A Los Angeles Times travel writer recently visited Maine’s mid-coast, trying to find “places where floors creak a little.” Kari Howard writes that she was seeking “a bit of America that’s like a half-remembered dream – to a time when books cost a dollar, dinner at the drive-in was as fast as food got and an overnight suitcase was called a “possibilities bag.”

Howard finds a musty book shop in South Thomaston and a store that sells vintage tools in Liberty. In Brunswick, she relishes Cameron’s Lobster House “set in the pines not far from lovely Bowdoin College.” She describes it as “a drive-in dream for anyone who loves mid-century Americana. … When you decide what you want, you flick on your car lights and the waitress comes out to take your order.”