That’s it.

I am selling Cobb Manor, lock, stock and lawn mower. I am moving to Machias, eating at Helen’s Restaurant three meals a day and marrying a waitress at the famous, revived eatery on the Machias River.

We arrived at Helen’s on the second anniversary of the fire that leveled the famous (pie) restaurant on Route 1. My Honda guides itself when it approaches the New Hampshire Liquor Store or Helen’s Restaurant. I have no choice.

If you live in Camden, Maine, you get used to beautiful women. Believe me. But Helen’s is something unique. It started when blonde maitre d’ Cassandra showed us to our table. One waitress was prettier than the next. It was hard to concentrate on the menu. But I knew strawberry pie was a must.

I must digress. Many years ago, I made two trips to Helen’s for strawberry pie. Well, I came for the Sunrise Bike path, which is next door. But the pie was the real attraction. On both occasions, the kitchen had run out of strawberry pie. It is that good. I wrote a hilarious — I thought — column about my misfortune. You may laugh, but the column was saved and placed on the restaurant wall. I couldn’t be prouder. Forget the Pulitzer Prize; Helen’s wall was the top, the Coliseum.

Well, the restaurant — and my column — burned to the very ground. On the wall today is a blueberry pie, one of the few relics that survived. It was (heavily) shellacked and placed on the new wall with a singed Machias Fire Department hat.

The place is so famous for its pastry that the pulchritudinous staff sports “Death by Pie” T-shirts. (I would have bought one but they didn’t have any in XXXXL size.)

The cover story of the trip was that Jefferson Phil and I would camp at glorious Cobscook Bay, then bike (some of) the 85-mile Sunrise Trail. But you have figured out the real reason by now, haven’t you?

On the first night I had the fabulous $9.99 pot roast. I stopped eating prematurely to save room for the strawberry pie. Yes, they had plenty this time. God, it was heaven served by another beauty. (What is in the water up there?) I took the delightful pot roast leftover to camp in a Styrofoam container.

Naturally, we arrived at dark at the campsite. We always do. It was apparently Pearl Harbor Day for the Cobscook mosquitoes. They attacked in waves. My duty is to erect my L.L. Bean tent. I had JP hold up the center while I spread the poles and pounded stakes. “Hey!” JP shouted from inside the tent. It wasn’t a good “Hey!”

Uh, oh.

Here is what he said next. “There is a hole in the tent.”

JP isn’t often correct. But he was right this time. It appeared that an entire corner of the tent had melted! I envisioned the mosquitoes dive-bombing us all night long through the hole. But JP is a resilient SOB in the woods. “Got any duct tape?”

As a home repairman, I am close to useless. Only Grima is totally useless. But, I have the great and good sense to keep duct tape around me all the time. I have two rolls in the car and two more in the York Box, which follows me on every camping trip. Duct tape is as important as beer.

JP held the inside and I taped the outside. In five minutes the — shoddy but effective — repair was complete. Not a single mosquito made it through our barrier.

I slept quite soundly in a six-man tent with only two men. I barely roused when I thought I heard the cooler closing. The cooler? When I heard it a second time I got up with my high powered flashlight — I have a dozen. I searched the campsite. Nothing.

It wasn’t until the delightful morning dawned that JP investigated the larder. “Did you eat the pot roast?”

Uh, oh.

Our friends, the raccoons, visited overnight and ate the pot roast, Chips Ahoy!, a pound of ham and God knows what else. Strangely, they left a whole barbecued chicken. The cooler lid closed behind them to hide their grand theft.

We managed breakfast from the remainders. But you know we went back to Helen’s for lunch after a — very brief — pedal on the bike path. It was 84 degrees.

I decided on apple pie.

“We don’t have apple pie,” said the waitress, no longer my favorite woman on earth. She explained that the demand for apple pie diminishes in the summer, so it is considered a “seasonal pie.”

I argued weakly that blueberries were far more seasonal than apples, but blueberry pie is on the menu 12/24/7. I came all the way from Camden for the apple pie, I added.

“I don’t make the rules,” she said winning the argument. I suffered through a magnificent piece of blueberry pie.

They better put this column up on the new wall, just to make up for my bitter disappointment.

(FYI, when I complained to the staff at L.L. Bean, they replaced the tent. No charge. No questions asked. )

I like duct tape. I love L.L. Bean. But I adore Helen’s.

Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the Bangor Daily News in Rockland for 30 years.