By Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
    By Memorial Day weekend, my inner tourist starts to emerge and I find myself making a mental checklist of all of the events and places I want to check out in the approaching summer months.
    It is not unlike me-a true Type A personality-to sit down and make a list of objectives for the summer. The lists always include outdoor concerts, festivals, and possible road trip destinations.
    The Greater Portland area has a respectable offering of outdoor concerts from artists both local and far away. In my opinion, there is nothing better than an outdoor concert. For one, you usually don’t have to pay admission to drop in on a concert in the park. There is no need to reveal the contents of your purse to a stranger and you don’t have to flash a neon bracelet to a bouncer if you want to leave and come back.
    Free concerts also offer an opportunity to check out a band or a musician that you otherwise might never see because who wants to shell out money for an act you don’t have any strong feelings about? For example, in years past I attended a Don McLean concert and an America concert, both in Maine for L.L. Bean’s Summer Concert Series.  
    The only thing I knew about America was that they sang a song about a horse having no name. I went to the concert with my boyfriend at the time and I actually recognized a lot of their songs. Once they took the stage, we also realized that earlier in the evening we had overheard the band members discussing whether or not they should purchase some chino pants while in the area.
    The Don McLean concert is a fond memory for me as once again I forced the aforementioned boyfriend to come along, but many members of my extended family including aunts, uncles, grandmother and cousins also attended. We squished into a small patch of open space on the lawn and sang our hearts out to American Pie, which if memory serves me, he played three times throughout the evening.
    Getting back to past lists, I also made an attempt to take in some culture via various festivals, whether it was an outdoor art show or a Greek festival. I know at least one list included the Yarmouth Clam Festival and although I strongly dislike seafood, I jotted it down because it seemed to be one of those true blue Maine events.
    I haven’t made any summer lists recently, but I am always thinking about road trip destinations. Contradictory to my tendency to make lists, I also love to just pick up and take off to a new place. It never fails to surprise me that there are still so many places in Maine that I have yet to see.
    Hopefully, I will have a chance to visit some of those new places this summer. Among those locales are some traditional tourist destinations, but I also like to wander off the beaten path so to speak.
    Just because I have a Maine license plate, it doesn’t mean that I don’t also brake for ice cream stands and carry a camera to capture the sun as it slowly disappears where the ocean and horizon meet.