Maine

This week has been low key and busy at the same time. We headed into Maine! We had a few things to do before we could go there

We stopped at Chutters in Littleton, New Hampshire, home of the "world's longest candy counter". It's really three rows of candy jars, you can buy individually priced, penny candy, or by the pound

 

 

 

Before leaving New Hampshire, we stopped to see the Old Man of the Mountain, or at least where it was!

It crumbled in 2003

That knob of rock up there is where it used to be

 

There were these "profile rods" that if you stood in JUST the right place (marked on the pavement) you could see the Old Man's profile on the knob

 

 

 

 

We got to put our last sticker on for the contiguous U.S.!

 

The first thing we stopped to see when we got to Maine was the "World Traveler Sign"--these are all towns in Maine and the distances from the sign post to the town!

 

 

 

 

We stopped at the flagship store for L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine, there were actually four stores there, all the different products they produce besides clothing AND this giant boot outside

 

 

  

 

The door handles were funky 

We are seeing some fall colors

 

More interesting signs

 

This barn has seen better days!

The dog has shown a lot more interest lately in cows and horses

Lots of houses have their piles of wood ready to go for winter!

 Beautiful scenery as we drive

We went to the Maine state house the next day. We were kind of surprised it didn't have a gold dome! Seems like all the New England capitols have had gold domes.  It must have been fall cleaning or some kind of moving day, there were so many bookshelves and pieces of office furniture in the hallways!

 

Looking up into the dome

 

 

See how worn out the marble stair is? These old capitols have quirky details like this that are so cool to see

You can get stamps at each state capitol. If you want, you can purchase a special book just for the stamps. I didn't know this until after we had seen a handful of state capitols, one or two which were quite out of the way and not easy to go back to. This was our last capitol, they had postcards to put the stamp on, so I collected my first one at my last state capitol! (We still have Hawaii and Alaska, not sure when we will go there!)

 

More moose signs as we drove. We haven't seen a real moose yet. Good or bad?

Do people not understand how roads work? They literally had signs like this hanging OVER the lanes on the road. Don't drive on the left side folks! Center lane for turning only!

We made it to our campground and they had these awesome Adirondack chairs that looked like lobsters!

We saw beautiful sunsets there

 

We went into Acadia National Park one day

We went up to the top of Cadillac Mountain and were watching the clouds literally pass us by!

It was windy! Our dog's ears don't normally stand up like this, not even if she's super interested in something she heard

Lots of islands off in the distance

We took the scenic drive and got out to explore a little

We were very high up from the water, but the dog sure wanted to get as close as she could!

 

It's fall, it's chilly, but there are still blooms! This is yellow toadflax

 

 We drove into Bar Harbor, since it was right next door

We saw lots of lobster signage!

 

We ended the week by going to St. Croix Island International Historic Site. We were within visual of Canada there.

Lots of really cheeky red squirrels around, they are not afraid of anything!

This was a model of the settlement, very small because it was on a very small island

 

The island is the one with the tiny white building on the shore, Canada is behind it. 

The cool thing about this site is that it was settled in 1607, before Jamestown! When it came time to decide the boundary between the U.S. and Canada, the St. Croix River was selected. Problem: No one knew exactly which river is the St. Croix River. Research included digging through documents, maps, and then going to this island and finding archeological remains from 1607 to decide that this was the right river and this river was the boundary.

J and I walked down to the river.

We saw snails, barnacles, and seaweed

Interesting to note that the river has low tide, a very dramatic low tide too! The green is how high the water normally gets

We saw some beautiful old homes on the river as we drove out to St. Croix Island International Historic Site. 

We saw road signs for Canada

 

We were treated to a beautiful sunset that evening

 

We had planned on going into Canada. Between difficulty finding the type of COVID-19 tests that Customs would accept OR the expense (pretty much can't get a test unless you suspect you have been exposed OR pay $100/person to get a test at a hospital...) we decided that we would have to wait to go to Canada another time. We turned around and drove out of Maine and into New Hampshire.

Lots of turning leaves

 

 

Maine's interstate signs have "Maine" on them, just like New Jersey!

Almost to New Hampshire!

 

The Mr. thought this was funny, saw it at a gas pump. Essentials include pizza???

 

Lots of states have signs similar to this for the freeway on ramps. I find them interesting and amusing what they include

 

 

We found a friend at our campground on our walk to the bathrooms in the dark