an aggravating subject

When I first moved to Northern Maine, a lot of people assumed that I must have thought the people up here were nicer than people in NY. The truth is that people are pretty much the same every where you go. There are nice people, mean people, rude people, red-necks, and snobs everywhere. There are some small differences in the people, though. Western New York is much more diverse than Northern Maine, and though most people up here claim that they are not prejudice, I see people move away from those who are different. Not everyone up here is like that, though. I know a lot of open minded people up here, but it seems that there are more open minded people in Western New York. I said it in my first blog and I am saying it in my last, New York State is not just made up of New York City. Though I say that many times, people up here still relate me to a NYC person. Not every person in NY has a hardened attitude. Even if every person in NY acted like a person from the city, I would bet my life savings that they would be more open minded a lot of the people from the county.

Running out of things to do

Have you ever been bored and said, “There is nothing to do in this place”? I find myself saying that phrase quite often up here in Northern Maine. I know that every place has its downfalls and every person says that eventually, even in a city. I have traveled from one end to the other of this big county we call Aroostook, looking for things to do. If you love being out in nature, you can find many places to walk, hike, ride, bike, fish, or swim, but other than loving the natural life, there is not much to do up here. Sure there are restaurants, movie theaters, and stores, but who wants to walk around the stores of the county and window shop for hours each day?
If I were interested in starting a business, I know exactly what kind of business I would start. Down in Western NY there is an awesome place that generates large amounts of business each year, and it is located in the middle of a corn field. The reason this place generates so much business is that there is no other place like it in the area. This place is a pizzeria. Yes, I said pizzeria. When I say that to my friends up here, not one person believes me. They often ask me “Why would the busiest place around be a pizzeria? Aren’t there many pizzerias’ in NY?” You might also have those questions in your head and to that I say, yes there are many pizzerias’ in NY but this one is different. The place that I am talking about is the Charcoal Corral. The Corral is not only a pizzeria but many things in one. The Charcoal Corral actually started as a Drive-In theater with a hotdog stand located in the middle of parking. The Corral is not only one of a few Drive-Ins’ left, but the Corral is also the biggest and the best. The Charcoal Corral not only has two Drive-In screens and the original stand, it also has a diner, a pizzeria, an ice cream parlor, an arcade, and a mini-golf course. I love that place and go there every year. My husband, a county boy, loves it as much as I do. My four-year-old son loves the Corral almost as much as his parents do. The Charcoal Corral is a place where young and old can be kids all at the same time. I wish that I had the business skills to start something like the Corral up here, but I am not a business person. If anyone is interested in business, I would be glad to let them know what the atmosphere is like and how to gain it.

Missing the roller coasters.

I used to love to go to theme parks and zoos when I was a little girl. Growing up in Western NY, there were many amusement parks and two zoos within two hours of our town. My parents would take us kids to Darien Lake, an amusement park that later became Six Flags, every summer. Schools would sometimes take students on field trips to Darien Lake, Seabreeze, and the two zoos closest to us. Up in the county, there are no amusement parks or zoos. Long trips down state or out of the state are required for Northern Mainers who wants to take their children some place fun. When making long trips to such places, plenty of money is required. Unless you only want to spend a half-hour at these places, you need to rent a room. This is heartbreaking for me because I look back and remember all of the fun times I had riding the roller coasters and looking at the animals and know that many children up here might not ever experience that joy.

The County can be a frustrating place sometimes.

I love living the rural life. I have lived in rural settings all of my life and I would not have it any other way. One of the reasons that I love living in Northern Maine is because it is a quiet, peaceful place. Many children dream about the house and the land that they will own when they grow up. My dream has always been to own a house that is deep in the country and is not visible from the road. There are many places like that up here in Northern Maine, and many places like that back where I used to live in Western New York. One of the things that I miss about being in NY is that even though I lived in the country, it did not take me long to travel to the city. In Northern Maine, it takes me at least three hours to get to some of my favorite stores. I love living in the country, but I do like shopping in the cities. Cities have many different stores, chain-stores and local shops that rural areas do not have. If I want to do some big shopping in the city, I have to plan a whole day where most of it is driving. I would love to keep my business in the county that I live in, but the pickings are slim up here.

Needhams, Red Hot Dogs, & Buffalo Wings

I am a woman that loves her food. When I find something that I like, I eat it until I’m sick of it, and then I eat some more. Before I moved to Northern Maine I knew that different parts of the country had different kinds of foods. I knew that I would be trying some different foods and some different variations of the foods that I loved. I have found some delicious foods up in Maine that I would have never found any other place, one of those are Needhams. Needhams are mouth-watering candy bars made with dark chocolate, coconut, butter, whole milk, sea salt, vanilla, and Maine Potatoes (yes I said potatoes). To most people hearing that there are potatoes in the candy could be off-putting, but not to Mainers. Needhams are almost like a mounds bar but they taste much better. The little candies are made in a candy shop in Maine, so they are more expensive than the factory made candies, but everyone knows that homemade candies are more expensive and better tasting.

Another thing that I found in Maine was red hot dogs. Though I am not a fan of hot dogs, I have to say that the red hot dogs are my favorite off all of the dogs. Maine is the primary location for these dogs with natural casings. Before I came to Maine, I always called the normal brown hot dogs red hot dogs. It was after I came to Maine that I learned what real red hot dogs really looked like. Real Maine red hot dogs are a bright red because they have a healthy dose of #40 red die. If I have to eat hot dogs red hot dogs are always my first choice and I will miss them if I ever move out of the state.

The one food that I miss living in Maine is a good Buffalo Wing. Some restaurants in Maine serve Buffalo wings, but no one does it quite as well as the original area in which they were created. The origin of the spicy chicken wing is not clear. Many people in buffalo want to take credit for the tasty snack, but it is certain that they came from Buffalo NY. Buffalo wings are well known in any state, and it seems like there are thousands of recipes for the wing. Buffalo wings are well liked and even celebrated in Western NY. Buffalo hosts an annual national Buffalo Wing Festival. The festival was started by Buffalo’s own Drew Cerza, also known as the Wing King. The Wing King has been on many food network shows and even won a chicken wing cook-off with Bobby Flay.

Some of this information was taken from buffalowing.com

These pictures were taken from bing images

Fields of corn and cow manure

Growing up in a rural area of Western NY, farming was an every day thing. Many Kids lived on farms and most students worked on them year round. The county that I grew up in was a big dairy county. Cows were every where in my town and every child knew a lot about cows. The crops in Western NY were the same variation that Northern Maine has but there was one huge difference. Northern Maine is a potato place. Most of the crops in Northern Maine are potatoes but they have some different vegetables growing here and there. Most of the fields that you see in Western NY are corn fields, but many of the fields are not for eating. Most of the fields in Western NY are utilized to grow corn for the cows that also reside on that farmers land. I love looking at the corn fields, but smelling them is a different story. While it is a fact that cows mean manure and manure means fertilizer, down in NY they liquefy the manure and dump it on the fields. That means that the whole county smells really bad. I do love to take long walks around the tall corn fields. Almost every corn field in NY has a treasure hidden around the borders. That delicious treasure is black berries. I love the wildly grown black berry; they are so much sweeter and juicier than raspberries. Every time I visit NY I go berry picking with my little sister. My whole family loves to go berry picking. It is great exercise walking along the vast corn fields, it is very fun especially when you are picking with a friend, and at the end of the day you have a delicious treat.

Maine, a beautiful place

Maine is a great place to live. Maine has the brightest grass, the bluest rivers, and the biggest trees. A great day for me is being outside in this beautiful state that I now call home. I love to take walks down country road, treks trough the woods, hikes up mountains, and ATV rides alongside a river.

These pictures were taken after a nice ride up Mars Hill Mountain on an ATV.

Taken after a hike up Haystack.

Though I have not seen any waterfalls in Maine, I have seen some gorgeous sites. The Aroostook River is over 100 miles long and flows into the Saint John River. The Aroostook River flows from Penobscot County, through Aroostook County, all the way to Canada. The river is a big and beautiful, not to mention powerful, river that many Mainers enjoy. Whether you are fishing in it, following the current in a canoe, swimming in it, or just watching the power of the river, much fun is had on the river every year.

If you love the wilderness, you will love Baxter State Park. Though Baxter is not in Aroostook County, it is not far from it. Baxter State Park located in Piscataquis County and is most known for Mount Katahdin. Mount Katahdin is a large mountain consisting of clusters of mountains. Mount Katahdin is at the northern end of the Appalachian Trail.

this picture was taken from Bing Images
Another one of my favorite places in Maine is Acadia National Park. Acadia National Park is along the east coast of Maine. The park consists of mountains, Islands, and the Atlantic Ocean. I love Acadia and visit it every year. Whenever my family comes to Maine, I plan one day to take the four hour drive and spend the day at Acadia.

waterfalls of NY

I have always loved being out doors. Growing up in Western NY, I saw beauty every day. Having a large back yard made it possible for me to sit outside on a freshly mowed lawn with a blanket and a good book. When you are in the shade of many different trees and bushes, reading out in your back yard quickly becomes a habit. Lunch at the state park takes on a different and beautiful meaning when talking about Western NY, for most of the state parks there have numerous waterfalls. Growing up, I took the awesomeness of nature for granted. Whenever I take my family to visit the town I grew up in, I take pleasure in in the fact that five minutes from my parents place is this amazing park with three big waterfalls. I also enjoy the fact that there are also three other state parks, maybe more, less than two hours away. I love New York and all of its wonder. Every year, I make it a point to go to Letchworth State Park, and since it is so close to where my parents live it isn’t hard to make that travel. Much fun has been had there, and I will always love that park.

When I was younger, my parents would always take one day out of their busy summer each year and take us girls to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. You can see more of the falls on the Canadian side, and over there they have many shops and touristy stuff to do. To get there, the four of us girls, mom, and dad would all hop in the station wagon and take the two hour drive north. It was always a fun ride and it was amazing to see the amount of water that pours over the cliff.

Last year, our family took a trip two hours south to Watkins Glenn State Park. Watkins Glenn State Park is the most popular state park around the Finger Lakes region and has about nineteen waterfalls. Watkins Glenn is insanely gorgeous when you are walking along the gorge trail. In the summer, we also went to Stony Brook State Park in Dansville, NY. Stony Brook was the first state park that we had been to that let their visitors get in the water and stand below the falls, which of course I did. Stony Brook also has a natural swimming pool at the bottom of a waterfall.

I love the state parks of NY, and I love the waterfalls. I know that we will be back to Stony Brook, and probably in later years we will go again to Watkins Glenn, but whenever we go to NY, we have a mission of finding new waterfalls. If you ever feel like traveling to some place new and have never been to any of these places, I say go. It is a long way from Northern Maine, but seeing these beautiful creations of nature is beyond worth it.

The things Mainers see

I originally came to Northern Maine10 years ago for a vacation after my high school graduation. I intended on being in Aroostook County for 2 weeks to a month at the most, but I immediately fell in love with what Mainers see every morning when they walk out their front door. I did not know what I wanted to do with my life in my senior year of high school, and it took me only 3 months in this great state to realize that I wanted to capture everything that I saw with my camera. My first experience with the natural life of Maine was the second day that I arrived. I came to Maine by buss with a friend and arrived in Bangor at 10:00 pm. I stayed with a relative of that friend the first night, and the second day his brother brought us to the county in way of rout 11. To anyone not from Maine reading this, rout 11 is the back way to the county, and it is also the logging road. It takes about 2 hours going from Bangor to the bottom of the county on the interstate. Rout 11 is much longer than the interstate and the roads can be quite worn in places, but if you don’t mind spending the extra time it is well worth it. Three hours after I woke on my second day in Maine I saw one of the creatures that this beautiful state is well known for, and then 3 more after that. I was stunned silent, which most of my friends and family will tell you does not happen often, when I saw this huge vegetarian beast picking at grass by the side of the road. It was the first moose that I had ever seen in real life, and they do not always look like what you see in nature books and on Television. Most of the pictures that I have seen of moose were of big glorious animals, the males and females were thick with a lot of fur and the males had massive antlers. The truth is that they are only like that in the late summer to the fall. During the winter months, moose lose most of their body weight so when they come out in the spring the poor animals look sickly. The first time I saw a moose was in the first of July, so the moose that I saw on that day did look somewhat ill, they were better than some I have seen. I always loved being out side and loved the sites in NY, but I believe that seeing that incredibly tall animal standing outside my window is what started the deep love and respect that I have for nature today. In NY there were many deer, and deer is all you saw. Though deer are beautiful in their own right, if that is the only thing you see, you get tired of seeing them.

I want my music

I am the kind of person who likes to listen to rock music. I like old rock, and new rock. I like metal and alternative. I do not care much for pop or country music. I also like to listen to the radio to hear the new music. Living in Northern Maine is difficult for me sometimes, because up here, there are no stations that play current rock or metal. Most of the radio stations up in Northern Maine are different. There is a station that plays classic rock, one that plays country music, one that plays smooth listening, and many that play pop music, but there is not one station that focuses on the new and harder rock. In the area that I used to live in, there is a plethora of music stations coming from Rochester and Buffalo, which I could tune into and almost immediately find a new song to my liking, or even an old song from the 90’s that I have forgotten about. There is though one thing that I have to say about one of the stations up here, every Thursday night from 6 to 7, the classic rock station plays music from local bands. They call the segment Back Yard Buzz. Any one who lives in Northern Maine and hasn’t heard it yet has to tune in on your FM dial to 101.9.

If you can't stand the heat, come to the north.

What is the one thing that is on most peoples’ minds, and I don’t mean what happens in the bedroom? I have to say that the one thing that I hear from most people, anywhere I go, is what you do think about this weather. I tend to think a lot of the differences in the winter weather between Northern Maine and New York. Though both places are extremely cold, and both places get snow, that is just about the extent of the similarities. When I was growing up in New York, I thought that there was no way that it could get any colder, but I was wrong. I now realize how warm it actually was down there and sincerely miss the 20 degrees F. weather, especially when it is -10. According to the weather channel, it was 3 degrees in Presque Isle, and 28 degrees in Western New York on 2-2-2010. As any person living in any of the northern states knows, 28 degrees in the winter is not too shabby compared to a frostbitten 3 degrees. It is often this cold in Northern Maine and very rarely in Western NY.

The temperature is not the only difference in the winter weather. You can not forget about snow when talking about northern states. People in Northern Maine often complain about the amount of snow that we get up here. Though Northern Maine may get a lot of snow compared to much of the country, when comparing Northern Maine with Western NY, the western part of NY has definitely got it in the bag. The truth is, the average snowfall for the winter season in Caribou Maine is about 120 inches according to visit Aroostook. It is true that 120 inches of snow is quite a bit, and up here where it is so cold, the snow hardly ever gets a chance to melt. According to Cornell University, the average amount of snow fall on the winter season for Western New York is anywhere from 120 inches to 180 inches. Why does the western part of New York get all of that snow? Well it is because of lake effect snow coming off of the great lakes. The weather channels definition of lake effect snow is when “a mass of sufficiently cold air moves over a body of warmer water, creating an unstable temperature profile in the atmosphere.” This results in a development of clouds that turn into snow showers and storms. The wind then pushes the clouds further into colder weather making the clouds rise higher and the snow to fall even more. Even with all of the snow that accumulates in Western NY, it does not stick around as long as the lesser snow in Northern Maine, because of the increased temps. The lack of snow in Northern Maine makes for nicer driving, but anyone knows that even though there might not be snow on the ground, you still have to be careful in the winter due to black ice. I love the temps and the snowfall in Western NY, when I do not have to go anywhere, but I would much rather drive on the almost bare roads of Northern Maine, than have to struggle to see the lines in Western NY.

My Two Homes

Hello everyone, my name is Mary. I am a liberal arts student at Northern Maine Community College. I consider myself to have two homes. I have found that I am like most people in the school in the sense that I am not originally from northern Maine. I was born and raised in the great state of New York, and though many of you reading this may see New York and think of a callused woman from the rough city streets, I will inform you now that you are thinking of the wrong part of the state. New York is actually a rather big state; in fact, it is almost 55,000 square miles, whereas New York City takes up only 305 of those square miles. New York State is set apart in three sections, Upstate, Western, and New York City. Most people immediately think of the city when they hear New York, but my home town is about a six hour drive from the city in Western New York.


Western New York is not much different from where I am currently living in Northern Maine. My two homes are similar in quite a few ways, but they also have minor differences. Both states are extremely beautiful and vast. I love them both, and miss each one when I am in the other. I often think about the little differences between
the two, the people, the food, the agriculture, the
landscape, and the subject that has been on the minds of the freezing people in Northern Maine, the weather. Since a blog is a place to explore what is on one’s mind, these are the topics that I will be exploring in upcoming entries.
This picture has been provided by google images