On August 18, I crossed the border from Canada to Calais, Maine and headed to the only lighthouse in the state that I still had on my wish list but had never made it this far north before. West Quoddy Head Lighthouse overlooks the Bay of Fundy and has the designation as being the easternmost point in the U.S. so you might be wondering why it’s named “West” Quoddy. It turns out, there’s an “East” Quoddy Lighthouse out in the bay in New Brunswick, Canada.

It was a dreary day but that didn’t keep the people away. I had a difficult time getting pictures because of all the people milling about. At one point, I was standing on a hill looking down on the lighthouse when a father and his son walked past me and set up so the son could take photos halfway between me and the lighthouse.

West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, Lubec, Maine.

I had been standing there with my arms crossed waiting for a crowd of people to leave my shot when the father, Eric, turned and saw me and asked if they were blocking my shot. I say “No, I’m just waiting from the other people to get out of the way.” He then started goofing around, jumping in front of me and waving his arms to purposely get in my shot. We laughed and then started talking photography.

The son, Nick Van der Wal, is a photography student from Boston and we compared notes on lighthouses we’ve been to. The three of us hit it off really well so we decided to go into Lubec for dinner together at Frank’s Dockside Restaurant.

Dinner with Eric and Nick in Lubec.

When we got back to the park for nighttime shots, it was drizzling and eventually turned to light rain. As Nick and I stood side-by-side with our cameras on tripods, Eric held two umbrellas over us to keep our equipment dry. He did that for nearly an hour. What a guy!

A drizzly night at the lighthouse but it made for an interesting photo.

I have photography friends who say they’ve slept in the parking lot here without incident so I did the same. The weather got progressively worse and it rained heavily overnight. The next morning wasn’t much better but I was able to photograph the tide changes. They’re quite dramatic and similar to those I witnessed in New Brunswick, Canada.

Above is low tide next to the lighthouse.
Below is high tide at the same location.

The bad weather made for some pretty good wave action on the beach below the lighthouse.

Back when I was in Quebec, my photography friends and I found it puzzling that, although we saw hundreds of warning signs, we never saw a single moose. Two of the guys stopped at Moosehead Lake in Maine, took a canoe tour and saw three so I figured I’d do the same thing.

Moosehead Lake, Maine.

From the Maine coast, I traveled inland to Moosehead Lake and stayed three days at Moosehead Family Campground to search for the elusive beasts. I hired the same tour guide but I booked a combo waterfall and moose tour. My guide, Ed, picked me up at my campground in a 4×4 Jeep and we headed off to see the waterfall first then we would go looking for moose at dusk.

Most of the roads in this part of Maine are unpaved and as we drove along one of these, we got a flat tire. Not a simple flat, but a huge hole in the tread… and no cell phone service. A passing trucker stopped and used his tire repair kit to plug the hole and his onboard compressor to put air in it. That got us on our way but not for long. By the time we got to the waterfall, the tire was flat again.

  

Ed had one of those air pumps you plug into the cigarette lighter and it took about an hour to get it half full of air. Those things are pretty useless! We limped on to the nearest “town” and he asked around about a mechanic. There are no real service stations here so unless you know someone, you’re out of luck if you break down.

He found Dusty who does car repairs out of his garage at his house. He couldn’t fix the tire because the hole was too big so he put the spare on. Unfortunately, it was flat and had a broken valve so he couldn’t put air in it. The spare came back off and the damaged tire went back on with more air in it and we limped away.

Now, along with the lack of most normal amenities in the back woods, you can’t go someplace and get a tire put on. Your mechanic has to order it and wait for it to arrive. So, needless to say, my day was done. Ed dropped me off at the campground, only charged me for the waterfall and I never got to see a moose. I wonder if any of this bad luck had to do with the solar eclipse that occurred that day.

The nearly 100 foot drop of Moxie Falls in Forks, Maine.

The solar eclipse occurred while waiting for Ed to put air in the tire at the waterfall. Being so far away from the main path, this is as much as we got.

I spent that evening and the next trying to find a moose on my own. I found a list of best locations in the area to see them from the road so I set out at dusk for my own moose hunt. No luck! At one location, I was joined by several other tourists with the same thing in mind and we were all disappointed.

A supposedly favorite dining spot for moose.

Now I’m convinced that moose don’t really exist, they are actually UNICORNS. They are steeped in fables, emblazoned on T-shirts, and children play with toy replicas, but THEY AREN’T REAL! They apparently do not exist in the real word. I’ve traveled to their supposed favorite places. I’ve staked out where they are rumored to eat. They can’t be found anywhere. This is just like when I found out there was no Santa Claus.

Moose are really unicorns!

After my moose disappointment, I needed a pick-me-up and, for that, there’s nothing better than visiting with friends. My next stop was Wilton where I spent the night in the parking lot of my former employer’s ambulance dealer, Sugarloaf Ambulance/Rescue Vehicles. I spent time visiting with owner, Ron Morin, his wife, Becky, and his staff; then we all went out for a lovely dinner and breakfast the following morning before I headed off to New Hampshire and Mt. Washington.

I spent the night at Sugarloaf Ambulance/Rescue Vehicles, AKA: The Wilton Hilton.

Dinner with Ron and his wife, Becky at Calzolaio Pasta Company.

My route from St. John, New Brunswick to Wilton, Maine.

Upcoming post:

New England: mountains, ancestry and lighthouses

My name is Lindsay Reed and I’m a photographer and retired graphic artist with a passion for both lighthouses and road trips. I am living as a full-time solo RVer in my 31 foot Coachmen motorhome and plan to spend the next few years traveling the U.S. and Canada photographing not only lighthouses, but everything else there is to see in this wonderful land. I hope you enjoy my blog and will follow my adventures in the months and years ahead.