806 August 17, 2022 Rain In Maine

I was in a hurry to get out this morning. It was a pleasant walk from the campground and into the town.

The skies were greying as I turned for home. The first raindrops fell as soon as I got back. The forecast was for 100% chance of rain all day.

We were just a short distance from the US border. We entered Maine at Vanceboro. Route 6 was not an easy road. For the first 20 miles it was crowned in the center and skinny with little shoulder. There were lots of cracks and potholes and it was raining. As much as he could, Tim straddled the yellow center line.

We stopped in the town of Lincoln. There was a Walmart there. After almost a month in Canada, there were things that we needed. It was a tiny, itty, bitty Walmart. We left with a few things.

We traveled on to Bangor. Here we went to a Vitamin Shoppe. Tim had been using tart cherry juice concentrate each day for his joints and we could not find it anywhere in Canada. We then stopped at a second much bigger Walmart in Bangor and did a major shopping trip. We thought about staying here overnight but it was still early in the day. It was raining so hard that we wouldn’t be able to do anything outside. Tim decided we would keep driving. We wanted to tour along the coast near Belfast. To get there, GPS took us on a wiggle waggle on narrow country roads. The rain was fairly intense at this point. Once we had committed to this route, there was no easy way out. The only way was forward! The rain was weighing down tree branches and we could hear them grazing the roof of our high profile rig.

Once we got to Route 1, the drive was pretty; through Belfast and Camden and Rockland. Sea harbors with sailboats and lobster shacks. There were lots of fancy houses and inns and bed and breakfast establishments.

We are now at our third Walmart of the day. We will stay here tonight.

We had a wonderful time in Canada. We loved the colorful houses, the abundance of flowers, the kind people. We loved that the coastline was populated by regular folks in regular houses; that you didn’t have to be wealthy to live by the sea. We loved the outdoor spaces; the parks, the bike paths, the hiking trails. We enjoyed using bits and pieces of limited French to get our needs met. We were happy to cross the border and see our own flag waving!