Maine-Maritimes Trip - August 6-11, 2014

These are the pictures from our trip to Maine, New Brunswick, and a tiny piece of Nova Scotia, from August 6 to 11, 2014. Pictures are taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S9000, Cathy's Canon A540 and iPhone cameras. The pictures are linked from within the text description below. Many are roads and signs, but there's a lot of scenery and people, too.

August 6: Amsterdam, New York, to Kennebunk, Maine

We started from Amsterdam early afternoon, following a busy morning of errands and other prep. Our only real stop was for lunch from Chick-fil-A in Chicopee. We arrived in Kennebunk [Picture] early in the evening at Jay and Lara's. After finding waits too long for dinner in the Kennebunkport, we found a tasty dinner at Duffy's in Kennebunk. [16 Pictures from the Roads]

August 7: Kennebunk, Maine, to Amherst, Nova Scotia

This was the longest travel day of the trip, so there wasn't much time for sightseeing. We did take time for a quick tour (and bell ringing) at Lara's church in Kennebunk [2 Pictures], then made a stop at LL Bean in Freeport [9 Pictures]. But from there it was a lot of driving. Up I-95 through Maine, with only a couple gas stops and one scenic view of Mt. Katahdin [5 Scenery Pictures][1 Kid Picture]), then through Canada Customs between Houlton and Woodstock. From Woodstock, we drove the Trans-Canada Highway on New Brunswick 2 all the way to Nova Scotia. Our only stop was for dinner at a little diner called McCready's attached to a gas station at Youngs Cove. We crossed just into Nova Scotia for the night, staying in Amherst, completing a day with a big missing segment of I-95 filled in, plus 2 new provinces, and one new time zone. [48 Pictures from Maine Roads] [24 Pictures from New Brunswick Roads]

August 8: Amherst, Nova Scotia, to Saint John, New Brunswick, via Fundy National Park

This was Fundy National Park day. We were on the road after breakfast at the hotel in Amherst by about 9:30. We drove up through town [7 Pictures] and made a little loop back to re-enter Nova Scotia in daylight. Then up to Moncton, where we drove through town a bit [6 Pictures], filled the tank, and headed out Route 114 toward Alma [Picture], where we entered Fundy National Park [Picture]. Our day in the park consisted of a quick stop for pictures at a turnout near the headquarters visitor center [7 Scenery Pictures][5 People Pictures], lunch from a little place in Alma, then a walk on the beach just across from Alma, a couple hours after high tide [32 Scenery Pictures][19 People Pictures]. We could see how much the tide was going out just in our time there and decided to come back to the same beach around the time of low tide. In between, we drove to Dickson Falls, where we hiked in to see the falls up close [32 Scenery Pictures][16 People Pictures], then drove to the covered bridge over the Point Wolfe River [10 Pictures]. After that, it was a stop at the main visitor center [2 Pictures]. Then, back to the beach near Alma to see how far the tide went out. It was completely amazing how low the water got. So low that we decided a walk to the main water's edge was just too far [21 Scenery Pictures] [34 People Pictures]. It would have been great to stay to see the tide come back in, but that would have been a long time to stay around, and we had to drive to Saint John for the night. Once we had enough walking on the ocean floor, we returned to the visitors center briefly to clean up a bit for the ride. We made just one more stop in the park, at a scenic viewpoint, where the view of the bay wasn't so great with the rain, but where a deer was walking nearby [2 Pictures]. After the park, we made a stop at a grocery store in Sussex, and to get takeout from Swiss Chalet to take to our room in Saint John West. [33 Roads, Signs, and Scenes Pictures]

August 9: Saint John, New Brunswick, to Bangor, Maine, via Acadia National Park

We left our substandard Comfort Inn in Saint John West and first backracked a bit to see the Reversing Falls in Saint John [13 Scenery Pictures][People Picture]. They were flowing upstream as high tide was approaching. We then looped up through the center of Saint John to get back on New Brunswick route 1 toward the U.S. We got off the highway in St. Stephen to spend most of our remaining Canadian cash on Canadian chocolate brands [3 Pictures]. We crossed into Calais, Maine, with about a half hour customs delay. After a gas stop there, we made the long and scenic, but faster than anticipated, ride down Coastal US 1. The quality of the road was generally better than I expected and the speed limits were usually 55. We grabbed some lunch at Joshy's Place in Milbridge [2 Pictures][People Picture], and got to the Acadia National Park visitors center by mid-afternoon. We bought our park pass (at the first VC) and souvenirs (at the main VC) and decided on a plan for the rest of the day. We started by going into Bar Harbor and parking to check out the tidal pools between the town and Bar Island (which wasn't an island at the time) [11 Scenery Pictures][28 People Pictures]. After our fill of that, and before the rising tide chased us out, we took the ride up to the top of Cadillac Mountain for the spectacular views of the park [18 Scenery Pictures][8 People Pictures]. By then, we needed to get on our way to Bangor for the night, where we arrived around 8 PM. [68 Roads, Signs, and Scenes Pictures]

August 10: Bangor, Maine, to Kennebunk, Maine, via Acadia National Park

We got a pretty early start from Bangor after a good night at the Comfort Inn there [Picture]. The ride back to Acadia was pretty quick. Our first stop was a return to Bar Harbor to see the area between the village and Bar Island at high tide, to contrast with our low tide visit the day before. Completely different [7 Pictures]. We then started our trip around the main park loop [6 Pictures]. We made a quick stop at one scenic overlook then arrived at our biggest stop of the day: Sand Beach. We spent a couple hours, starting at high tide, enjoying the incredibly scenic spot [12 Scenery Pictures][24 People Pictures]. Next up was the Thunder Hole, which was putting on a decent show now with the tide about half way out [9 Scenery Pictures][12 People Pictures]. And finally, we stopped to walk on the rocks and to check out more tidal pools near Otter Point [13 Scenery Pictures][5 People Pictures]. That was it for us for the park itself. We hadn't had lunch, so we drove down to Northeast Harbor in search, but didn't find anything quickly and gave up. We did see a deer eating in a yard and then crossing the street, though [7 Pictures]. Our lunch/dinner stop ended up being a very good one, at the Lobster Pound and BBQ Pit [2 Pictures] in Trenton on our way off Mount Desert Island. From there, it was a long but scenic ride along US 1 and Maine 3 through Belfast and Augusta, where we picked up the interstates to take us back to Kennebunk for the night. [35 Roads, Scenes, and Signs Pictures]

August 11: Kennebunk, Maine, to Amsterdam, New York

After a little walk through Kennebunk, we got on the road mid-morning. Our plan was to grab something from a bakery we were told about in Ogunquit, so we started out going down a very slow US 1. Ogunquit was so overflowing with cars and people, we had no hope of stopping, so we carried on. We ended up instead having a really good lunch from Anthony's Food Shop in York, then got onto I-95, I-495, and then the Mass Pike. We made a quick visit in West Springfield, then back on the road for the familiar ride the rest of the way. With, of course, some Hot Harry's takeout to bring home at the end. 1846 miles total for the 6 day trip.


terescoj+pics@teresco.org - Wed Aug 13 22:24:46 EDT 2014