From Portsmouth, NH to Ellsworth, ME and then into Acadia

Ah the coast...it felt great to get back by the ocean after running inland for so long

So after leaving West Chesterfield I knew I was headed to the coast. My plan was to ride the #1 all the way up the coast of Maine eating lobster rolls as I go and loving the mixed emotions of being almost back to canada...but on the other side of the world with a big question out there....what do I do when I get there?!?

The Lotus Elise...fabulous!!

Getting back to the dense population of the coast meant a lot of stop and go traffic as each small town drops down to 30mph somewhere along the main line. But that is when you see the best stuff, stop for the best stuff and realize just how many people there actually are and what a monumental task it is to affect change on a grand scale. From Prince Rupert, BC to Perry, FL and up to Portland, ME everyone is living pretty much the same. The driving force of advertising rides alongside every step this generation takes. No one knows the difference anymore between a movie and a sponsored movie with product drops and placements. In movies like the century of self there is some critical analysis of our current situation and I love watching things like that for a perspective on today. Advertising drives product manufacturing and purchasing and that is what we do today from north to south, east to west....buy shit. walmart is coast to coast, front to back, home depot, shoppers drug mart, dollarama...the force of consumerism isn't a product of capital markets, capital markets are a product of consumerism because they allow excess. We've backed ourselves into such a corner that locally owned and operated businesses have to charge as much or more for locally owned and grown just to survive against the big stores which puts them at an automatic disadvantage. And along with the disadvantage is the knowledge that if you price to compete then you continue the drive through the world of consumerism as a willing passenger unwilling to affect the market by pricing for your own survival over pricing for competition. Right now pricing is for competition and price fixing is rampant world wide from corporate headquarters to small farms. Selling something for a certain price because you can is a practise I could see less of. When I was younger wood was free when camping. Then when camping turned into a privatized business they started charging for bundles. Now across the entire country the price is fixed simply at $5 a bundle with no multi bundle discounts. No how did wood from Prince Rupert to florida become the same price? That's price fixing and it happens from your beans to your cars and into your gas...and small businesses that continue the same model perpetuate the same results. We need to get into a just enough instead of a all I can get mentality to break the model.

If the US is ever attacked they have no shortage of weapons on hand. I secretly believe that every Legion has a working vehicle or weapon that's at the ready for the inevitable invasion or controllable civic uprising

Awesome food truck! I didn't eat there but it's apparent that if you are going to have a food truck, putting time into getting something cool and unique is as important as having good food to serve.

Drove by Herbs in Kennebuk, Maine ... Root Beer...Lobster rolls...commence drooling!! I tried to drive to the nearest park but ended up at a motel lot dining in the van. So good....so right

Action shot...and to show that at 2 weeks you can't see a single hair on my cheeks

I have been dining on lobster rolls every day since leaving West Chesterfield. Mark got me started by teasing my appetite at a local bbq joint and with a belly still calling out for me I had my first lobster roll of the trip....a monster was born!

My food budget exists entirely for lobster rolls, all other necessities are being put on hold....at $5.50 to 12.00...it's just wrecked. hahaha...and I love it!!

The funny thing about something as marvellous as lobster coming from the prairies is that you hear the other side of the story when you get to the coast. Like the fact that you could always tell a poor fisherman's kids back in the day because they always had lobster for lunch instead of peanut butter. They also used to feed lobster to the inmates because there was so much of it. I'm a huge fan of lobster but if it was an endless life of lobster dinner and iron bars I may begin to dislike it...a little.

Drove by this waterpark...wild looking stuff. I tried to get a shot of someone coming out of the tube but wasn't able to time it right. You spin right through the vortex there pulling a full 360 on the slide

Rockland, Maine (my pics saved out of order, not sure where this is actually) Cloudy morning but a great day for reading. Grr to crap on your camera lens

As the fog lifted I found a different vantage point. Seems that they have a sizable river that runs right under the main street in town and down this granite path towards the sea!

There were a bunch of signs painted like this. For the record...I fully support public vandalism like this

Feet on the beach!! (one of the many beaches along the coast)

Pretty awesome

The one place I should have stopped but didn't.It looked so cool but I missed the turn and quite frankly I was cruising and loving it, decided not to turn around...got to ellsworth and marked another thing that I will be back for

The ultimate way to travel when on the ocean

When I got to Acadia National Park my "fly by the seat of my pants" method of travel got a spoke in the wheels. Turns out that I arrived on a day that the seasoned park ranger said he's only seens once before in 20yrs and that every single campsite in the park was occupied. National, private, tent and rv..full as full can be!! I thought...dangnabit...and drive the chariot to the Ellsworth walmart to make a plan. Now I hate using the walmart lots. They provide a safe place to sleep for sure and I have used them more than once but since I hate walmart it feels wrong (and in a way right) to stay in their lot without doing any shopping there. It was however right there off the highway and was in a great location to make a decision.

The next morning after having an encounter with a couple of road rats that had been on four wheels for the last 10 years straight, their current vehicle being a chevy Astro. It was neat to talk to them as the guy had been to a bunch of rainbow gatherings and earlier in the year I had considered attending the national gathering in Cherokee national park. After talking with him (rainbow name - Wild Turkey) and also the info I gathered from Nick (Pagan) I'm happy that I didn't go. It sounds like it has morphed into something that isn't as pure as it should be and hanging out with 30000 dirty hippies for a week needs to be a pure thing :)

Lamoine State Park while deciding what to do about Acadia being so busy. Turns out that wild blueberry pancakes are delicious anytime but by the ocean X5

Wild Blueberry Fest!

So when I woke up I thought about trying the park again but then thought not...and headed towards the nearest state park Lamoine State Park. I have to thank the person who ran the kayaking business as I used their address to say that I was a Maine local and got 2 nights for $14 each instead of $25 for a non-resident. I should have been doing that for my entire trip but I didn't actually think about it until then....funny how that works.

Lamoine is great, sites are a bit weird but the view from the beachwall, the access to Lamoine State Park Beach (1 mile down the road)...couple that with the weather and I was in heaven for a few days. I started reading a new book that ties in to my other reads during this leg of the journey. It's a book called The Slave Ship- A Human History. It's about the most impactful book on the slave trade I've read during my trip as it doesn't focus on what happened once they (slaves) got the North America or barbados or Liverpool...it focuses on getting them there and how there was a whole side of the equation that whether you were pro or con slavery you were unaware of or if not unaware. uninformed due to a lack of any attention being placed on it. I highly recommend it as a read.

Add some bacon...X10

On the beach wall in Lamoine State Park - low tide

High tide - same wall

The wall, the sun, the oak tree, the fresh fruit, a lobster roll in my dreams (I was camping and ate two the day before)

Here's my lobster roll alternative ;) cheese, bacon and tomato...oh yeah

Here SD...here SD.... (part of the world wide Seagulls Against Satay or S.A.S) (a friend in calgary who is apparently scared of the deadly gull and every other winged creature in her midst)

every sunset by the ocean is fabulous....

Telling fish tales

Acadia National Park at the Seawall campground. The rock formations here were amazing. I was happy enough to get a campsite after showing up a few days earlier and finding a zero vacancy throughout the entire park.

I will be taking my scuba ticket sooner than later...I want to see more of this even deeper

I was smiling like hell when I rolled out of Lamoine and the smile continued as I rolled into Seawall Campground, got a fantastic spot and registered it for 5 days ;) First night was a sunset unlike any other that I've had during my trip and it promised to be a great visit with America's second most popular state park.