Lights Out in Freeport

That's the interior of the L.L. Bean mother ship in Freeport, Maine. "She Who Must Not Be Named" and I had just checked out with our purchases and were rearranging the bags for a trip back to our hotel when the lights went out. A collective "aaah!" sounded through the store as people were pitched into deep dimness. It was sort of spooky wandering around the interior with only emergency lighting on. I did notice, however, that the cash registers never stopped ringing up purchases.

Ah, capitalism!

Outside was worse. A steady rain poured down on the crowd surging through the shopping area. Wet didn't seem to bother people, though. They kept on shopping right up to the point where the stores closed. Then came the sound of sirens -- LOUD sirens, rushing past us as we resumed our sodden walk down the street. Must be a fire somewhere.

Then "She" remarked, "I think I saw one of those trucks turn in at the hotel!" Indeed they did. When we arrived the scent of smoke was on the air, the place was surrounded by firemen moving purposefully here and there, the staff was standing around talking among themselves, and a crowd of befuddled guests stood warily in front of the main entrance, wondering what to do next.

We were lucky. We had already checked out before going shopping, and had packed everything into the car, so we were ready to move on and leave Freeport to its fate, but now the problem was how to get out of the parking lot. The entrance was blocked by fire equipment and it was clear from the behavior of the firemen that they were not leaving soon.

Well, we were doing nobody any good standing in front of the entrance, so wet and weary we trudged back through the rain and loaded our purchases into the SUV. I dug out a detailed local map looking for a way to get out of town while "She" stood in the pouring rain in the middle of the lot with a cellphone, calling some friends of ours to explain that we would be a bit late meeting them.

The map showed no exit from the lot except for the one blocked by the fire department, but maps aren't very reliable at that scale, and I had noticed a car moving around in the lower portion of the lot a few minutes earlier. It was no longer there and must have gone somewhere. "She" was skeptical and was sure we were doomed to sit for hours in the lot, but I pointed out that we were, after all, in an SUV and could go off road if necessary.

Off we went, moving slowly, peering around, looking for an exit.

Ah! Success! There was an unmarked alley leading off the lot at the far end. It connected onto a back street [also unmarked on the map] and that took us out to another street from which we could loop around and back to the highway several blocks away from the traffic jam in front of the hotel.

Sodden, but in high spirits, we set off down the road in search of our friend's cottage.

Later our friends told us that the power outage affected the entire town of Freeport and that the fire at the hotel had been contained easily. The traffic snarl had been pretty bad, especially since it came just as the shops were closing and people were heading home with their purchases, but it cleared up eventually. Freeport is back to normal.

Good thing that. We'll be coming back through that way in a few days, and "She" has a lot of shopping left to do.