Stories from the Road

Sitting in the car, eating lunch by the ocean, all smiles....

On Day 6 (June 13), we woke up at Christina and Ben Enger’s house, had a relaxed breakfast, and hit the road around 9:00. We had decided to take Highway 1 up the coastline rather than making better time going further inland. However, for the first few hours of the trip, the glimpses of ocean were few and far between, and the road went through every single small town, so our progress was really slow. We did take one short adventure, thinking we would take a little hike to a lighthouse; but on the way out, I turned my ankle. It didn’t hurt very much, but I wanted to let it rest up for the hiking at Acadia, so we got back in the car and kept going. We were a little grumpy at that point and looked for a spot to have lunch. Thankfully, the spot we found cheered us up again! We drove through Lincolnville and saw a beautiful public beach right on the main drag. It had diagonal parking right in front of it, and we took the primo spot right next to the bathrooms. Our view while eating lunch was the ocean beach, with kids on an end-of-the-year field trip romping around and having a ton of fun – plus a few families with small children were enjoying the beach as well. Feeling the ocean breeze, smelling the ocean air, seeing the rolling waves, and hearing children's laughter and squeals just filled me right up to the top with joy. Ahh, on the road again with a full belly and a full heart, the rest of the trip was wonderful. 

We arrived at Acadia National Park at 2:30 and spent about three hours exploring it. We took two hikes and several rambles over the rocks. View after view was breathtaking, and pictures will never do it justice. This is definitely a spot you could spend days exploring, but as it is only a stop along the way for us and not our final destination, we had to keep going.  We left the park and began exploring Bar Harbor for a place to eat and a place to stay. We found a grocery store instead and got what we needed for supper. We found a motel shortly thereafter, with an in-room microwave for heating my supper. R.J. got a salad – no heating required. We ate supper and R.J. read me most of a couple of chapters of Anne before mostly collapsing.

This motel did not provide breakfast, so we ate in our room on Day 7 (June 14). How wonderful for me that Christina Enger had baked bran muffins yesterday morning and sent a few with me! It was a delicious breakfast. As we headed out, I requested to R.J. that if he saw a souvenir shop along the way out of town, he could pull over and I would get a T-shirt that said Acadia National Park on it. We found one – Main-ly Maine! Many, many shops are named “Maine-ly” something or another around here.The cool thing was that they were playing Christian music as I checked out. I had a nice little visit with the clerk. As we were leaving, R.J. found a decorative wooden block that said, “For Ever and For Always,  No Matter What” which he said we needed to get – my anniversary present (along with this amazing trip)!

Our next goal of the day was to make it to West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, the easternmost place in the United States. Check that off our list! We made it there, took a few pictures, saw a seal swimming in the bay, and ate our lunch in the car. With that accomplished, we headed for Canada. On Highway 1, that’s not a direct route, but we did make it! After a quick stop in Calais, ME to exchange some money and get some gas for the car, we headed toward the border crossing.There was a line of cars, so it took us about 20 minutes. We also crossed into the Atlantic Time Zone, so we are now two hours ahead of all you Minnesota folks.

What a beautiful trip it was to St. John! I suppose you might get tired of “hearing” me say that, but I do not get tired of saying it or of seeing beautiful things and places! We arrived in St. John at about 4:30 and had a bit of a difficult time getting to the bed and breakfast where we had reservations; the left turn we were supposed to take was there and gone before we saw it. We drove around a bit, reoriented ourselves, and then found it. It’s not exactly in the posh part of town. In fact, it might even be in the “little bit scary” part of town. We had to use a security phone to “buzz” ourselves in to the place. The owner came to the door, a bit of an absent-minded woman with a very welcoming nature. She changed her mind at least three times as to what we should do first. We signed some paperwork and she showed us our “room” – located behind the main brick building in a little alleyway village of sorts. The room has its own sink, bathroom, microwave, and refrigerator – but it’s all kind of interestingly pieced together. One nice thing is that we are located close enough to downtown that we could walk there so I could pick up some supper. (OK, so maybe we walked past some shady characters and suspicious looking buildings, but it was not a long walk.) We also walked by a very unique central “park.” It’s a cemetery (Loyalist Burial Ground, to be specific) with park benches and a fountain and brick paths throughout. I found this fascinating and made sure we walked through it on the way back from my supper. Plus, the whole downtown area has the fattest pigeons ever – they can barely get airborne. Because the purpose of this walk was to get me supper, I did not have my camera with me to get pictures of any of this. I’m going to see if I can talk R.J. into an early morning walk so I can get a few pictures. It was so unique! This evening, as we sit in our room, we keep hearing random sounds outside. The shades are pulled, and I think I’ll just imagine that they are all friendly noises.

The adventures keep coming. Breakfast is at 8:00 tomorrow, and then we will be on our way to Prince Edward Island at long last!

The front of our B & B

Our Alleyway Village

Our room, on the inside