Lower 48

Thomas Bay behind Jonathan and Rebecca's house

Lower 48

September 1, 2006

We are back in the lower 48; first time since May. A border patrol officer; who wore a name plate that read, “Castro,” and who smiled a lot, welcomed us. We landed in Vermont where Canada’s highway 55 changes to US highway 91.

A few minutes later we turned east on highway 2, a two lane highway that in most places Elmo could jump without a running start and which went north, west, south, up, down, and around almost as much as it went east. Villages resembling pictures of New England hamlets with names like Concord, Lancaster, Mt. Madison, Gohrman and Giliead were scattered along Highway 2 close enough to each other for the mayors to waive.

Each village had several white clapboard churches with Paul Revere steeples, stacked stone walls, cracker box houses, flashes of color on the maples, roadside stands selling hand crafted maple syrup, gift shops, gardens overflowing with blooming flowers, a speed limit of twenty miles an hour and more cars from Boston than Vermont.

Highway 2 continued through New Hampshire and into Maine with little change other than more mountains. Highway 2 will call us back some day when much missed grandchildren do not wait in Brunswick.

5,151 miles from The Banks house above Turnagain Arm in Anchorage, Alaska we arrived at the Banks house above Thomas Bay in Brunswick, Maine; one great ocean to another. It was good to be home and hug grandchildren again.