Eastbound to Westbound Redux

Traveling west from the Thousand Islands, the general plan was to follow the southerly shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie and across northern Ohio and then jut northward thru western Michigan along Lake Michigan. We have always wanted to visit this part of MI as it has some beautiful beaches and pretty countryside. But first we had to get thru the heavy and very busy urban corridor of Buffalo-Cleveland-Toledo-Fort Wayne, IN. When doing large scale planning for the trip back a few months ago, I figured this would probably be the least interesting part of the trip and most likely the toughest driving segment with heavy traffic, crazy Interstate highway truckers and other aggressive drivers. These corridors almost always have traffic slow downs from accidents, construction and just plain too many damn people all trying to get to the same place at the same time. So given all of this, we decided to just bite the bullet and bang it out, in as little time as possible. Instead of our usual and p...

 We left Acadia NP last Monday and started heading west. But first we had to travel south to go west and that meant retracing our steps back the other way as we came in to Acadia on US Highway 1. If you continue following this highway all the way south your end point would be Key West, FL. Not going quite that far south, maybe next trip. Seems we will be going south about as far as the Penebscot Narrows Bridge where, you loyal followers may recall, we missed our chance to ascend the bridge observation tower when we previously came thru here due to fog. But today looks splendid and bridge observations from 440 feet up should be a go. This is really a cool bridge structure, so glad we had another opportunity to get a real close look at her. The observation platform is at the top of this tower. A look from the tower northeasterly towards the direction of Acadia NP. View of the LD and Fit from 440'. At this point we picked up US Highway 2 heading west thru very serene Maine coastal vil...

 We've spent the past week in Acadia NP and what a majestic beast she is! About as far east as we can get and it's now westward and home. So when Acadia received NP status in the early 1900's, John D. Rockefeller made it his personal ambition to create miles of walkable trails and "carriage trails" within the newly designated NP. A man of massive wealth, derived solely from oil/gasoline products, he purchased a summer home on the island and had the foresight and intuition to see that automobile traffic could potentially mar a place as beautiful as this.  A 1930's era overlook built on one of the Carriage Trails...well done JD. A pretty typical view of the carriage trail in Acadia NP. I find it ironic that the man mostly responsible for capitalizing on motor fuel products would develop over 40 miles of paths solely for the use of pedestrians and NON motorized traffic (carriages at the time). Good for you JD, I like where you're head was at.  But, he built s...

 After a wonderful 10 days in Salem we bid our fair adieu's to family and headed north to Maine.  Crossing 3 states in a matter of minutes we cross over the ME state line and enter self proclaimed Vacationland, "Maine"...at least that's what their license plates say, we'll have to give this a good investigation to verify that claim. Based on seeing the number of out of state plates, RV's, pick up trucks with all sorts of outdoor equipment hanging off of them, seems ME may be on point with their message. We are in transit to Acadia NP located in Bar Harbor, ME about mid state and easterly on the Atlantic coast. As mentioned previously, this is about as far east as you can get, so after Acadia we will be heading westward towards home. Upon entering ME, we pull our usual move when arriving in a new State, hit the first welcome center, bag a State highway map and haul ass. These places are great for that purpose and that purpose only. Mostly they're filled wit...

 Wow, what a blast of a week (actually 10 days, but who's counting? Certainly not me!) we had in Salem, MA. That one ranked right up there my friends. I could probably end this blog post with those two statements but let's give you guys some filler so you can get the gist. The main event of the week was the marriage of my sister Sue and Bill Dumont and what a fine wedding it was. A Salem harborside venue with all of our closest family members and friends in attendance to witness the vows exchanged between two of the best people I know. But, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself...the wedding was this past Saturday evening and we arrived in Salem over a week ago so let's back up a bit...more on the nuptuals later. We had reserved a camp spot on Winter Island at the entrance to Salem harbor back in February. At that time we were not sure if C-19 would thwart our plans or if Debbie's knee rehab would be OK. So we rolled the dice, made the reservation and damned if we didn...