To: n0abe@sio.midco.net

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Subject: Travelogue Maine the way life ought to be

X-Via: W9GSS

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The Maine slogan is "The Way Life Ought to Be" We spent about a week touring Maine and drove about 1000 miles so we seen most of Maine.

Maine is where my Dad's mom and dad came from. Both died before I was born. We certainly found a lot of Gray's in Maine.

We entered out of Quebec and went to Jackman, Me. It is the most wilderness part of Maine and you really get the local flavor. We went to Moose Head Lake the largest lake in Maine and and road on the Katadhin which was a working boat on the lake until it was converted to a tour boat. We seen the turn of the previous century resort area of Keno Mt. The boat was out of Greenville and Keno is by Rockville. These are more tourist areas. There are tons of private logging roads that you can go on for free. Some places in Maine they charge but not in this area. We then went to Bangor and took a day tour up to Ft. Kent, far northern Maine and back along the NB border. Ft. Kent and Pisque Island are two very nice town we seen and the scenery was very nice but again more tourist like and retired people living there.

At Jackman we talked to a retired mailman from NJ who had some woodwork for sale and he said you can not make any money in the Jackman area but many people retire as you can live very cheap there and it is great if you like to hunt, fish, ATV, Snowmobile.

We then toured Acadia National Park and it is very nice. We liked Schoodic Point the best. We took a carriage ride on one of the 57 trails. These trails were built by Rockerfeller over 50 years and donated as was the land for Acadia. One can bring your horses there as long as you stay at the concessionair stable and you can ride you bike or hike on all but 7 of the trails. The views from these trails far surpass the car road. It would be nice to ride some of these with a bike or horse! From Acadia we took Hwy 1 all the way along the coast to NB where we were in Lubec which is the fartherest east city in the USA. We got 10 pounds of blue berries froma blueberry farm.. We watched then sort them and pack them with a special machine which I have pictures and will be on the web page when we get home. We seen lots of blue berry patches.

Our next trip was back west on Hwy 2, We stay at Mount Blue State Park and toured the lake country north of there. The scenery here was the best inland scenery of anyplace we have been in Maine. BTW we seen a huge bull moose here. To fast for a picture but he was close.

The scenic roads in Maine are based on foliage change so they all look about the same this time of year. We could of saved a lot of driving but now we know; otherwise I always would of wondered!

Highlights for us was Jackman, trip on the Katahdin, would be great to hike Mt. Katahdin, senic roads north of Hwy 2 north of Mexico, Maine and the carriage ride in Acadia and Schoodic Point with the surf crashing in! The rest is trees, trees, trees, trees which would be wonderful if it were fall color season but that is a month away!

People are nice here and the definitely love the outdoors! We also stopped at Old Town Canoe factory which is a tradition up here and LL Bean also is. We seen just NEW ENGLAND License plates other than a few PA, VA, one MN, two MO and two FL and one CA and one TX and a few Canadian. Nothing else.

In some parts there were small clearings with small grain, hay and alfalfa. Up north were lots of potato fields. Lots of gardens and flowers and many truck gardens with farmers markets so we got plenty of fresh vegtables, sweet corn and black berries and picked some ourselves along the road. The towns have large boundaries, more like townships than towns and every one has a town hall and we seen many Garange buildings that are in use yet today and fixed up and painted so that organization of farmers seems alive and well in Maine. Around the big towns life seems hurried but in the back country life seems very, very relaxed. Everybody seems to want to get out into the woods for the summer and many from other parts of New England spend the summer in Maine at a cabin or trailer or for as many weeks as they can manage. It seems like every second car from Maine has a canoe or Kiyak on top of it.

It is very dry here and the wind hardly ever blows and the bugs were not bad but we have it on good authority that in May, June and July they are BAD! So like Labrador that is the one big, big downside of Maine!

Next we will tell you of our travels in NH, VT and Northern NY.

Ed and Edith

[MID: 1537_W0SD Sent Via: W9GSS Date: 2002/08/31 00:06:37]