"Well, we kinda face to the north and real subtle-like turn left."

I’m not splitting this one up, so it’s kind of a beast. Enjoy.

We said our goodbyes to the quaint patriotism of Plainville and headed up, up, up until we hit Portland, Maine. It might be because I’m already biased to cities that share its name, but I’m pretty sure Portland is my new favorite city on the East Coast. The feel of Maine’s sea life mixes well with the atmosphere of an active city, and it makes Portland an exciting place to visit. After taking a brief tour of the city, meeting people who live there, and hearing about the different projects they are involved in, I decided that I could see myself living there long-term if I end up back on the East Coast without returning to Florida. And if that whole newspaper thing on Block Island doesn’t work out. Did you forget about that? Me too. I should call them.

We spent the night at Brandon’s house. Brandon is a friend of Julia. Julia, in case you forget, is a friend of Britton’s who is masterminding this leg of the trip. There’s also Erin, an old friend of Julia’s and Britton’s, who we picked up back in Plainville. Erin and Julia are along for the ride until Chicago. Now back to Portland: Brandon’s roommate Leo cooked us pancakes and spent the entire day with us. We visited the Portland Headlight, a gorgeous lighthouse with cliffs and rocks and old ruins that offer hours of exploring and climbing. One of those rocks busted my toe, but otherwise they were quite nice. After that we took some sandwiches out to the beach where Brandon was lifeguarding. Pretty sure that’s a new word, lifeguarding. My computer doesn’t like it very much. Anyways, the beach was fun but not quite the Gulf. Three points for Florida. It was still beautiful, though…I’m basically in love with Maine.

That night another of Julia’s friends, Peter, cooked us fish tacos. That was a highlight, fish taco deliciousness with new friends on Peter’s porch, hearing him talk about working as a writer in Portland. Another highlight would be reverse charades, in which Peter acts out, in the most dramatic of fashions, the conversation of the thunderous upstairs neighbors. Awesome.

Fish tacos in our bellies, we continued up, up, up to Palermo Maine. There we stayed for two nights with a family that owns an organic dairy farm…once again, Julia’s friends. Our stay in Palermo included cheeseburgers, a bonfire, an early morning witness of the milking spectacle which I managed to sleep through, and raw, fresh, magically delicious milk. Britton and I shared about a gallon and a half before we left Palermo.

While staying with the cow people we drove up to Acadia National Park. This is one of the highest ranked and most visited parks in the country, even though it’s also one of the smallest. It’s a wonderful experience to see a bunch of your favorite things hodgepodged together, and that happened in Acadia. Ocean and islands and forests and rocky beaches and friendly people and giant climbable rocks over the surf, all hanging out together and spending the afternoon with us. It was brilliant.

And no, hodgepodged is probably not a real word.

We bid farewell to the cows and the magical raw milk and the Haskell family, formerly referred to as the cow people, and made our way up, up, up to Rockland, Maine. In Rockland we stuffed the bikes in the car, loaded up our backpacks, and took a ferry out to Vinalhaven.

I know I’ve called lots of things highlights, but Vinalhaven has quite possibly been the highlight. After about an hour on the ferry we started passing a series of epic rock formations, which grew to a series of little islands and ended with an exclamation mark at Vinalhaven. While surprisingly big, this island offered a contrast to Block Island in that there is only one little inn, no tacky tourism, and most of the people there actually live and work on the island. The town there exists because of lobsters. Big, delicious lobsters. More on that in a minute.

In Vinalhaven we stayed with Jamus, yet another friend of Julia’s. Jamus, a towering man with a man’s truck and a man’s beard, is a lobsterman who lives in a killer wooden house that’s buried in some woods up a hill from the town. Our first night there he brought home a pile of lobsters that, accompanied by some steak and sweet corn we brought from the mainland, are among the reasons Vinalhaven was such a hit. Oh my goodness. I’m not sure if it was the freshness of the lobster, the overabundance of everything, the curry that Jamus mixed in the melted butter, the fact that it was free, or maybe the beer, but that was just about my favorite meal ever. After basically gorging myself and slothing my way upstairs, I enjoyed one of the deepest and richest nights of sleep I’ve had in years. I’m running out of adjectives here, but I’ll say again that it was beautiful and wonderful and magical and delicious and absolutely perfect.

The rest of our time in Vinalhaven included diving and swimming in a rock quarry, fun music by friends of Jamus, sleeping in, and a brilliant hike with Britton. Vinalhaven was showing off on that hike, with its trees and the light pouring through the trees and the hills and hidden little islands surrounded by rocky water, and the barking seals and climbing otters and so much goodness. Britton and I hitchhiked to and from the trails. Here’s something interesting: each of the three times we’ve hitchhiked so far has been on an island, and each time has been with an older person who’s lived on that island since birth and can remember when hitchhiking was commonplace. That makes me happy.

Vinalhaven deserves more words, but I’m moving on for the sake of efficiency. Also because some of these experiences are basically sacred to me and I’m afraid I might ruin that by failing to do them justice with words. Maybe pictures will help…I’ll try to share some of those soon.

After spending a second night on the island, we ferried back to the mainland on Thursday to find that our car and bikes and such were right where we had left them. We repeated our new favorite ritual of packing everything and stuffing ourselves into the car, then we started heading south. I was a little sad to trade our up, up, up for some down, so I won’t celebrate it with repetition. After stopping again in Portland for lunch at a crazy little place called Duck Fat, we drove to Pennsylvania. There a few more of Julia’s friends live and work on an organic farm in the middle of nowhere. We happened to be visiting on a harvest day, so we woke up in time to pick string beans, pull up potatoes, and weed around some onions. These were absolutely wonderful people who were a joy to visit with while we worked and ate a lunch that came entirely from the farm.

Plug time: food tastes so much better when you know where it comes from. Do some research and I guarantee you can find similar people, who understand that food is more fresh and more tasty when it grows in an environment where nature is appreciated and respected. And after finding those people you can support them and enjoy their deliciousness. Specifically, if you’re ever at a farmer’s market near Scranton Pennsylvania, ask around for the Anthill Farm. Then give them my love. And when you’re in Palermo, Maine you can ask the Haskell’s for some milk nectar goodness.

So that brings us here. After lunch and a swim/bath in a nearby lake, we’re back on the road. This time we’re headed to Buffalo for a night. Tomorrow we visit Niagara, then through Canada into Michigan. Mars Hill on Sunday, then off to Chicago where we’ll bid farewell to the girls and continue in a westerly direction. We’re about at the close of this leg of the trip, and it feels significant that we’re turning to the left. I enjoyed this last week more than I know how to say, especially Maine, but there’s a familiar stirring inside me that’s pretty strong now that we’re off the coast. It’s a feeling I’ve grown used to these last few years, the West beckoning, and it feels good to finally be answering.

If you’re offended by made up words or overabundant adjectives or run-on sentences, then I apologize. But not really, because that’s kind of dumb.

That’s all for now. Thanks to everyone who checked in after the first post, and huge thanks to everyone we’ve met so far on the trip. You all have been incredible.

Love. Lots and lots of love, and more words to come later.