Newsy bits and pieces from all over Maine

• TONIGHT: It’s not too late to Eat for Pete’s Sake, a Humane Society of Knox County fund raiser to benefit homeless animals . See previous posting.

• FREE! Don’t you love that word? The National Park Service has waived entrance fees to Acadia National Park this weekend, June 5 and 6, as well as Aug. 14-15, Sept. 25, and Nov. 1. Saturday, June 5, is National Trails Day, so go hike one of the park’s rehabbed classics in its honor.

• CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION: “Winslow Homer and the Poetics of Place” opens at the Portland Museum of Art on June 5 and remains on display through Sept. 6. The exhibit, in honor of the centennial of Homer’s death, showcases PMA’s collection of about 20 watercolors and oils by the noted artist. It’s the first time since 1988 that all the works will be on view in the Charles Shipman Payson building. The museum owns Homer’s Prouts Neck studio, which is undergoing restoration and expected to reopen in 2012.

• HUT, TWO, THREE…Maine Huts & Trails has begun construction on its third full-service, back-country hut. This one’s about two miles below Grand Falls on the Dead River, and will be accessible by foot, bike, ski/snowshoe, and self-propelled boat .  “Construction of Grand Falls Hut, more than 15 miles of new trails and a spectacular 200-foot pedestrian bridge over the Dead River completes the first phase of our vision,” Herring said.

• ISLAND ESCAPE: Nebo Lodge, on North Haven Island, has undergone a renovation and expansion, which included the addition of a new bar and fireplace, new deck and courtyard, new entryway, enlarged kitchen, expansion of two guest rooms. The lodge, owned by congresswoman Chellie Pingree, is open to the public for dinner. Its teamed with Equinox Island Transport to offer roundtrip transportation on the last two Fridays in June, and every Thursday in July and August. Depart Rockland, have dinner, and return the same evening; transportation is $20 pp. 

• TWEET! Aroostook State Park is hosting a Birding Festival, Saturday, June 12. Highlights include: guided hikes led by seven of Maine’s top bird; birding by boat from Echo Lake; a live-bird demonstration of raptors; bird-house building for youngsters; and a group of artisan wood carvers demonstrating nature and bird carving. According to Park Manager Scott Thompson, this year’s festival emphasizes diverse birding experiences. “We’re here for more than just fishing and hiking; there’s a whole world of nature to explore and to learn how this park relates to Maine and the park system.”

• FEELING BLUE? You might want to ink the Saddleback Bluegrass Festival on your calendar for the weekend of Aug. 6-8. Featured performers on Saturday include: The Jerks of Grass; Darol Anger, Scott Law, Sharon Gilchrist and Sam Grisman; The Stowaways; The Infamous Stringdusters; Mason Strunk; The David Grisman Bluegrass Experience; and The Del McCoury Band. Additional performances over the weekend will include The Mueller Family and Erica Brown & The Bluegrass Connection.

Ogunquit Restaurant Week starts June 7

Ogunquit has wakened from its winter slumber and is encouraging visitors to come hang out on its beaches, browse its art galleries and museum, and mosey the Marginal Way, and rewarding them with Restaurant Week Ogunquit deals. From June 7-15, participating restaurants (see below) are offering breakfast-for-two for $15, lunch-for-two for $20; and a three-course dinner for $25 pp. In addition, diners will be given a Discount Card to be used at other businesses throughout town (see way below).

Participating restaurants:

Alisson’s Restaurant: dinner
Amore Breakfast: breakfast
Angelina’s Ristorante: dinner
Bartley’s Dockside Restaurant: lunch, dinner
Beach House Grill: dinner
BeachFire Bar & Grille: dinner
Bintliff’s Restaurant: breakfast, lunch, dinner
The Blue Elephant: dinner
Blue Water Inn: dinner
Cape Neddick Inn: dinner
Cape Neddick Lobster Pound: dinner
Chowders: lunch
Clay Hill Farm Restaurant:dinner
Egg & I: breakfast, lunch
Feile Restaurant & Pub: brunch Sun, dinner all week
Fisherman’s Catch: lunch, dinner
Five-O Shore Road: breakfast Sat, brunch Sun, dinner all week
The Front Porch: dinner
Gourmet Express: lunch & dinner
The Hayloft Restaurant:breakfast, lunch, dinner
Jake’s Seafood Restaurant: breakfast & lunch
Jonathan’s Restaurant: dinner
Katie’s on Shore Road: dinner
Old Village Inn: breakfast & dinner
Post Road Tavern: lunch & dinner
Prime Restaurant: dinner
Raspberri’s Restaurant: breakfast
Roberto’s: dinner
Roost Cafe & Bistro: breakfast, lunch, dinner Thurs – Sat
Tapas & Tinis:Wild Blueberry Cafe: lunch, dinner

Businesses offering discounts on the Discount Card

Animal Instinct: 20% off
Baby Instincts: 20% off
Breaking New Grounds: 25% off
Caffe Prego: buy one gelato, get one free
Cape Neddick Country Club: 15% off pro shop purchases
Emporium Gifts & Collectibles: 20% off **
Genesis Day Spa: 20% off
Gorges Grant Hotel: 15% off full room rate (excludes packages, promos, and other discounts)**
H&M Crumpets: 20% off
Harbor Candy Shop: 20% off
Julie’s Ristorante & Provisto: 10% – 50% off select items
Juniper Hill Inn: 15% off
Maine Limousine Service: 10% off
Mariner Reosrt: 5% off
Massage Studio: 20% off
Ogunquit Museum of American Art: $1 off admission and 10% off in shop
On The Main Jewelry & Gifts: 15% off (excludes Pandora jewelry) **
Pizza Napoli: 10% off
Sacred Movement Yoga: 15% off
Scotch Hill Inn: 10% off
Spoiled Rotten: 15% off
Sundaes at the Beach: 20% off cones or sundaes
Wells-Ogunquit Resort Motel: 5% off
Yardarm Village Inn Wine & Cheese Shop: 15% off
Your Body Works Massage & Day Spa: $10 off any one-hour treatment
**other exceptions may apply
cannot be combined with other promotions

Splurge and save at the Inn by the Sea

Through May 26, write a $35 check to Habitat for Humanity, and save 50 percent, Sundays through Thursdays, on a two-bedroom beach, cottage, or loft cottage at the chic, ultra-green, four-diamond, oceanfront Inn by the Sea, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. With the donation, rates range $134.50-$169.50. While you won’t see the special advertised on the site, the rate pops up when you click on reservations and enter potential dates for an overnight or two.

Act quickly, and apply your savings toward the Chef Tasting Menu, served through May 15, in the inn’s ocean-view Sea Glass Restaurant. Chef Mitchell Kaldrovich prepared this six-course New England with a Twist dinner at the James Beard House in New York in February 2010. The price is  $75 per person, or $110 with wine flight, and includes:

amuse bouche
• lobster and seafood ceviche
• roasted beet carpaccio
• pan-seared jumbo scallops
• Atlantic cod and lobster “chowder”
• red wine braised beef cheeks
• local apple crostata

Alternatively, you might splurge at the inn’s spa. Or just reap the savings and enjoy beach strolls, walking through inn’s certified butterfly and bird plantings, or simply plunking down in a lawn chair and enjoying the serenity of listening to waves rolling into shore and birds singing. A boardwalk above a marsh and path through the dunes connects the inn to Crescent Beach; really, it’s quite idyllic.

And here’s a tip: If you stay overnight, order the crab cakes Benedict for breakfast, then keep in the seafood mode with lunch at the nearby Lobster Shack at Two Lights.

May midweek spa special at Stage Neck Inn

If you’re itching to take advantage of this early season warm spell and want to enjoy a bit of pampering, too, check out this deal at the oceanfront Stage Neck Inn, a AAA four-diamond resort property in York Harbor. The midweek spa package includes overnight lodging, with spa treatment (choose from four), hot buffet breakfast,  four-course dinner, and use of resort facilities (indoor atrium pool and Jacuzzi, fitness room with co-ed sauna, seasonal outdoor pool and clay tennis courts, beach, and 18-hole private golf club privileges), at rates beginning at $205 per person based on double occupancy, $295 single. Package is available Sunday through Thursday, through May 29.

This is a great location for prowling around the Southern Coast: walking and sunning on the beaches, shopping Kittery’s outlets, admiring the region’s historic architecture, and visiting historic sites and forts.

K’port lodging deals at the Nonantum

Kennebunkport is one of Maine’s first coastal towns to awaken from its winter slumber, and the riverfront Nonantum Resort has a few noteworthy specials for its opening week. The resort is a pleasant stroll from Dock Square, the jumble of fishing shanties turned boutiques, and it provides easy access to Parson’s Way, an oceanfront walk that takes in crashing surf, lovely homes, St. Ann’s Church, and Walker Point.

Earth Day 40th Anniversary Weekend special

The Nonantum has a super package with the National Estuarine Research Reserve, Laudholm Farm, part of the a 2,250 acre coastal jewel that’s a must-visit on anyone’s list.The Saturday-night (April 24, 2010) package includes workshops, tours, and Making a Greener Path: The hotel is promoting using alternative transportation—bicycle, walk, Rollerblades, etc.—for the 6.2 mile journey to the reserve. Even better, the booking the package requires a $40 donation to the Laudholm Trust.

For $129 plus the donation, you receive:

• One night lodging in the Portside Lodge

• Sunday breakfast with artist Barbara Moon

• Participation in the Making a Greener Path alternative-transportation walk/run/ride to the reserve.

• a Tom’s of Maine gift basket (love the toothpaste)

•  Earth Day activities at the reserve

• a sapling from the Arbor Day Foundation to plant at your home

Add Friday night for $99, including the Saturday morning Earth Day Benefit Breakfast.

Opening midweek special

Consider sticking around for this steal, open to anyone: The Nonantum Resort is offering river-view rooms in its Portside building for $79 per night, including breakfast, April 25-29, 2010. Yes, it’s midweek, but still, that’s one heckuva deal and a good reason to slip away for a couple of nights.

NOTE: You can’t book these deals online; you must call the resort: 800-552-5651.

Tee off at Sunday River

Sunday River knows how to merge the seasons: It ends its ski season today, and plans to open its golf club on Friday. Now through May 31, Golf-and-Stay Getaways begin at $99 per person (plus 18% tax and resort fee) at the Bethel (actually Newry), Maine, resort; package includes one round of golf, cart, lodging at one of the two Grand Resort Hotels, and breakfast. The 18-hole, Robert Trent Jones-designed championship course has has been named Maine’s top course for five consecutive years by Golfweek magazine.

Hint: Remember the black fly rule—Mother’s Day to Father’s Day—and plan accordingly

What’s happenin’ in Maine: events and deals

A few news and notes from around Maine, re: events, activities, deals, and what-not over the coming week:

• Eat! Shop! at Flavors of Freeport: Opens tonight with Chefs Signature and Libations Gala ($25 at the door, Hilton Garden Inn); continues Saturday with lifestyle demonstrations, physic readings/ film, block party; and runs through Sunday with a seminar, followed by card exchange.

• Make spring turns at Saddleback: Lift tickets are $25 for this weekend; mountain slated to close on Sunday. Mountain is predicting to operate at least two lifts and opening 25-50% of its terrain, with a few top-to-bottom trails.

• Get creeped out at It’s a Bugs’ World (think hissing cockroaches): Opening at the College of the Atlantic’s Dorr Museum of Natural History, Bar Harbor, on April 15. For a real treat, don’t miss the opening reception,  5-7:30 p.m., featuring insect hors d’oeuvres (not kidding–edible insects), as well as entertainment, including screening of a classic entomological horror flick.  Exhibit runs through June 5. Museum is hands-on and a must for kids.

• Reward yourself for filling taxes at DeansSweets second-annual Free Tax Day Truffle: Dean’s, on Middle Street, in Portland, is offering one free truffle or caramel to anyone who comes in the store between now and midnight on April 15 (and yes, it’s staying open that night to reward last-minute filers).

• Plan to party at Sugarloaf’s Reggae Festival: The mountain is offering an all-inclusive package for the April 15-18 event (lodging at the Sugarloaf Mountain Hotel, daily lift ticket, concert tickets to Inner Circle on Friday night and Kenyatta Hill on Saturday Night, plus daily breakfast, for $158 per person per night).

Two for the weekend: fish and shrimp

If you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend in Maine, consider these two events: L.L. Bean’s Spring Fishing Weekend, today through Sunday March 21, and Celebrate the Shrimp, all day Saturday, March 20, in Rockland.

• Spring Fishing Weekend

If you’re angling to catch some free fishing know-how, cast your line into this event at Bean’s Freeport flagship store. It kicks off with a free fly-tying clinic tonight, and continues Saturday and Sunday with demonstrations, lessons, seminars, contests, and book signings with the “legends of fishing.” Most events are free.

• Celebrate the Shrimp

Here’s a tasty Rockland Maine Street-sponsored event. It runs from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., and includes free admission to the Maine Lighthouse Museum to 1 p.m.; a shrimp walk; shrimp tales at the Rockland Library; a shrimp cook-off with chefs and foodies competing in separate categories ; shrimp picking and handling demonstration; free historic trolley tours of the city from 2-4 p.m., and a special Shrimp Art Walk between local galleries from 5-7 p.m. Of course, local restaurants will be featuring shrimp specials.

Restaurant Week Maine continues for some

A number of restaurants are extending their Restaurant Week Maine specials. These are listed with links on the Restaurant Week Maine site.

– Anglers Seafood (3)

– Bacari

– Cappy’s

– DiMillo’s

– Five Fifty-Five Lounge

– Harraseeket Inn

– Johnny’s Bistro & Bar

– Pepperclub/Good Egg Cafe

– Slate’s Restaurant and Bakery

– Thomaston Café

In addition, Natalie‘s, at the Camden Harbour Inn, just announced that it plans to continue its $20.10 bar menu and its $40.10 fine dining menu through March.

For all, be sure to call first to confirm availability and details.

Wicked good Maine lift ticket deals

Yes! It’s finally snowing in western Maine’s mountains: No PR hype here, I’m looking out my window near Sugarloaf and it’s white, white, white, with snow predicted to continue into Thursday. Total accumulation? Forecasters are using the word feet. So dust off your skis and snowbaords, and take advantage of some of these lift ticket deals at Maine’s mountains. I’ve rounded up the best, and presented them alphabetically, below. NOTE: Some are midweek only; at the smaller areas, be sure to check hours of operation.

Black Mountain of Maine: $29 full day, any day.

Camden Snow Bowl: Two-hour lunch ticket, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, $12 for any two hours between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Mt. Abram: 2 for 1 Thursdays, two lift tickets for $49; Carload Fridays, $75 for everyone legally seated in a passenger car, SUV, or minivan.

Saddleback: 2 for 1 Wednesdays, buy one adult lift ticket for $49 and the second one is free. Also, $35 lift tickets, as indicated, on: Maine Day, first Sunday of each month (Maine residents with ID), Monday/Ladies’ Day, Tuesday/Telemark Day, Wednesday/Men’s Day.

Shawnee Peak: Carload Mondays, $79 for everyone legally seated in a passenger car, SUV, or minivan; Two Fer Tuesdays, $57 for two; Thursdays Men’s Day/Friday’s Ladies’ Day, Lift and Lunch $40

Sugarloaf/Sunday River: Frequent Skier Card, $89 includes one ticket plus $25 off midweek, $15 off weekend/holiday; E-Tickets, purchase online at least four days in advance for 10 percent savings. At Sugarloaf only: Maine Day Wednesdays, tickets are $30; valid Maine ID required.

Titcomb Mountain: $15 midweek, $25 weekend/holiday