted hayride around the campgrounds. The place was nice and down to earth, which is also what you expect of Maine in general, and we enjoyed it. I had wanted to come back since.

Unfortunately, our stay was only going to be for one night - at least on this trip.

Still, we needed a kind of lazy morning after the long ordeal from the day before, and we got exactly that on that first morning of the actual trip. It's always been nice so far to wake up in that cool Maine morning air! We all got ready, and got going by around 11am. 

Our first stop, mostly at my request, was Bangor, Maine. And I had a specific destination in mind. That, of course, was the iconic Stephen King House. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big fan of Stephen King, and this was not even my first trip to Bangor, or to his house. I had been to Bangor twice before, once in 2004 (just passing through), and then a second time on that trip that I just mentioned, back in 2006. We did stop at the Stephen King House then, although i only had a video camera, and not a good quality camera, or anything. I did not pose or anything before the house. 

Back then, Bett's Bookstore was still open, and that was also a must for a visit to Bangor by a Stephen King fan. I even picked up a map of some of the "Stephen King Sites" of Bangor, which is the model for the fictional city of Derry in a few King novels. 

Yes, I got to see quite a few of those sites, as well. And if I find the map (which is just a regular piece of paper with a makeshift map printed on it), I will post a picture on this particular blog entry some time in the future, although I don't recall what exactly I did with it, and did not find it on time for this blog entry right now.

In any case, I enjoyed that trip in 2006. Bangor is a nice enough little city, and far more appealing (to me, anyway) than Portland further down south, which is, frankly, rather an unattractive city. I would go so far as to say that Portland is probably the ugliest part of Maine that I've seen. Sorry, to any possible Portland residents that may be reading this, but I'm just expressing my opinion. But it is an opinion that was shared by my girlfriend when we passed through Portland a couple of years ago, just before cutting north towards Canada, passing through Jackman, Maine, just before crossing the border (I forget the exact route that we took). Also, literally minutes before reaching the border, we saw our first (and so far, only) actual moose in the wild, which really was a highlight of that trip.

No moose this time.

But I did get a chance to visit the Stephen king House again, and was able to snap plenty of pictures, to boot. Mostly, if not exclusively even,  these are from my cell phone, and not a professional grade camera, which I used for some of the other sites on the trip.

Still, it shows the unique appearance and appeal of the house, which I remember reading somewhere that a little girl named Tabatha dreamed of living in when she was a little girl living in Bangor. Little did she know that her dream would come true, as both she and her future husband, Stephen, would wind up being noted authors, and quite rich, too boot!

So, here are the pictures that I took on this particular trip to Bangor. Enjoy!

Here I am, standing in front of the Stephen King House. Been here before, back in 2006, but I did not get the opportunity back then to pose in a picture in front of the Stephen King House. So, that was something that finally was remedied on this trip!

The famous bats on the gates in front of the Stephen King House!

There's even a two-headed dragon on the wrought-iron gate!

My brother and my son in front of the famous wrought iron fence.