Made it!

---

We arrived in Maine a week ago and it feels like heaven… Our last three days on the road included stops at Steve’s parents outside Baltimore, where I got to enjoy the short season of soft shell crabs - nothing better! On to Lauren’s in Farmington, CT the next day, with a side trip to the town in which I grew up - River Edge, NJ. Never a truer phrase - You can never go home again - the modest little home I grew up in has been torn down and replaced by a McMansion. It looked so out of place on Concord Drive with all the older homes…but I guess someone loves it. We did all the obligatory stops - St. Peter the Apostle Elementary School, River Dell Junior and Senior high schools, the local diner for lunch - doesn’t look like much of the town has changed. However, the area has grown tremendously, with lots of big box stores and horrendous traffic. Last leg of the trip from CT to Maine, with our annual welcome to Maine stop for lunch at Harraseeket Lobster Pound in Freeport. It was wonderful to pull into our cozy little cabin and know that we get to spend the whole summer here.

A fun weekend with Lauren and her Steve and our friend Joanie Dehlendorf visiting - we got the “Hotel California” going right away! We’re looking forward to lots of guests, and downtime in between for Steve and me…and also getting to spend the summer with Lauren. We’ll see more of her this summer than we have in 10 years - she’s wondering if her Dad thinks she needs a curfew!

Some thoughts about our cross country journey. America is a very beautiful country - the song “America the Beautiful” kept running through my head on the drive. Its strength…and its challenges….lie in its diversity. I cannot imagine two more different places than Sacramento and Fayette, and yet I feel at home in both. Perhaps that speaks to the flexibility of our nation…and us. We met so many different people on our travels and they all represented unique parts of our country. On one hand it seems strange to feel so patriotic with our journey and yet you can’t help but feel this way when you see the vastness of our land. I suspect many citizens of different countries feel the same way about their native lands. Both Steve and I are so glad to have had this experience - and I’ve even talked him into more road trip!

Signing off for now…and we’ll be back in September when we do our reverse journey.

---

Photos

You can never go home again
The McMansion that replaced the little house I grew up in.

Ah Maine!
Happy first morning on the dock with coffee - many more mornings to follow this summer.

Comments

[Liz Gibson]

Thanks
Anne Marie, it has been great sharing your experiences and preceptions along the way. Thanks for taking the time to bring us all along. I look forward to seeing you in the fall and KNOW you will enjoy the summer. Liz