Maine Trip By the Numbers and One Last Lighthouse [The Trip Home]

So, here is our trip by the numbers:

2,049 - miles traveled
     13 - nights on the road
       7 - places stayed (1 public campground, 5 private campgrounds, 1 relative)
       2 - countries visited
       9 - states/provinces visited
       3 - kayak paddles
      13  - blog posts
       2 - times crossed the 45th parallel (half way to the North Pole)
     11 - meals of locally caught seafood (2 lobster, 5 clams,  2 scallops, 2 fish)
       4 - lighthouses visited

We have fallen in love with the upper coast of Maine.  As we traveled home and  south on Route 1 we were struck by how prosperous the towns seemed from Bar Harbor southward.  Gone were the abandoned buildings, and peeling paint that we saw as we traveled the northern coast.  Instead we saw slick and shiny, old-timey New England buildings and tourists everywhere.  It made us miss the quiet and undiscovered, but economically depressed, region we had just left.

Our first stop as we headed south was Bass Harbor to have lunch with our friends Simeon and Haley who were camping there.  Not only was it great to see them, it was fun to visit one of  the "less frequented" parts of the Acadia National Park region.   There were still lots of people but nothing as crazy as the times we have been in Bar Harbor.

We got to the Camden area that first night, and set off on the second travel day stopping for lunch in Portland (see previous post).  That second night we stayed in York Beach which is home to 2 lovely sandy beaches (known as Short Beach and Long Beach) and A LOT of tourists.  They also have a perfectly beautiful lighthouse on Cape Neddick, also known as the Nubble light because it sits on a Nubble Island.  Locals say it is the MOST photographed lighthouse in New England.  [Is every lighthouse someone's most or second most???]

We spent the third night in lovely Locust Lake [Pennsylvania] State Park, and arrived home early the next afternoon.

We added Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and New Brunswick