Day 16 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - Back in the USA

8/2 - Mactaquac provincial park to Bangor, ME

We woke up to a COOL morning (57 deg in August!) and so we were all a little slow to get out of our sleeping bags. But we got up and enjoyed cereals and leftover pasta for breakfast (not normal, but camping doesn't lend itself to normal). The boys then went and played on the swings while Amy and I packed up camp. 

There were two routes offered by Google this morning and I took the slower, but less mileage route. As a result, we ended up on some very low travelled roads and we arrived at Vanceboro to come back in USA.  The crossing is so little used, it's only open 8-8 Eastern. The agent was actually waiting for us to arrive!  We went in, but forgot that we had eggs. Given the bird flu, apparently they are no longer allowed in so we sadly had to dispose of the eggs. Live and learn. 

Now that we were back in the US and off a metered internet, the boys enjoyed some online electronics for the first time in a week. 

Since camp didn't have check in until 3 and we got an hour back with the time change at the border, we needed to kill some time. So, after getting some groceries, we stopped at the Bangor forest for a big hike and more.  While there was no moose (or bears despite the warning), there were chipmunks, pitcher plants, a snake, squirrels.  Overall it was just a nice hike - highly recommend checking it out if you're in the area.





After the hike, we headed to mystic valley campgrounds, our spot for the night.  We were greeted by Tilly, the big friendly Rottweiler.  They gave us our site, but said that we could pick from any of 5 since they had extra vacancies.  We set up and then explored the grounds which included an amazing garden and a nice, quiet, secluded fishing pond. It was awfully close to I95 so it wasn't completely quiet, but it wasn't noisy either. 

We started laundry, but then the electric went out. So, we piled in the car to head back to Bangor for dinner. We found an AMAZING pizza place called Pat's pizza. I had nachos, Amy had a veggie wrap, and the boys got personal pizzas. All the desserts were homemade so we indulged with them as well. Key lime pie, lemon meringue pie, chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, and some mini eclair bites. It turns out the mini eclair bites are indeed mini (Robinsons face when they arrived was so disappointed since it came after our slabs of pie/cake arrived) so he wanted ended up also trying the graham cracker pie. Needless to say, we left there full and happy!





We went back to Bangor to drive by the Stephen king home. But before we got there, we ran into all kinds of people. It was Saturday night, but it was also the Bangor state fair (turns out Maine doesn't do just one state fair, but multiple ones throughout the state). 


AND, if that weren't enough, Poison was in town for a concert.  That's a lot going on for a town of 32,000!  Needless to say, once we were away from the downtown area, it got REALLY quiet. 

We did eventually find Stephen King's home which is a very large Victorian home surrounded by other very large homes. His had all sorts of cool ironwork on the fencing and also had a large carved tree. Pretty neat place. 




After seeing the house, we got some gas (full service!) and then, just as we were heading out of town, we saw a VERY large black and white dog going for a walk. Robinson immediately recognized it for what it was, a lancier Newfoundland so he nearly leapt out of the car to go meet Margie.  Our whole family surprised the woman trying to walk her, but she was happy to let us enjoy her dog for a bit. Unfortunately I didn't grab a picture to remember Margie with.

After that we headed back to camp to shower and get ready for bed.  Since we had left Canada and hadn't found the hat Robinson really wanted, we ordered one on Etsy. We will share a picture when it arrives. 



As we got ready for bed and finished laundry, the stars came out and were lovely enough to walk down to the fishing pond to get a good view of them. While the day started without much of a plan, it ended up being a wonderful first day of the final week of the trip!

Trip mileage - 2,760
# states - 12
# provinces - 3

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