New England Trip

We recently drove from Nova Scotia to visit our daughter who goes to school in Boston. While the weather wasn't the greatest the scenery couldn't be beat. We took the back roads and saw parts of Maine and Massachusetts off the beaten track. But we did our share or touristy things too.

To be honest I have no idea where this was taken. Somewhere on Highway 1 in Maine.


I took this one by sticking the camera out the car's sunroof.

This is Camden, Maine. Location for things like Peyton Place and the opening for the soap, Passions.

Behind Camden there's a knobular mountain with a campground at the bottom and a park at the top. You have to pay to drive to the top and the sign at the gate lets it be known that tourists are getting gouged. They don't seem ashamed at all that tourists have to pay more than the locals and when we drove up to the gate the lady took one look at us and knew we weren't locals. Isn't that some kind of "profiling"? Anyhow, this structure was up there.

We spent the first night in Freeport, Maine at the Hampton Inn. Incredibly thin walls! We had to switch rooms because our first room's neighbour was hacking and coughing so much we couldn't hear our TV. If you go to Freeport, eat at the China Inn restaurant and have the shrimp with cashews dish. It's so incredibly good!! All the food there is delicious.

Just outside Freeport there's the Desert of Maine. It's a big patch of glacial silt left beind by the last ice age. Very cool. The sand is so fine it's like flour.


We stopped in at the Clay Hill Farms. It's a restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine. They have incredible gardens and birdhouses there. Beautiful spot.



The beach at Ogunquit is also beautiful. Too bad it wasn't a warmer day.

Next we went to Raven Hill Orchard in East Waterboro, Maine where we saw a terrific bluegrass band called "The Goodtime String Band". They were there to help open the season at the orchard. They sell all sort of fresh things there. It's an organic farm.

This goat was very friendly and seemed to say "Please take me with you"

We wandered around aimless without a hotel reservation and we happened upon this spot... The Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport, Maine. It required that we stay there!!



It was just down the road from Bush Sr's house.

Kennebunkport's cool. They made old fishing shacks into trendy little stores.


Next we went to Salem, MA. We stayed at another historical hotel called The Hawthorne Hotel. Not quite as fancy as the Colony, it was still pretty nice.

I think we're hooked on the old hotels. The rooms are so different from normal hotels.
Salem is a tourist trapped extraordinaire. We had spent our budget of touristy fun money on other things so we didn't get to go into the House of Seven Gables.


..but we did splurge on the wax museum. I'm still not sure why.


It was pouring down rain when we took a day trip to Gloucester but we had to see the Fisherman's Memorial since it's been in so many TV shows and movies. Captains Courageous, The Perfect Storm, and who could forget when Endora cast a spell on Darrin Stephens and put him in this statue on the TV show "Bewitched"?


Next we drove to Rockport, MA. Even in the pouring rain Rockport is one of the most colourful places I've ever been.



Our last stop on the road to Boston was Marblehead where the streets are windy and the houses sit right on them. Someday we'll go back to Rockport and Marblehead on sunny day.


We've been to Boston so many times now I didn't take many pictures but our daughter took us to the Rose Garden near where she lives out near Fenway. The sun came out and it was lovely.