So, the southern coast of Maine is breathtaking. Rocky shorelines dotted with pristine white lighthouses, quaint shops, cozy cafes … and then you drive north of the ocean and the scenery suddenly lacks shores, and lighthouses, and quaint shops.
Now instead of an ocean bordering Maine, the state is bordered by Canada.
Friend Cindy and I both had our passports, but looked at the rental car agreement and saw that we couldn’t drive our car across the border.
To get there – we’d have to walk. Now I’ve been to Canada several times, but I have not WALKED there. (However, I did walk to Mexico once.)
But how could we walk there? Only a few towns had border crossings and some of the crossings weren’t conducive to foot traffic. We asked and were directed to the town of Calais. Near the bridge was a Maine Visitor’s Center (for people coming into the U.S.) and the kind people there gave us some direction as to what to do.
By this time, a misty rain was coming down, but we were determined, so parked our car and headed for the bridge.
The actual border is mid-river (the Calais River) and we we got to stand in both countries at once.
On the other side was the town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick. We wandered down Prince William Street looking for a place to eat. We were there in late afternoon and some of the shops were already closed, including some of the restaurants.
We finally found a pizza place (I think it was called Pizza Delight) and were seated in the back room by ourselves. Our table overlooked the river and the pizza was good and the server friendly.
Afterwards we walked back out into the rain and back to the border crossing and back to our car.
A couple 20-something guys went into Canada and came out at the same time we did, but for some reason were asked a lot more questions than we were. Guess we just looked we were who we said we were.
And that’s how we walked to Canada. Kind of fun.
Observations From the 2nd Floor 