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East End couple bravely attends off-peninsula gathering

Angela and Donald Emerson, self-proclaimed lovers of Portland, didn’t quite know what to do when they received an invitation to a retirement party in North Deering, a vast and little known expanse of wilderness right here in Portland, Maine.
            “Um, does anyone even live out there?” Angela laughed, clutching a Hilltop Coffee Shop mug in her hand.
            Donald pondered if they should even make the risky 1.5 mile trip to the mysterious hinterland. “We can’t walk there from here,” he remarked, his eyes serious under furrowed brows, “and that’s just too far away to bike. We would have to take the Prius.” Given the considerable danger of traveling a mile and a half, Angela and Donald almost called it quits.
            Still, Angela wanted to honor her manager’s retirement, so the couple prepared for their odyssey. They fully charged their cell phones in the case that North Deering was, as they had heard, off of the electrical grid. Both made phone calls to close family members to let them know what to do if they didn’t return.
            “Do you think we’ll lose reception?” Donald wondered aloud to Portlandish staff. “Maybe I should just put my phone into airplane mode once we cross 295?”
            At the time of printing, the couple had loaded up their car in preparation for their daring adventure into the dark unknown. They brought a map, a compass, and a water purifier as well as emergency flares in the case that they became stranded. They also decided to wear their matching Portinsula shirts so that authorities would know where to send their bodies in the case of emergency. 
            "I can't believe we're doing this," Donald said to Angela. "Whatever happens today, just know that I love you."

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