The Large Native American; South Freeport, Maine; Susan Minot & Steve McQueen

Also known as "The Big Indian" and a legacy of the days when Route One in Maine used to be lined with moccasin shops.

In his essay  Home-Coming, written sixty years ago, E.B. White noted, "You can certainly learn to spell "moccasin" while driving into Maine, and there is often little else to do except steer and avoid death."
US 1 from the NH border at least as far as Ellsworth used to have a lot of moc shops. Moccasins and bead belts are what I remember. Mostly tawdry goods. The same shops sold colorful beach towels, and felt pennants with the names of towns-- "Wiscasset, Me." "Damariscotta, Me." But most of those shops are long gone. Now Freeport, Maine is an outlet haven. People come into Maine expressly to shop in Freeport 'outlet' stores that sell badly-made 'outlet' knockoffs of own-label goods, almost everything manufactured in--well, you know where.
(LLBean, I have to say, still delivers the goods at their flagship store, especially the huntin' and fishin' department, where the people really know their stuff, and its still quality stuff. And the LLB bike shop gladly replaced a pair of bike shorts I'd worn out after six years.)

Apart from LLB, though, quality is the exception in Outletville, Maine.
I wish we'd all stop shopping. I really do. It would be good for America. Except for car parts, that is. Used parts. In junkyards.
We need a dose of 'spartan', don't we? Some stringent puritanical spareness. We should all stop communicating so much. Too much talk. Vows of silence are in order. Put down that iPhone.
Be quiet. And stop shopping!
Freeport ME is a mall, posturing as a village. Overweight people stagger about with enormous bags of stuff. I'm sounding like Holden Caulfield here, I realize. And he was, what, sixteen? I know, I know.
People at the dump always seem more cheerful than people at the mall. Why is that, I wonder?
The Volvo wagon is in the Unusually Tall First Nations Person photo to give you some idea of scale, but the car has earned a dose of AL attention. I've been driving it for 17 1/2 years. The V's been across the country several times. I've slept in the back more nights than I can count. The useful thing about sleeping in cars is that if you want to you can wake up in the middle of nowhere; which Steve McQueen thought was a pretty good thing. Old Reliable 850, best car Volvo ever made. Only car I've ever bought (almost) new. Got it when I was at the Macdowell Colony and had just sold a screenplay. Delirious moment, though some people would have difficulty imagining delirious and Volvo in the same sentence. I think mine is the only 850 wagon on this side of the Atlantic Ocean with a 5-speed manual transmission and vinyl seats instead of velour, or that filmy, sticky Chinese leather.
                  And speaking of E.B. White, Stuart Little is one of the best novels about a road trip. Everyone on the road has-or has lost--their Margalo.
Here's some more good writing about driving up into Maine: the novel Evening by Susan Minot.