This was possibly the most bizarre destination I have ever ended up at. It’d been suggested by several people, and of course the Internet, but no one had much to say about it, just that I needed to go. On this particular occasion I ended up with quite a carload, my mother, a cousin, and my great-aunt. We had five hours to waste so I suggested we go to Nervous Nellie’s. All of them looked at me blankly, “Suuuuure, we can go buy some jam…?” So off we went!
First off let me tell you the area it’s in is picturesque Maine seaside, absolutely beautiful, and there’s so many things to get happily distracted by including a series of high end galleries. Then there’s Nellie’s which… is so far from that scene it might as well be its own planet. When I drove in my mother didn’t want to get out of the car, “This looks scary!” She yelled, pointing at a heap of rusted metal lying haplessly in the woods. I made her get out. I always do. Besides everyone else was already bounding out.
Here, instead of the cute little jam shop I expected there was an entire Wild West village, run by an army of fronteirsfolk who happened to be made of scrap metal, recycled miscellany, and clay. They were both fascinating and terrifying, somewhere between sweet whimsy and an apocalyptic hellscape. And there was everything… a general store, a saloon, living quarters, a jail. Oh, we had fun in the jail, burbling to a couple who’d apparently made this a destination whenever they got bored. Very sweet people. I thought it was just a little mock village but this thing kept going and going and going. By the end I found myself out in the woods staring at a dead knight being loomed over by a dragon, a plywood castle half completed in the background. The Wild West town was more Whimsical but by the time I got to the knights and the dead Viking, being sent off in a half decayed boat, everyone was getting lightly unnerved. In fact the creatures drawing the wagons and carts had gone from quirky to “Soooo…. that last tab of acid is what did it, huh?” Clearly this artist had as many voices in his head as I do (which I can truly appreciate!)
I love places that encourage the desire to play in everyone from small children to the elderly. It just really brightens my day, but this isn’t even mentioning the jams! They really do have jams! And jellies! Preserves! And chutneys! All of which are free to sample at the little shop on crackers, or if you’d like to pay for a scone there’s a sweet little cafe sitting area to enjoy. Of course I sampled everything and SWEET AMBROSIA! It was like the food of the gods! it was DELICIOUS, easily the best jam I have ever had. Seriously, this jam didn’t need a tetanus-friendly amusement park to sell it, but I wasn’t complaining! Ended up with a jar of Blue Razz and Strawberry Rhubarb. It took all of my power not to eat it straight out of the jar on the way home. My mother didn’t resist temptation and ate it on a biscuit she got a gas station for dinner… SIGH.
Anyway, this is going to be a highly suggested destination from here on out for anyone who loves the quirky, bizarre, and downright delicious.
Since I was already in the area cooing at my submersible friends at 
Portland is a sweet little port city, not nearly as much of a tourist town as Old Orchard Beach. I had enjoyed walking its streets before but now it was nice to return to a different portion of the city. My GPS led me to where the International Cryptozoology Museum used to be, but not knowing this I placed the Prius in a nearby parking garage and we started to walk. Portland is a city of very mixed architecture – some which appeared very Dutch, some which looked like Lego bricks, and others which seemed more relevant to Maine. I took a few snaps here and there. Katherine kept herself entertained finding ninja’d stickers posted throughout the city reading fiercely
critical liberal sentiments. The graffiti seemed almost sweet and added another layer of entertainment but where was this bigfoot museum?? Nowhere to be seen. We stopped in a used bookstore instead and oddly it had a map to the new location of the cryptozoology museum which was a seven minute car ride. So off we went to reclaim the car… only to find the parking garage would not let us out. I tried paying for my ticket but the machine kept spitting out my card, not telling me why, and asking me to re-insert the ticket. I was at a loss but with no one behind me I backed out of the toll lane, parked again, and found a machine inside to pay. With this new pre-paid ticket the toll gate actually worked. FWEW!
We spent way longer than we should have continuing to walk around all these unmarked buildings to find nothing. It was getting annoying so we circled back to the food truck and finally found Bigfoot standing around the side of that building, guarding a chicken shack and a brewery. It was a scene that was just so Maine.
We both went in and it’s a two level (but still two room) museum filled with just the most goddamn bizarre things… The bottom floor was for sea monsters and various beasts which was capped off with a five foot tall plastic ninja turtle for no reason I could see. In the display cases there were Fiji mermaids, labelled as hoaxes, but smattered aside things like a GI Joe standing next to a stuffed beaver with a plate reading, “Do giant beavers still exist?” It was completely mental. We were both getting quite a kick out of this place and I was so happy to experience it with a friend instead of going alone as I had planned a few months back.
