Bangor, ME

 Sometimes Jeopardy is unique in its tastes about what to ask, but then it coincides with something you know personally and deeply, and it's an easy answer: Today's Jeoaprdy asked in the $1000 question (hardest clue) of the Jeopardy round for the third most populous city in Maine (along with another "hook" in the clue about Get it on, Bang a Gong, song by T-Rex, but pretty much you were on your own to come up with "Bangor," a city that would barely qualify as a town in other metropolitan areas, weighs in behind Portland and Lewiston as Maine's 3rd largest city at roughly 30,000 residents, also an hour's drive from the Bar Harbor-Acadia combo of cities. Having recently been to Bangor (and stayed there overnight) due to MJ being from an even smaller town in Maine, Bangor is.......not exactly a bustling city, intersected by the Penobscot and even having its own airport (nice job!) If only Camarillo, CA, population 70,000+, that would make my life easier. It reminds me how most of America actually lives outside of cities in these small towns, away from the large urban areas and the bubbles that most of us are accustomed to. Outside of Bangor was the Cole Land Transportation Museum with model tanks and other vehicles strewn about, and then several paintball facilities and rural markets all around town. It's definitely one way to live life; just don't count on any showings of "Swan Lake" at the local opera house or anything. The hotel actually still offered breakfast included in the price, I don't expect those anymore except if living at the Hi Hostel in Chicago, it seems the fancier the hotel the more likely they want to charge you for a fancy breakfast or get you to dine at one of their fancy chain restaurants for fee, but every time I go to a outskirts- sort of city, voila there's breakfast included (although this particular breakfast spread wasn't very good, made me actually miss the good ol' HI Hostel days of Bananas and peanut butter bagels). 

Lobster in Maine? Overrated, although I had only one taste of it. Lobster everywhere tastes pretty damn good, no need to go to the famous places for it. I find it a pretty smart marketing strategy by a state or city to market one of the more expensive items on any menu and encourage all vistors to order it, thus generating more revenue for the city. I guess it's better than Nevada's appeal for having the best casinos to throw money away- most of tourism is really marketing to get people to travel more to pretty mundane places. I've heard of so many "sandy beaches" and "scenic shorelines" in my life; they all feel pretty much the same, it's the ocean and then the sand. You don't have to go around the world to find the best beaches.

Maine's a pretty lonely and quiet place, but its "major cities" like Portland as well as some famous areas like Kennebunkport (George W. Bush lived there) put it outside the top 8 of U.S. least populous states. The least populous states in the US are  1.) Wyoming (not suprising, that is a drive-through and flyover state), Vermont, and Alaska. Even Rhode Island (just too small to have many people, although Brown University's an interesting college town) is No. 6 and has more people than S. Dakota or North Dakota. It's just a big ask to live in the middle of nowhere, America: no big cities around, no major rivers, no historic signifince.