February 25 - Maine

The weather has actually been pretty good for a change this past week, and is supposed to hold through most of next week. That will be nice!

No luck on the apartment search so far :( I looked at a few places a little south of here the other day. One was tiny - the bedroom would barely hold a queen-size bed, let alone a bureau etc. The other was a little bigger, but still quite small and came with a lot of fees that were amazingly left out of the ad (that was sarcastic). Non-refundable application fee, which is high by even Maine standards, and while they did allow cats it also came with a pretty hefty non-refundable pet fee. Are you serious? Upshot was it would have cost me almost $3,000 to move into a small apartment. In a money order as they do not take checks or credit cards (really??). No thanks.

Back on the hunt Friday for something further afield, as the farther north and inland you go the less expensive rentals are. And I am in a bit of a time crunch here. My intent was to make appointments for Monday (or even this weekend if possible), but the property management companies all seem to close quite early on Fridays here and are not open on weekends. I do have a list of several places to call first thing Monday.

Rentals seem to work a little differently here in Maine than Massachusetts in that most are handled by above-mentioned property management companies. They all charge a non-refundable application fee, but the fee varies by company. Most rentals do not charge first/last/security, just first & security. The pet fee thing kind of boggles me. I can understand an extra security deposit (reasonable!), but non-refundable? For cats?? Nope. Again, depends on the management company.

Stay tuned for the apartment saga. I am feeling a bit pressured here as I do not have much time to find a place, and I have a LOT of stuff.

I had intended to do laundry yesterday, but the apartment search was a higher priority. Got busy doing things around the place today, and the time window passed before I knew it. I do have to go out tomorrow, so I am aiming for then :)

I will try to remember my camera, as there are some beautiful shots to be had up here. Because of my geographical location, one can see both the sunrise and the sunset. If you look at a map of the coastline of Maine, it rather resembles a cookie someone has taken a few bites out of. (Use your imagination!)

Because the coastline is so jagged, there are a lot of peninsulas where this phenomena can be found. Other fun facts about Maine: the Gulf of Maine has over 4,000 islands - more than the rest of the entire East Coast of the US. Maine also has 5,785 lakes which cover about a million acres. There is, however, some dispute as to the difference between a "lake" and a "pond", although in the scientific community the difference is in depth. Ponds are shallow enough to sustain plant life, whereas lakes are not. So technically a pond could be larger than a lake (although not as deep).

Not surprisingly, Maine makes the list of the "top 50" coldest places in the US. It currently ranks #3, topped only by North Dakota and Alaska. Portland ranks #32 on the list of the top 50 coldest cities, and while not the capital it is Maine's largest city.

Your trivia for the day!

Stay tuned, my friends. I hope to have more information (and pictures!) next week.