I had hoped to get to Rangeley Lake in northwestern Maine on Saturday. It's a long way away over mostly country roads and the drive is just so nice that it's easy to get distracted and then not have enough time to get that far.

That's not so bad, because after all the journey really is the destination and it's beautiful country to drive through. We saw farm country, broad vistas, rugged hills and rocky waterways, and the trees were just starting to turn. Evans Notch and Rte 113 were worth the trip alone. And of course we found some real local flavor.

One of my goals all year has been to penetrate far enough into central and western Maine to track down the elusive Maine Red Snapper. In central Maine, the Red Snapper is not a fish, it's a hot dog with a bright red casing. To be honest, the Red Snapper is just like any other standard supermarket hot dog, but it's red. I wanted it more for anthropological reasons than as fine dining! 

There's more food little-known beyond western and central Maine. What's a Needham? It's a chocolate-coated confection made with coconut and mashed potato. That link describes the construction and lore of the lowly Needham, and Annette's rather dubious first encounter with this Maine delicacy.

Speaking of western Maine's foodie delicacies, there are more things that you can find in local convenience stores and farmstands that we typically see in stores dominated by contracts with big distributors. Here we have pickled Fiddleheads, dilly beans, beet-pickled eggs, and more, all from a local pickler, stocked by a gas station in Bethel.

Eventually we headed homeward from Bethel down the internationally-themed Route 26: we passed through Paris and Oxford, Norway and Poland. Just south of Poland Spring we found the serene Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, just south of Poland Spring in New Gloucester, Maine. Not far beyond that we stopped at the D'Ameri Acres Farm in Gray, where I got a beautiful ey of round from their pasture-raised Blonde d'Aquitaine beef. I already know what to do with it - stay tuned! 

So out of such a full day, what gets Best of Show? It has to be the craft beer heaven in and around Fryeburg, centered at the Good Beer Store on Route 302 in Fryeburg. How does little Fryeburg support such an excellent selection? Because it is a mecca for beerhounds on the axis between the world-renowned Ebenezer's Pub in Lovell and the brewers and skiers of North Conway, supported by the excellent annual Fryeburg Fair right at the height of foliage season.

So that's how I got distracted from the scenic beauty of Rangely Lake!