The MAINE Attractions

During the last week of August, Kent and I took a nine-day, 2, 900 mile road trip through Maine, three Canadian provinces, and New York state. I thought I'd start of with the highlights of our delightful visit to Maine. As you can see from the pictures, we had perfect weather! Temperatures in the 70's and sunshine.

The first day of our trip we just drove from Virginia to Boston, Mass, and stayed with my sister overnight. We headed out at 7am the next morning and drove to the southern coast of Maine. This was our day for seeing lighthouses and eating lobster rolls! The lighthouse below is called the Nubble Lighthouse.

We saw a sign for this wildlife refuge and knew we had to stop, since our daughter-in-law is named Rachel Carson!

We arrived in Kennebunkport, Maine, which we'd heard of because the Bushes have a summer home there.

We pulled in to town in time to buy a lobster roll at the Clam Shack. Since it was only 11:30am, we beat the crowds that were lined up an hour later.

 We saw the "Wedding Cake House" which is a landmark in Kennebunkport,

and below is a picture of the Bush home.

Our next stop was the Portland Head lighthouse,

and then on to the city of Portland. We drove to the harbor area and bought another lobster roll at the Portland Lobster Company.

This was my favorite lobster roll because I liked the bread it was on the best.

Our last stop on this first day was the "Desert of Maine", a freak of nature so that a large deposit of sand was left after the glaciers receded thousands of years ago.

We spent the night outside of Bangor, and day two of our trip found us at Acadia National park just as it opened at 8am. We were delighted to find out that it was a "fee-free" day!

We drove up to Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest point on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. We walked around the top of the mountain and saw some good views of the park.

As we were on our way to our next stop, we passed through the towns who started the "Wreaths Across America" program. Kent and I have helped to distribute the wreaths at Arlington Cemetery, and we knew the program originated in Maine, but didn't know where until we were driving through.

The lighthouse below is called the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, and is at the most eastern point in the USA. It was foggy as we drove to it, but it cleared up as we were looking around.

Here's a close-up of the marker, which you can see behind us in the photo above, with the two people looking at it.

The town of Lubec, Maine, is the easternmost TOWN in the United States.

Our last stop of the day was St. Croix Island, an international historic site, shared by both the U.S. and Canada. It marked an early settlement of the French.

As we headed into northern Maine, away from the coast, we saw lots of signs like the one below.

The friends we visited in northern Maine took us out on their boat on the lake just down from their house, and this is the view we had.

We had to check out the city of Fort Kent, way up north on the Canadian border.

That's where we saw the beginning of Route 1, which starts in Maine and ends in Florida. It runs through our county in Virginia just a couple of miles from our house.

And last, but not least, we visited the little town of Madawaska.

It's claim to fame is that it's the most northeastern town in the United States, and calls itself one of the four corners of the US. The other corners being in Florida, southern California and Washington state.

As you can see, we had a magnificent time exploring the state of Maine and managed to see lots of cool places in the four days we spent there. Now that the post is done, go through and count how many colors of polo shirts Kent was wearing in all the photos!!

Adventures North of the Border

 We actually passed in and out of Canada from Maine three times from three different points in the state. but for convenience sake I'm going to put all the pictures from the three provinces we visited in Canada on the same blog post. 

Our first stop in Canada was at the Roosevelt Campobello International Park, where FDR had a summer cottage. We had a nice picnic on the grounds of the park before we toured the home.

Yes, the home behind us is considered a "cottage" because it wasn't insulated against cold.

This was the lighthouse near the Roosevelt Cottage.

We drove across the 7.8 mile bridge from New Brunswick into Prince Edward Island.

We just had to take a picture next to this classy sign!

The scenery on PEI was pretty farmlands and picturesque churches, like the one below.

 Our first stop was the homestead site of Lucy Maud Montgomery.

 There was also a recreated home, as described in the Anne of Green Gables books.

This was at the visitor's center, where we saw a short film. The Anne of Green Gables books put PEI on the map and accounts for most of their tourism.

While on PEI we stopped in at a local church for a lobster supper.

 There were several courses besides lobster, and we had a good meal.

Here we are at the New Brunswick Visitor's center.

 Near the city of Moncton, which is where we stayed, were some rock formations known as the "Hopewell Rocks". When the tide goes out in the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 40 million tons of water are displaced. These are some of the largest tides in the world.

 When the tide is out it's possible to "walk on the ocean floor" and to see some Dr. Suess-like rock formations.

 We arrived there just as the park opened and the tide was out.

There were some pretty steep stairs to get down to the ocean floor.

 We left long before the tide came in, but it would have been neat to see it again when all the rocks were covered with water.

Our last stop in Canada was in the city of Quebec. We drove through the province of Quebec, which was very pretty, also, and all the signs were in French.

 Quebec City reminded us of a European town.

 The hotel behind us is the landmark of the city. It will make an appearance in a few other photos we took.

There were stone walls around the old city, which is where we spent our time.

 The fortress of Quebec has a changing of the guard ceremony similar to the one in London.

These soldiers were dressed like British soldiers, but they were being given their orders in French!

 The mascot of the company of soldiers was a goat, so he came out onto the parade ground for the ceremony.

One last view of that famous hotel, taken from the fortress where we watched the changing of the guard.

 We really enjoyed the sights we saw in Canada, and you can see we had fabulous weather every day!

More from June

My parents came to visit for about five days in the middle of June, and while they were here they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. As a surprise, I invited my brothers and sister to come for their anniversary.  My older brother couldn't come, but my younger brother and sister did.  My parents were very surprised!!

At my piano recital I had a cake for my parents anniversary. I also ordered some music from e-bay, and played on the piano some of my mom's favorite songs from the 1960's.

I took Mom and Dad to the National Museum of the Marine Corps, which isn't far from our house in Virginia. They really enjoyed it.

In this photo my dad is posing with a survivor from the Battle of Iwa Jima from World War II.

Here's a group photo of all of us on our porch.

Latter in the month I went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, where they displaying the original hand-written page by Frances Scott Key of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

I picked Kent up from work and we went to Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

This is the fort that was under siege during the War of 1812 when the "Star Spangled Banner" was written.

We also went to the National Aquarium,

and walked around the Baltimore Harbor.

Another fun outing was to see the Broadway production of "Beauty and the Beast", which was playing at Wolftrap, a National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia.

The unique aspect of this theater is that it's open-air and people can pay less to sit out on the grass. we paid extra and sat closer to the stage. It was a delightful show.