Oxford Casino Hotel & Event Center is located at the southernmost point of Maine’s Lakes & Mountains region. Whether you’re in the mood for boating across a massive lake like Rangely Lake, Moosehead Lake, or calmly canoeing or kayaking around a smaller lake like Hobbs Pond (aka Little Pennesseewassee) or the Five Kezars, or fishing on something in the middle like Pennesseewassee Lake, Thompson Lake, Lake Christopher, Raymond Pond, Crystal Lake, Highland Lake, Keoka Lake, Moose Pond, Long Lake, Maine is filled with 2,677 lakes and ponds ready for a myriad of freshwater activities. While the fishing is excellent in the warmer months, we don’t put away our fishing gear as the weather turns cooler.  In the winter, when our bodies of water are covered by a thick layer of ice, folks dress in warm layers of clothing and auger a hole to enjoy ice fishing to their heart’s delight! For competitive anglers, Maine is a bastion for ice fishing derbies!

Cold weather never slows folks from enjoying snowmobiling over 10,000 miles of trails across Maine’s ITS (Interconnected Trail System) when there is a nice snowpack. Snowshoeing and cross country skiing is offered all over Maine, Roberts Farm Preserve, in nearby Norway, Maine provides 7.5 miles of groomed trails. Alpine skiing is less than an hour away at Sunday River, Lost Valley, Shawnee Peak, and Mount Abram, or you can travel a little further to Sugarloaf, Big Squaw, or the Camden Snow Bowl.

If you’d rather stay indoors any time of year, shopping is always fun. The Maine Mall in Portland and the original L.L. Bean store in Freeport are great options, as are any of the Reny’s Department Stores across the Pine Tree State.  If you don’t mind finding a parking spot and breezing in and out of shops, Maine’s downtown communities are always an interesting way to spend an afternoon. Downtown Norway offers brew pubs and friendly restaurant options as well as interesting shops that include an old fashioned book store, a yarn and wine shop, jewelry shops, a farmers’ co-op, an art supply and framing store, and art galleries. There are too many interesting downtown communities to list here, but Bridgton, Portland’s Old Port, and Boothbay Harbor are all great places to browse.

Maine’s hardwood forests provide brilliant fall foliage to the wonder of leaf peepers who arrive in tour buses making stops at apple farms and sugar shacks who sell their maple syrup from the previous spring’s run. In addition, Maine moose population is the largest in the lower 48 states, which may be why the moose is Maine’s official state animal. Moosehead Lake’s Loop Road provides travelers with the highest likelihood of seeing a moose in the wild (if you know where to look). Mucky bogs are a favorite moose hangout. Moose sightings are also greatest in the western lakes and mountains, the Kennebec Valley, the Maine Highlands, and Aroostook County at dusk and dawn from mid-May through July and in the fall during their breeding season.

As you head back from your day leaf peeping and moose viewing, make a stop at one of Maine’s many orchards for a warm, apple doughnut. Wallingford’s in Auburn is abuzz with visitors in the fall, and Ricker’s regular and hard ciders are offered to the public year round.