Last Sunday Nicatous Lake looked more like the Atlantic Ocean. The wind was howling and the waves were pounding with white caps everywhere. Ok, this didn’t look like a great day to go bass fishing, so what to do??

It turned out to be a perfect day for an ATV trip. We left our camp and headed out on the trail that goes around Sabao mountain to the 42-00-0 road. Yep, that is the way that the roads are named in this remote part of Maine. No names—just numbers. We are traveling on dirt woods roads which stretch every which way so remembering the numbers comes in pretty handy. There are no houses out here, just miles and miles of dirt road. I carry a GPS but never did learn how to really use the darn thing. I’m in the lead with hubby following. He is the better navigator but it is sooooo dusty back there! He lets me take the lead and when the roads confuse me, I just stop and wait for him to tell me which direction to go. Is that love or what?? But I digress.

After traveling for about twenty miles, we turned on to the 60-00-0 road and tacked on a tree was a sign with an arrow pointing that said “Reggi’s Way”.  As we traveled down that road a few miles we passed another sign. This one was larger and was in an adirondack chair. It read “Reggi’s Way Camp” and also hot dogs, soda, chips, coffee, etc.  Now this may not seem all that strange to most folks but you have to remember that we are on ATV’s and have traveled about twenty-five miles and haven’t seen a building—just mile after mile of dirt road. Traveling another couple of miles we came upon the chair to the right which read that Reggi’s was just a quarter mile away. By this time we were really intriqued and we were ready for lunch.

We continued a bit further down the road the road where it crosses between the Getchell Lakes. This is when we decided that Reggie must really have a sense of humor because this is what we saw (photo to left-click on any of these photo’s to get a larger view).  Yes, that is a skelton fishing in that canoe. Again, here we were in the middle of nowhere. We had gone thiry miles or so and had not seen anything but an empty campsite at Third Machias lake.  Still not knowing what to expect, we kept on driving. As we came around the corner a sign appeared that said to watch out for the dogs. Dogs!! Yikes. I am really afraid of dogs and by now I was really hoping that we were talking about friendly dogs. As that thought ran across my mind, low and behold, right on the side of the road was a small camping trailer with a picnic table, another picnic table in a screened-in tent and a couple of trash cans. We had arrived at Reggie’s Way!

We stopped just beyond the trailer and a big dog (gulp) came out to greet us. He was a friendly dog, thank goodness. Reggie appeared a few minutes later apologizing for not being right there when we had arrived. Seems that some careless campers had left a campfire burning somewhere on the lake. Her significant other and another friend of theirs had been helping two other guys to put the fire out. Reggie had just come back from taking the fire pump to them.

 Reggie is a very friendly lady that smiles a lot. She took our order and proceeded to cook it. Needless to say, she can’t make things in advance out here in the boonies because she is never sure how many folks will show up.  We had a nice cold soda and our hot dogs were soon ready.  Reggie came out with a basket of chips that she also sells (part of the hot dog special).  She then ran to her camp and came back with a basket of brownies.  Needless to say, we each had to try one of her homemade brownies. The food at this “diner” has a very modest price. She is just trying to make a few extra dollars. She also has jelly and jam for sale from the  wild berries that she picks. There was even a basket of VHS tapes that she was selling for a dollar each because they had seen them enough.

Reggie and her significant other have lived on this lake year-around for the last few years, including last winter which was one of the worst that we have seen in Maine in quite some time. I don’t think that the roads are plowed. That would mean that they would need to leave a vehicle at a place that is plowed and snowmobile to it when it is necessary to get supplies. Phone service in the area is sporadic. It takes a tough breed to stay the entire winter in a remote area like this and for sure, Reggie is one of those folks. 

While we were eating, her significant other, Chip, and their friend, Ted, who had turned into impromptu fire-fighters, came back to the camp. They, too, joined into the lively conversation. Reggie gave us a “Ted” stone where she had painted a likeness of Ted, who has a large belly (sorry Ted, but you really do). When my hubby asked who was the artist, she replied—”me, what else do I have to do out here“, she said with a smile. What else, indeed?? Seems to us that Reggie must never sit down.

If you are in Township 43 and see a sign that says “Reggi’s Way” be sure to follow it and say hi to Reggie & Chip. Tell them that you found them on moosetique.com.

As an add-on to this post, I would like to mention that after finding Reggie’s Way, I came home to do an internet search to see if anyone else had found this eatery in the middle of no where. I found a blog that is titled  “The Giddy Garden Gnome” and found that she had found another part of Reggie’s business (did I not tell you that Reggie was a very enterprising woman?? ).  Click on the Giddy Garden Gnome link and scroll about half-way down the page to see what Giddy and company found last fall while out for a ride. Yep, Reggieis one enterprising woman!