Road Trip! Boston, Acadia National Park, Canada and Plenty In Between!
Oh yeah…. back on the road again for another EPIC roadie!!! This one has a little of everything and I’ll be breaking it into two parts since the topic of my Aunt Jeannie is going to get its own post.
This trip was just me and my wife Ally exploring at a torrid pace and covering a ton of ground with way too many adventures and near disasters along the way for comfort… lol.
Here’s the route:
Some personal stats for me: This brings the total number of U.S. states I’ve been to to 43! Getting close… I’ve got a further way to go on National Parks. I know it will be pretty much impossible to get to all 63, but Acadia National Park brings my total to 13. Acadia, Boston National Historical Park and Minute Man National Historical Park brings to 84 the number of total official units of the National Park Service I’ve visited out of 443.
This trip covered over 2000 miles of driving and a handful of cities we had never visited, and of course as I’ve already alluded to there is plenty of history which is why it appears here. So…..LET’S GOOOO!
Road Trip! Boston, Acadia National Park, Canada and Plenty In Between!
The first leg - getting to Cleveland and Brooklyn
A little background for some relevant context as we go… the weather forecast didn’t look….great. It was to the point that I made the call to reverse the loop so we could be in Acadia after the bad weather passed through, especially after we moved the trip up a day so I could be back in town for the celebration of life for Fran Copp - my kindergarten teacher who passed at the age of 98 who I never totally lost touch with. A special lady who made an impact on SO many. I’m happy to say we got that calculation for Acadia mostly right. Also, my back right tire had been low a week or two before the trip, so I put air in and it was holding it just fine. But I still figured it would be a good idea to have Belle Tire check it. Sure enough there was a nail and they patched it. I’m so glad I was better safe than sorry, and they didn’t charge me. I love Belle Tire.
We don’t usually do this but we left at night after working on a Tuesday so we could knock out 3 of the 10 hours to Brooklyn by staying overnight in Cleveland. Wednesday we headed to New York and ate dinner with our daughter Lacey at an all vegan Mexican restaurant called Sentir that was AWESOME. I have to say it pisses me off that there aren’t more restaurants like this. It was as good as any Mexican food you’ll find - vegan or not. So why do most restaurants still have to serve animals on a plate in 2025? Okay I’ll step off the soapbox for now. Unfortunately I find it difficult to eat 100% plant based on the road so I do relax my personal rules when travelling. It is what it is, but I will highlight the great vegan options I did find. We had a nice visit with Lacey including the most amazing oatmeal griddle cakes - yes, vegan - at Breakfast By Salt’s Cure. I recommend the banana nut and the vegan house ground sausage. DELISH. So yeah, let’s do the food pics:
Onward to Boston!
We had never been to Boston in our lives. New York was always a priority for me going East with family and friends and my roots being there. But we’ve been to New York enough the last few years with Lacey living there that I felt we could break away and head to New England for a change - we had planned on a stop at the Yale Art Museum and the John Adams home in Quincy, but first there was an accident on I-95 which rerouted us to the bumper-to-bumper Hutchinson Parkway and then the skies OPENED UP. It should have taken us 3 hours.
It took us SIX.
I was actually sore from clutching the wheel through the monsoon - the kind of buckets rain that you can barely see in with flooding/hydroplaning on the highway most of the way there. It was one of the worst stretches of driving I’ve done. We did make it in time for dinner with my former Michigan teammates and their wives which made for a lot of laughs and a much needed decompression.
We got much better weather the following day and we were able to walk the entire Freedom Trail at Boston National Historical Park. What a cool city and an amazing tour of revolutionary era Boston - much of which is still there.
The Freedom Trail
We started at Boston Common - the oldest public park in the United States. This was just 4 days before Memorial Day so there was a display of American flags for every Boston native who served our country through history. It was pretty cool.
Next we got an up close look at the Massachusetts State House - opened in 1798 and the cornerstone laid by Paul Revere and Sam Adams! Quite an impressive building. JFK is honored with a statue on the grounds - he didn’t serve there but gave a famous “The City Upon a Hill” speech there in 1961. We were also able to admire the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial which has an incredible story of its own and recognizes the contributions and sacrifice of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment depicted in the film Glory. The 54th was the second African American regiment in the Civil War. If you haven’t seen Glory you should. Denzel Washington won a best supporting actor Oscar and Golden Globe for his performance - the film isn’t entirely accurate (they never are) but it’s still damn good.
Next up: Park Street Church - founded in 1809 and the steeple rises to 217 feet. My Country, ‘Tis Of Thee was first sung here and William Lloyd Garrison’s first anti-slavery speech was given here in 1829.
Next to the church is the Granary Burying Ground where many famous Americans are buried including Paul Revere, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin’s parents, the victims of the Boston Massacre, James Otis, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine and even “Mother Goose!” They don’t know if all (or even any) of the remains are exactly in the spots associated with the corresponding gravestones because a groundskeeper once moved them into neat rows without bothering to keep track so he could mow easier….. unbelievable.
These gravesites mark some of the most important figures in the story of the revolution - I had heard of all of them really except for James Otis who was credited with the slogan “taxation without representation is tyranny.” He is considered to be a founding father to a degree but he descended into mental illness by 1769 and (according to a guide there) ultimately wished to be struck by lightning…..which he was. That’s how he died.
After passing by King’s Chapel and the Old Corner Bookstore (now a Chipotle) we came to the Old South Meeting House where the Boston Tea Party was planned. Tons of history and a cool museum there.
Next stop The Old State House which is the oldest surviving public building in Boston, built in 1713! The Boston Massacre happened right outside of it. The King’s Council Chamber has been restored and there are some pretty cool artifacts in the museum there including a bayonet found right by the Boston Massacre, John Hancock’s red coat and some tea from the Boston Tea Party.
The next two stops on the trail are Faneuil Hall and Paul Revere’s House. Faneuil Hall is kind of the town center and where the first American Town Meeting took place - it’s a marketplace now and we took a walk through it. You can tour Paul Revere’s House but we did not - was pretty cool to see in person though and it was built in 1680.
From here we walked past the Old North Church and the Paul Revere statue which was undergoing a restoration or maintenance of some sort, past the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground and all the way to the Charlestown Navy Yard where the USS Constitution is docked. The USS Constitution is AWESOME. We were able to board and explore “Old Ironsides” which never lost a battle at sea and is the oldest commissioned naval ship still afloat! It launched in 1797 and was dominant over the British in the War of 1812. I’ve read about this ship and her battles, so to stand on it was really something. I highly recommend checking it out.
Last stop - Bunker Hill! The whole trail is about 2.5 miles and the final walk uphill makes the whole thing a nice little workout especially if you climb the 294 steps up to the 221 foot top which we did! The Marquis de Lafayette himself laid the cornerstone in 1825 on the 50th anniversary of the battle on his return visit to the U.S. at President Monroe’s invite. Wow. This was the first major battle of the revolution (Lexington and Concord was the first shot - more on that in a minute) and you can get a sense of how big of a hill Breed’s Hill is. The battle is called Bunker Hill because that’s the hill that American Colonel William Prescott had intended to build fortifications on, but they determined that Breed’s Hill was closer to Boston and more easily defended. It’s only 62 feet to the summit from the harbor but it’s a relatively steep climb. The nearly 3000 Redcoats who charged up the hill were repulsed by the Americans twice before they overwhelmed the Americans on the third assault, but the fact that the Americans were able to hold their own at all was a huge confidence boost and somewhat helped set the stage for the rest of the war. The quote that gets repeated from this battle is the “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” which seems to be more myth than fact, but the quote I love is the one by Nathaniel Greene, Brigadier General of the Rhode Island Militia: “I wish we could sell them another hill at the same price.” Here is Prescott’s letter to John Adams describing the battle.
Minute Man National Historical Park
At this point we made the drive to the western suburbs to Lexington and Concord to see the shot heard ‘round the world and the spot where the separation between England and America really began. The Minute Man National Historical Park is so cool and I would love to return to spend a little more time there when the visitors centers are open and I have the time to walk the entire battle road trail which is 5 miles. But we still had a chance to drive to most of the stops and see a lot of landmarks. There are 11 “witness houses” that were there during the conflict, many of which we saw such as the Jacob Whittemore House. We saw the spot where Paul Revere was captured on his famous midnight ride through the countryside, warning everyone he could (including John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington) that the regulars from England were on the march. We were told he likely never said “The British are coming” since everyone was still British lol. He probably said the Regulars (as in the Regulars - the Redcoats in the army as opposed to the colonial militias).
We saw the Hartwell Tavern - three Hartwell sons answered the call the morning of April 19th, 1775 and fought as Minute Men. Samuel Hartwell was the oldest at 33 and you can see the site of his house of which only the chimney remains, so they’ve built a skeleton structure of the house around it. We also stopped to get a pic of the Samuel Brooks House. We basically toured the battle road in reverse, ending at the Concord’s North Bridge where the initial confrontation and the “shot heard ‘round the world” took place. That was pretty cool to stand at that spot. Also just adjacent to the bridge is the witness house The Old Manse and the North Meadow - the Old Manse was built by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Grandfather Reverend William Emerson who, with his family witnessed the battle at the bridge from the second floor.
Up Through Maine To Bar Harbor
We had a little caper you might say. Remember the nail I had in my tire that Belle Tire patched before the trip?
That was my back right. The low air indicator came on while driving away from the battlefield. I kid you not. I found a screw in the back left while putting air in it at a nearby gas station.
It was too late to get anyone to patch it and we had an hour drive to our hotel ahead of us, which was too far for the spare. After buying a patch kit at an auto parts store which the guy said is a piece of cake to use and trying desperately to get the damn screw out we finally gave up and the tire held the air to get to the hotel. Oh - and at one point I walked across the parking lot to go back to the store to see if he had any tools we could use to pull out the screw and this was on the door…. you can’t make this crap up.
We had it patched the next morning. FOR 54 BUCKS. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Are you kidding me??? Okay moving on…
If the drive to Brooklyn and dinner there was Day 1, breakfast in Brooklyn, the disastrous drive to Boston and dinner there Day 2, The Freedom Trail and Minute Man Park Day 3 (with dinner in beautiful Portsmouth, NH), then Day 4 was a drive up the coast of Maine with stops in Kennebunkport, Portland, Camden and Lincolnville. What an incredible coastline with the coolest little towns! We HAVE to get back there.
It was at this point that the concurrent quest to trace some of my Aunt Jean’s footsteps on this trip began, and it was truly rewarding. It made me feel connected to this place that meant a lot to her and I felt her presence on this trip. I’m going to write about that in a separate post for the M10 Blog. She was an accomplished artist and her life was intertwined with other artists who went on to different degrees of fame such as Lois Dodd, Bill King and even more prominently, Alex Katz to whom she was married for a time.
Acadia National Park
So as I mentioned since our epic western road trip two years ago I’ve got the National Park bug and I’d heard great things about Acadia. But I will caution you as we get into this that yes, this is an awesome place, but May is not quite peak season and there were crowds. Not horrible, and not enough to ruin the experience by any stretch, but enough to see that if you go when the weather is a little nicer it could be a nightmare. As More Than Just Parks points out in its National Park ranking in which it dropped Acadia from #21 in 2023 to #42 in 2025, Acadia is one of the top 10 most visited parks in America despite being one of the smallest. And while Bar Harbor is a very cool town in many ways, there are also dozens of the cheap touristy t-shirt shops there which may tell you something…
But let’s get to the good stuff.
We started Day 5 with a really yummy breakfast at Cafe This Way where I had a yummy tofu scramble, Ally had her Monte Cristo with vegan sausage and we split a blueberry bread pudding (not vegan). Everything in Maine is blueberry and it seems to always be awesome.
Nice and fueled, next stop was Cadillac Mountain - the highest peak on Desert Island (not to mention the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S.) which is the island both Acadia and Bar Harbor are on. You need to reserve a $6 timed entry to take the drive up to the top in addition to the park fee. We just bought the $80 yearly National Park pass that pays for itself if you visit 3 parks in a year. The National Park Service needs all the support we can give it right now… You can also hike Cadillac Mountain, but we planned for the Gorham Mountain hike later on instead when we drove the Park Loop Road which is the best way to see most of the “main attractions.”
What an incredible view up there… we weren’t sure we were going to be able to see anything because of the clouds/fog at the top, but we got lucky and it lifted maybe 5 or 10 minutes after we got up there. It was freezing up there by the way… Great views of the harbor and incredible volcanic rock formations with plenty of flora to see.
We thought about getting up the following morning to watch the sunrise from the peak (the very first spot you can see the sunrise in America each morning) but sunrise was 4:50 AM… So, no. Not with all the driving we had ahead of us. Maybe next time lol.
Also caught a cool waterfall on the Cadillac Mountain Road - you can see Ally was getting a few pics while I took a little video…
Park Loop Drive
Next we headed out on the Park Loop Drive that goes around the edge of the island with beautiful views of the rugged coastline it’s known for. We also had an embarrassing incident where we SWORE we saw whales in the distance breaking the surface. We told a few people to come look and everyone was so happy. They turned out to be……rocks. Ugh - and I know that sounds ridiculous but everyone else who saw was fooled too. One guy tried to tell us they weren’t whales and we wrote him off like what’s his problem… lol. When the tide receded our folly was revealed. I’ll post one photo of that so you can laugh at us.
LOOK!!!! A rock.
Again….now for the good stuff. Views like this are everywhere…
Gorham Mountain
The Gorham Mountain Loop is about a 3 mile hike with over 500 feet of elevation gain. It’s considered “moderate” but we thought it was relatively tough in parts with plenty of hiking from boulder to boulder with uneven footing. A solid amount of challenging with a decent amount of rewarding. I do recommend it. And as the park ranger told us at the visitors center we recommend you do it in reverse starting at the trailhead by the Sandy Beach. It took us a couple hours. Much of the “trail” looked like these first 3 photos…
Jordan Pond
Jordan Pond is an iconic and picturesque spot in the park with the lake and the two Bubble Mountains at the far end. There’s a restaurant there that serves popovers which is a tradition going back a century. We waited close to an hour for a table. Don’t bother just for the popovers. They are just average warm rolls at best. I can’t believe that’s the hubbub. The scenery is nice and I can see how it would be cool to sit on the lawn there and eat in the peak season, although I’m guessing it’s next to impossible to get a table in the summer. By the way if you’ve heard about the Carriage Roads in the park, so have we - we just would have needed another day at the park to check them out.
Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse
From there we drove a half hour to the Bass Harbor Lighthouse in Tremont (still on the island) to see if we might get a view of the sunset. It was tricky - tiny parking lot at the lighthouse with a long line of cars to get into it (again I don’t know how you navigate this in peak season). Once we finally got into the lot we were able to get a close up view of the lighthouse and then I tried to get a vantage point for a good sunset shot. It was partly to mostly cloudy so a sunset wasn’t likely, and the rocks were already filled with people who had staked out their spots. I still got a couple of pretty cool pics though…
Bangor, Maine - Stephen King’s “Derry!”
Slight detour here - I’m still an old school Stephen King fan. I’ve read 29 of his books even though it’s been years since I read a new one… Bangor has been his home town for decades, and even though he doesn’t live in his house there anymore as I understand it (it’s the color of dried blood and the gates include spider webs and bats) it’s pretty easy to find. There are a bunch of sites around town associated with King and his books along with the standpipe and the spot where Pennywise pulls little Georgie down into the sewer from the book IT. We grabbed breakfast at Dysart’s Truck Stop - the blueberry pancakes were pretty good - not the best but pretty good. It’s the truck stop that inspired King’s story Trucks which became the film Maximum Overdrive. This was fun. The Thomas Hill Standpipe is gigantic and if you’ve read IT, a little scary (?). It’s only a couple blocks from the house and apparently King sat on a bench there and wrote a good portion of the book. I’m pretty sure I had the right sewer grating that inspired the scene in the book, but if you KNOW I didn’t, maybe just don’t tell me. Let me have my moment lol. I was terrified as you can see in the selfie below lol!
Benedict Arnold’s Quebec Expedition and flagstaff lake
I hadn’t really read about Benedict Arnold’s ill-fated but courageous attempt to dislodge the British from Quebec only months after Lexington and Concord in 1775. They underestimated the terrain which is indeed quite mountainous (and beautiful) heading to the Canadian border. Arnold approached George Washington with the idea which he felt would limit England’s ability to attack the colonies from the north and maybe even inspire the French Canadians to rise up and join the fight against the British. It’s a fascinating chapter that you can read about here. We pulled off at Flagstaff Lake in Eustis which was created by the completion of the Long Falls Dam in 1950. The lake and Bigelow Mountain across the way are gorgeous. Timothy Bigelow was a division commander for Arnold and he climbed the mountain to survey the area. It’s part of the Appalachian Trail now. Meanwhile the dam flooded the entire valley, burying the Village of Flagstaff (along with Bigelow and Dead River) which now sits at the bottom of the lake! An underwater ghost town! The roadside exhibits tell these stories with photos at the edge of this incredible scene. There was also a mid-air collision over the lake during an Air Force exercise in 1959…. The whole valley has to be haunted……right?
Onward To Canada!
Okay but once again it wasn’t that simple… long story but we basically got detained for an hour and threatened with a fine and denial of entry for hemp CBD lip balm and hand cream that we didn’t even realize we had with us, after we told them up front we had a cannabis pen. It’s legal in Maine AND Canada. You just can’t bring it to one legal place from another legal place. Be sure you check ALL these things before you travel. Yeah okay we’re dumb… comedy of errors on this trip I swear.
Moving on (again).
Montreal
The drive to Montreal was pretty nice and we were really impressed with the city - so cool! We hung out and ate in old town. Plenty of history there too even though I wasn’t familiar with any of it… We had some delicious poutine and walked around a bit before driving to Ottawa…
Ottawa
King Charles was visiting while we were in Ottawa so there was a lot of buzz and crowds around the city, and the capitol building was under renovation. But Parliament Hill is indeed pretty impressive and we thought Ottawa was pretty cool overall.
The next stop from here…..? HOME!!!
What a trip - lots of adventure, lots of scenery, lots of food, and lots of history - I hope you enjoyed the ride! Let me know in the comments, especially if you’ve been to these places or have questions!
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M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can follow Doug’s band Vintage Playboy at their Facebook page here. You can also visit our other business Detroit Jerky at the website www.DetroitJerkyLLC.com!