![\"new](\"https:\/\/www.albany.com\/i-heart-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/84\/2017\/03\/new20hampshire20liquor.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou can grow up
\nstudying maps and globes, but I don’t think it’s until you actually live in an
\narea that you understand the land. Southern states are big! Traveling
\nas a child meant being stuck in the backseat with a little brother who was
\ndestined to end up on “my side” and make my life miserable, plus being in a car
\nfor 5 hours and still<\/i> being in the same area code you started
\nin. Those maps in school always showed most of the Northern states
\nso small, you figured you could probably make it across them in just a
\nday…well, turns out you can!<\/p>\n
The Southern mindset
\nthat it takes forever to get somewhere (try driving in Texas y’all) is
\ncompletely blown if you ever road trip it up here. I got the chance
\nto mark visiting New Hampshire and Maine off my bucket list when my mother had
\na business conference in Portland. While I’m still not convinced my
\nGarmin wasn’t trying to kill me on the two-lane winding roads out in the middle
\nof nowhere, I crossed some of the most scenic and beautiful roadways I’ve ever
\ntraveled on my way to Portland. And the whole trip only took just a
\nlittle over 4 hours!<\/p>\n
That was even with a
\nstop in New Hampshire at a state liquor store, where apparently they don’t
\ncharge tax. The place was overflowing was shoppers pushing carts
\nfilled like it was New Year’s Eve!<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
NH State Motto: Live Free or Die! Um, ok.<\/b><\/p>\n
Some places in the
\nSouth are funny about alcohol. Nope, it’s not all mint juleps and
\nhurricanes from Pat O’Brien’s. When my husband and I met, we
\nlived in a dry county in Arkansas. Meaning, no alcohol was sold
\nthere at all. Seriously, I’m not making that up! You had
\nto drive over to the next county to pick up a case of beer or a bottle of wine
\nand our news director would generally frown if we took the news car through the
\ndrive though at those places when we were out on a story!<\/p>\n
After all those distractions, I finally made it to Portland, and was reunited with my momma! It
\nhad been 2.5 months since I had seen her last…I’m pretty sure I heard the
\nsoundtrack to An American Tail<\/i><\/i> playing in the background when I finally
\nhugged her! It didn’t take long for the Flanigan women to regroup and we
\nwere off with some of the other Missouri delegates from the National Extension
\nAssociation of Family & Consumer Sciences Conference to see the
\nsites!<\/p>\n
![\"cimg9258.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.albany.com\/i-heart-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/84\/2010\/09\/cimg9258.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Show-Me Maine Please!<\/b><\/p>\n
We hit the beach at
\nKennebunkport and stuck our toes in the freezing cold ocean. I can
\nimagine how packed that place had to be in warmer weather! We got a big
\nkick out of searching for sea shells, you just don’t have things like that
\nwhere we’re from. It was like hitting the jackpot when my mom came across
\nan unbroken sand dollar!<\/p>\n
\n![\"CIMG9263.JPG\"](\"https:\/\/www.albany.com\/i-heart-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/84\/2010\/09\/cimg9263.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Flanigan Gals: Heather & Phyllis<\/b><\/p>\n
We even checked out
\nwhere President G. W. Bush vacations in the summer. We were
\ntotal paparazzi stalkers photographing his house (there were dozens of
\nother tourists doing it too!) on Walkers Point. I’m petty sure there was
\nprobably a Secret Service agent hiding in the grass taking our pictures
\ntoo. In my news reporting experiences working with the Secret
\nService, I can assure you they have no sense of humor and are arguably some of
\nthe most terrifying government officials I’ve ever met. There were
\ntons of beautiful homes in the area, but could you imagine being neighbors with
\nthe President? Talk about walking in tall cotton!<\/p>\n
![\"cimg9296.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.albany.com\/i-heart-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/84\/2010\/09\/cimg9296.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
G.W.’s Summer Crib<\/b><\/p>\n
You know I couldn’t go
\nto Maine without bibbing up and taking a crack at some lobsta’! Growing
\nup land locked, you had to be pretty leery of seafood because sometimes it was
\njust a nasty case of food poisoning waiting to happen. Fortunately,
\nPortland is New England’s second largest fishing port so we were in luck. Those
\nlobsters were bigger than some cats I’ve seen in the South! And
\nfinger lickin’ good too!<\/p>\n
![\"cimg9311.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.albany.com\/i-heart-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/84\/2010\/09\/cimg9311.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Crazy Crustacean!<\/b><\/p>\n
Portland is such a beautiful city! My mom’s hotel room looked right over the harbor and it was pretty cool to just stare out the window at the sailboats and cruise ships. I was surprised to learn that Portland was the second largest port of call for cruise ships in Maine. From her window, you could see from Fort Gorges to Spring Point. The view was spectacular! She says that’s just the way Extension Agents roll…<\/p>\n
\n![\"cimg9254.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.albany.com\/i-heart-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/84\/2010\/09\/cimg9254.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
View from the Top!<\/b><\/p>\n
\n<\/b><\/p>\n
Now thinking I may
\nhave to add a couple of other states to the I Heart NY Y’all name…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You can grow up studying maps and globes, but I don’t think it’s until you actually live in an area that you understand the land. Southern states are big! Traveling as a child meant being stuck in the backseat with a little…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":11761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[120,159],"class_list":["post-7422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-maine","tag-portland"],"yoast_head":"\r\n