Not as weird as New Hampshire. Not at all.

They also seized the hand because it's illegal to possess such a body part.

And that's why I always wear mittens.

Last night, I found out that even the discount motels in Maine are very expensive ($70+ a night for a double bed? It's MAINE. There's nothing there but Canada!) this coming weekend. But hey, I'll be able to say I slept in Bang0r (Bangor? I damn near killed her!)

Eideteker: it's summer. You'd never suspect, but the entire world comes here for a week in the summertime. A Vacation in Maine is part of the American Dream, apparently.

It is pretty great here, though, so I can't blame them. But if you come any time other than July and August, it'll be much much more affordable.

Ahh, Maine. I used to spend my summer vacations up there, in the Western Mountain Region, visiting my grandparents. They lived in Farmington. Besides my aunt's farm in Pennsylvania, Maine is my favorite place on Earth. I was lucky enough as a young adult to travel to Acadia National Park, and camp in Bucksport. In Bucksport, myself and my friends arrived on a Sunday, and were directed to a seafood restaurant in town that was just about to close for the night. They stayed open for four people from New Jersey, and I had the most fabulous fettucini Alfredo with Lobster Tails I have ever had. It's been about twenty years, and I still remember that day fondly. Love Maine, always have.

I dunno, arse_hat...NH has the Free Staters, who are downright scary, and the Hill Abduction is class A weird, though it happened a long time ago. But for small oddities during the standard course of daily life, Maine is winning. Maine has the charming handcrafted souvenirs of the Maine State Prison Showroom, the Desert of Maine (complete with fiberglass camels), Needhams, a candy made out of potatoes and dipped in chocolate, candlepin bowling (of which I partook last night), and a scale model of the solar system installed along Route 1.

It is the most unique state of all the ones I've lived in.

West Virginia is a pretty weird place:

Mystery Hole

Moth Man

It might be hard to decide between the two.

I love me some Maine. We vacationed here a couple summers when the girl was wee. I highly recommend it.

Speaking of Maine, one of my very dearest friends lives in Portland and she's in town this week. Yay! I'm going to see her this afternoon. She is many varieties of awesome and makes me feel like a crappy human being. No, seriously. Her husband is a composer and music director for a church. She stays home with their three kids and home-schools two of them. They have no TV, no computer, no cell phones. They read. They sculpt. They paint. They make music. She cooks all their food from scratch. Bakes their bread. She sews. SHE MAKES SHOES. She's devoutly Catholic in a way that makes her thoroughly compassionate and committed to social justice.

I, on the other hand, can barely brush my hair on a daily basis and have days when I'm so brain dead I can't even read the Monitor section of EW. I am SO lame.

Of course they kept it in a box, why would anyone throw out a perfectly good farm-accident souvenir hand?

Some years ago, I was listening to the radio, and they were doing a "News of the Weird" or some such thing. A man had killed himself by hanging himself from a tree in his yard. Neighbors had seen the body, but they didn't report it because they thought it was a Halloween decoration.

The DJs posed this question to their listeners: what state did this happen in? They gave four or five choices, one of which was Maine (I don't recall the other choices).

I guessed that it was Maine, because it sounded like something out of a Stephen King story, and many of his stories are set in Maine.

I was right.

"The previous owner claimed she had gotten the hand from a man down the road, who is now in his 80s and remembers his father having the hand."

Why, this is practically a family heirloom! The police should give it back.

I'm surprised nobody built a reliquary for it out of soda straws and fishing flies.

Not as weird as New Hampshire. Not at all.

Ha! My husband and his family are from New Hampshire. They've told me more than once that people from Maine are very strange. Hmm, I thought it was a bit strange that they lived in a town with a population of 100 and owned carnival rides, but I guess they don't.

They say that the entire state of Maine is wacky. My mother if from Nova Scotia, does this make her even wackier?

Yeah, we're oddities, all right.

I'm typing with two such hands right now. Shhhhhh, don't tell the law.

I spent a week in Port Clyde a few years back (warning--old Tripod site, lots of pop-ups). Mid July, and had to use the fireplace one night. Great fun, but, yeah, those guys are weird.

Darling, I don't even have to read the link to tell you, YES. And New Hampshire comes in second.