It's so refreshing, liberating to take a driving vacation, something we hadn't done in awhile. No worries about how/what to pack, no airport hassles. Just throw everything in your car and pull out of the driveway. Having control is a good feeling. And I planned to take full advantage of the car as a pack mule. This was a wing-it trip — the best way to go when you can. Except for the first night, we had no hotel reservations, so could decide which way to go, and where to stay on the fly.

If it's September, this must be Canada. It was, and that's where we were headed, this time via down east Maine. Once we got north of all the rush-hour traffic and craziness of the lower coast/city areas, we let out a sign of relief. And because it was (just) after Labor Day, northern Maine was uncrowded, peaceful and we were one of the few cars on the road — perfect. It was a pretty and different kind of area: some large lakes, just inland, and reddish hillsides covered with post-harvest blueberry plants.

We spent the first night in Machias— a quiet, funky town in the eastern part of the state. Though the focus of the trip was the Maritimes, we did some down east exploring the next day. This area needed and deserved a lot more than a few hours, but you do what you can.

We dipped south to the coast to see Cutler —a small harbor with lobster/fishing boats and some cute homes and a church. Their ocean is actually the Bay of Fundy. It extends and narrows to the northeast, doing amazing things every six hours — more on that in the next sections.

We continued north to Quoddy Head State Park, visiting the West Quoddy Head Light and the small museum in the attached building. The lady in charge was very enthused about her lighthouse — how nice to have a job like that. We could see Grand Manan (Canada) and Campobello Islands (US) across the channel. There's another island further south — Machias Seal Island — that's a bone of contention. Both the US and Canada are claiming it as their own. Some day I want to get out to one of those islands to see the puffins!

Then we did an end-around and back "down east" to get to Eastport — the easternmost town in the US (though I've heard Nantucket make the same claim). It's a unique area geographically. Several small islands are considered part of Eastport and the drive out to the town center takes you on causeways that connect the different land masses. It's a spectacular setting with all the hilly islands in Passamaquoddy and Cobscook Bays. It would have been great to be on a boat, cruising the waterways. The town was shutting down for the season as we arrived. We walked around, visited some shops (the best was a old-fashioned hardware store that had everything), the library book sale, the pier and had a shake. A lot of warm brick buildings in a warm, friendly place.

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We pressed on, back on Route 1 going north. It ran along a channel of Passamaquoddy Bay — across the narrow waterway was Canada: first Deer Island, then the St. Andrews peninsula. A beautiful area ... unfortunately that was it for Maine. We crossed the border at Calais and set foot in St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

To New Brunswick »