Maine down to Cape Cod and Across New York

The Motion of the waves plus a big announcement

My last night in New Brunswick was on Campobello island in the south of the province. It required two ferrys from the mainland where along a hidden beach I found a place to camp. Just off shore was a cod fishing weir. From what I understand, this was the first way cod was caught, and the most traditional before hook and line and eventually bottom trawlers were used. Poles sunk into the ground allow a net to be hung from the shore out into the water as a fence leading to a round pen. When the fish swim parallel to the shore they hit the fence and are funneled into the pen. At dusk some fishermen came to check on the nets. There were a lot of mosquitoes though, so I mostly stayed inside.

Leaving New Brunswick was a mixture of emotions as I acknowledged the end of my Maritimes trip. By entering the US, I wouldn’t be alone or in remote country anylonger but would be traveling through suburbs and cityscapes along highways and interstates. I crossed the border after a quick stop in the Roosevelt Campobello International Park and was in Maine. The Roosevelt park is jointly maintained and operated by Canada and the US but because of the name I think it gets a lot of US visitors who hop the border for a quick visit.

I drove maybe ten minutes past the border and realized I might be near the eastern point of the US so I turned around to find it. It’s in Quoddy Head State park where there was a drop box for 4$ (I was unimpressed that Maine state residence have a lower rate of $3.5). I didn’t pay because I didn’t want to and I didn’t have coins for cash anyways so I just took a photo of the lighthouse and then continued on my way, having said to myself, well I guess I’ve been to the Eastern point of the US.

I’m not sure if it’s the houses instead of forests or inland roads but Maine wasn’t visually interesting and I spent a lot of time just driving. Then I became annoyed with gas prices when I noticed that every gas station has a different rate. I have an app to help check gas prices but I didn’t have anywhere to get wifi so it was hard to know where to fill up. My money woes didn’t end there; I went to Acadia Park and it cost $30 USD for a week-long pass. I only needed it for a day so I was kinda cheesed that they didn’t sell a cheaper version.

Acadia National Park is one of the top 10 most-visited national parks in the United States. It protects the highest rocky headlands along the Atlantic coastline of the United States and receives 4 million visitors a year. The park has a scenic loop and it obviously gets crowded and congested in the peak times, probably summer and when the leaves turn colour in the fall.

This wasn’t summer or falls but it still felt busy, because in the Maritimes and Newfoundland I rarely saw anyone. The first hike I did was called the Beehive. It had some ladder rungs along a cliff in some difficult sections that was exciting but it ended pretty quickly and all I wanted was to do more. I was surprised by the number of hikers on the trail that didn’t seem prepared. Some were struggling with the ladders and I wondered why the took on this hike in the first place. It seemed rather dangerous for a national park but everyone made it eventually.

Acadia was the the first national park created from private lands gifted to the public and the first east of the Mississippi River; but it was obviously made for the automobile. The Beehive, along with most of the other hikes was along the scenic loop that circles the park. This road was classically made for driving tours post-war and not for walking or cycling. It is a two-lane single-direction affair that, oddly, goes clockwise which I thought was kinda dumb. This means that the water is always on the left and “pulling over” to see it means stopping on the left instead of the usual right. Another indicator of the design for cars is a lack of sidewalk or bike path. As well, none of the hiking trails have adequate parking, just a dozen or so spots, so the right lane of the loop becomes the overflow.

The Beehive, like most of the hikes, is along this loop and if you miss your desired destination you have to drive the whole circuit to get back to it. For my next hike, I drove the remainder of the loop to get back to the north ridge Cadillac trail that leads to the top of the mountain, the highest point along the east coast. For some dumb reason (traffic) they only allow people with reservations to drive up and everyone else has to hike or take a shuttle bus, even on a cloudy day when there’s plenty of parking at the top. The views were impressive but there were too many people for me so I descended with the rain back the way I came.

I thought my hiking was over but I decided to chance the Precipise trailhead because another hiker had recommended it as being even more intense than the Beehive with more ladder rungs and steeper cliffs. It was and I loved it. This was the most enjoyable trail of the three and a lot of fun that lasted until near the top when it started raining again. I was torn between finishing it quickly and being extra careful because a slip would tumble me over the edge and no one would be around to help. Luckily the rain was only a drizzle so it was easily manageable.

I drove some more of the park but then realized I had no reason to. It was too late to hike another trail or see more of the park and the road wasn’t scenic so I turned around and went into town to find some wifi. This was to coordinate my arrival in Boston and to figure out dinner as well as a place to camp.

Half an hour away was a tiny town called Billie Hill with a park that I could camp at. The drive in the dark and the rain was anxiety inducing because I have really bad headlights and the glare was quite bad but I made it by going slowly — so slowly that the headlights from impatient cars behind me cast a shadow of my car infront of me. That night, the raindrops on the trees dropped as thunks, clunks, and pings all night long. But dry in my Element, I stayed cozy. The next morning was really pretty and I was treated to a nice sunrise over the water.

I spent most of the day driving through Maine. The sky was overcast and it sprinkled rain here and there. Mostly I just didn’t see anywhere worth stopping. I’d tried to find some more photo spots but struck out twice. The third was an old granite quarry that was good to stretch the legs but otherwise not all that interesting.

It’s a good thing that I made up the miles because when I stopped in a Walmart to resupply I got on the wifi and began messaging my friend Lucy in Cambridge. She had invited me to stay with her while I was in town and so I invited her to come to Cape Cod, not at all expecting her to take it seriously because I was going the next day. But something magical happened and Lucy, a fairly unspontsneous person, jumped at the opportunity. This put a smile on my face.

To make it happen Lucy needed to get confirmation for two days off work so I hung around Walmart waiting for a reply. When I’d loitered in the frozen section, the seasonal, and even the blankets for longer than I should have, I decided to continue on my drive so that I could get to Cambridge.

In Canada Tim Hortons are abundant in almost every town and one of the best sources of free wifi when travelling. America has McDonald’s but they don’t all have wifi. Surprisingly, not only is Walmart a fan favourite of the RV crowd, but their wifi is both fast and far reaching into the parking lot. They are also abundant so I pulled into another four Walmarts every half hour as I made my way down the coast on the highway. When I received confirmation that Lucy would be joining me I decided to head straight for Cambridge so we could leave first thing in the morning. I also didn’t want to camp because there weren’t a lot of options on my route and none of them were that good. The more populous an area, the harder it is to find free camping spots.

Cape Cod is a wonderful place. We began at Plymouth just 45 minutes from Boston where it’s claimed the first English settlers landed. There’s a replica of the ship they used to cross the Atlantic and a small rock enclosed in a monument to mark the landfall. Like the rest of the cape, there are also some great beaches. Two young children and their mother were playing in the sand and that reminded us of our own childhood and there was an interesting house that we fawned over. I think we were both happy to be by the water and Lucy began scouring the shore for interesting shells, rocks, and beach glass.

The real treasure was at Sea Gull beach about half way up the cape on the outer shore. This soft and flat beach was littered with the shells of horseshoe craps abandoned at the high tide mark. We collected some smaller shells and rocks for Lucy to decorate with and then had lunch on the tailgate. This was my favourite beach because it was a gentle slope with lots of interesting things to beachcomb. There were a ton of shells and the horseshoe crabs were something novel too. We hung out until late in the day and it began getting dark enough that we needed to head to our camping spot.

It was a nice change of pace to be travelling with someone on a two-day excursion. It felt like an entirely different trip than the previous two months because I was no longer chasing scenery and going from place to place for photographs. Now I had a reason to slow down and hang out, to chill on the beach and read a book.

It was also a successful testament to the element that we were able to cook and sleep comfortably, the two of us inside. I couldn’t be happier that the element worked as a two person camper, both for sleeping, cooking, and hanging out.

In the morning we went for an early walk on the beach. Marconi beach where we camped is a crumbling cliff that drops to a sandy area and then into the ocean where waves run up and break as whitecaps. The best that we found on this beach was a starfish but we also saw several seals swimming along the shore. I was disappointed that we didn’t see any great white sharks because the sign said that September and October is peak viewing season. Just two weeks earlier my friend Zak had been at Cape Cod and seen plenty of sharks.

After breakfast we went to Provincetown at the end of the cape. This was alittle bit touristy but had lots of cool old buildings and shops to look at. We parked at one end and walked through town to the other checking out all of the buildings. At the far end is a breakwater that is a shortcut to a beach. This made for a good lunch spot where we had a picnic.

The most interesting part of the town was the art museum which had a well executed wooden facade with different geometries. The public library with a half scale model of a racing tall ship was also interesting. This building use to be the maritime museum and when the library took over the ship was too big to be moved. It was a shame that it’s only a model and can’t be climbed to make a kids area or something but that’s the building code for you — avoiding all liability at the expense of experience. Mostly I just enjoyed just walking around town and seeing all of the old buildings.

As touristy as the town is, it does have a nice charm and is a fun time. There are plenty of shops to wander through and interesting sights to see. There seemed to be some good looking restaurants too but we packed our own meals to save money so I can’t say whether they’re good or not.

We visited two more beaches, Head of Meadows and then Corn Hill but we were pretty tired, having walked some 35,000 steps thus far. The first beach was on the Atlantic side and I’d hopped to see some sharks but I only saw seals. The latter was along the west side and we had hopped to see a good sunset but it was blocked by cloud cover on the horizon.

Lucy had to work the next day but I also stayed in to catch up on blogs and vlogs. This also included booking flights to Vancouver in a week to spend time with my dad. Since it was raining anyways I didn’t mind being indoors and having a break. The next day though, I went out to explore Cambridge.

My friend Zak is studying at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) doing a second master’s degree. I passed by and then walked around campus to Raven used book store. The GSD was considered the best architecture school in the world for a time and I figured that there might be some good spillover of architectural books in the area to pick up at some of the used bookstores. Unfortunately Raven books opens at 11 and it was only 9:30 so I went to the Carpenter centre for the visual arts, a Le Corbusier building I wanted to see but it too didn’t open till noon.

Fortunately next door was the Harvard art museum and that was free for students so I looked in there to kill the time. All of their artefacts were pristine and seemed like the best possible examples. While wandering around Zak messaged me and suggested I check out GSD that had some display in the lobby with models and then the museum of natural history.

The musuem of natural history had a nice big geo room of semi precious rocks and lots of taxidermy too that helped fill in the time. It reminded me of the natural history museum in New York but on a slightly smaller scale. Both are good museums in their own right. There was a giant turtle shell in the Guinness world records and a room of glass flowers that were used for study because preservation of the real thing is difficult. Since the ticket also includes the etemology museum I looked through that too but wasn’t too interested. There was, however, a small section on BC coastal First Nations but it wasn’t that great and only made me determined to see the Museum of Anthopology in Vancouver.

Harvard has a few other museums including one for scientific instruments but it’s not really that great. The Carpenter Centre for Visual Arts also has a small gallery but it’s not that interesting either. That’s alright because I was there to see the building itself which is pretty cool. Most interesting was a stairwell that had glass block and wood paneling that made for some interesting effects with the diffused sunlight.

By this time Raven books was open and while they had a bunch of architecture books, none were interesting enough to buy. I realize that I’m nolonger a student so I’ve lost access to some 70,000 books in the UofT architecture library and if I want to continue my research and writings I’ll probably need to spend a boatload buying books. That’s why I’m on the hunt for used bookstores but architecture books in general are hard to come by. During my tour of Cambridge I also check out two more places, the Harvard coop, and the Harvard bookstore but neither had anything of interest.

In my architectural tour of Cambridge I went to see a cubist building, Simmons Hall, designed by Steven Holl Architects. The massive building is all based on the square and light filtering through the 5,500 windows. These windows are pretty small so I imagine on the inside a room might have multiple windows but not a lot of light.

Nearby is a building by Eerno Sereno called the Kresge Auditorium that I wanted to see but I couldn’t get into it so I went to the Ray and Maria Stata Center by Frank Gehry. Cambridge has quite a lot of architecture projects and at the Gehry building a local woman started chatting with me when she saw me taking pictures. For it’s quirkiness and weirdness its actually stood the test of time quite well. There are a lot of places where water could leak in but it seemed to be in good condition. It is also an interesting building in a landscape of boring condo buildings, so that’s something to value — whether you like it or not.

By then it was nearly 5 and I’d skipped lunch so I headed back to Lucy’s for an early dinner and then went to see how Zak was getting along at the GSD. We found drinks and somehow managed to drink our way through three bars until 3 in the morning.

The next day was a Saturday and Lucy and I had plans to tour around Boston. Since I’d been out late we had a slow morning getting going but once we got out it was fun walking around the city. We visited most of the major architectura landmarks including the main parks, city hall, and Quincy market. From there we went to the waterfront and then saw the Batterymarch Building and the Winthrop Building that had a used bookstore beside it. This bookstore had the most obscure old architectural titles at stupidly expensive prices. Fortunately Lucy knew of another bookstore that was called Brattle Book shop. They had a much better selection and books as cheap as $1 filling an empty parking lot. They weren’t at all organized so it took a long time to look through them but I found a book on museum architecture with three Tadao Ando projects for 5$ so I thought, why not. I then found a copy of In Praise of Shadows that was cheaper than on Amazon and a book about a guy renovating a minka Japanese house too which I’m excited to read.

We had a rest in the park again and a shack that was much needed because our legs were tired from all the walking we were doing. Then we biked quickly to Boston public library before it closed and rushed to go through it and see it while the attendants were shouting that the library was closing at 5. That also made it sort of exciting in a way that we tried our best to avoid the attendants for as long as possible.

As a whole, Boston architecture is quite nice. I like that the city isn’t a grid and so the skyline constantly changes. There’s a lot of interesting and different neighborhoods to see, though they could use with better bike lanes and bike racks, of which there are very, very few. But the city is nice. I think it’s rich but that might just be my own preconception. It’s definitely chill and has a small town feel to it. I actually thought that it was larger than it felt but maybe it’s like Vancouver were most of the people live in sprawling suburbs.

After we had toured around the library and Copley square beside we went to Seaport which is a new gentrified neighbour hood along the water and saw the Institute of Contemporary Art building. I was critical of it but I liked the residence beside it. The great thing about walking around with another architect is that you can spend your time debating the merits of different design decisions in buildings and their impact on the urban fabric.

On Sunday I left Cambridge. I can’t say I was exactly happy to leave because Lucy had given me a comfortable place to stay and fantastic home cooking. The domestic life was a nice change from the roadtrip travel but I needed to get going because I was on a time frame limited by the flight to Vancouver.

The drive out of Cambridge was slow because I took Mass Avenue instead of the interestste to see more of the city. There wasn’t much after that either. I had a short hike where a guy appreciated my bumper stickers and I visited natural arch state park but that was a brief stop because the arch itself was blocked off so there wasn’t much to see.

Then I was into New York State and I didn’t see much of anything on route 20 driving west to Niagara. I stopped in a town for lunch in the park but spent most of the day driving and daydreaming. I want to live alternatively; I want to make a place my own that I can call home. It can be a barge that I build a houseboat on or an old warehouse garage that I convert into a maker space and loft. It can be a cabin on the water or a studio in the forest. Most importantly, it is a place to call my own and a place to call home.

That night I enjoyed one last night camping in the Element somewhere in upstate New York at Delphi Falls Park . I savoured the wonder of being able to camp and cook anywhere. It was nice to be able to step outside and be under the Milky Way one more time. Then in the morning I checked out the waterfall which was pretty cool.

I tried to go to Buttermilk Falls State Park but it had paid parking. At least I could see the waterfall and wasn’t overly impressed so I left. On the way I also happened to miss my turn and drove through Cornell university but I couldn’t remember why it was significant.

My last stop in the US was Watkins Glen State Park and it was well worthwhile. The park is a gorge that was carved by a river erroding through different sedimentary layers. Although it began raining while I was there, the scenery was still beautiful. The space is very dramatic and the way the water erroded the rock changes in different zones. The trail isn’t that long either, about a mile, so it’s fairly accessible. The only downside was that it was impossible to get photos without people since it’s both busy and narrow.

After hiking I was hungry so I stopped for brunch at a classic cafe dinner in a blink-and-you-miss-it town. It wasn’t anything special. An iced coffee was just coffee with ice cubes in it and the brunch was just eggs, bacon, and toast. The waitress forgot to put my order in and came by with a 5$ bill to appologize but I rejected it and said it was no big deal. With a slice of apple crisp for the road, it was only 13.25 USD so I didn’t really mind.

By then I realized that my last stop, Letchworth State Park, was a toll road and would be longer than I had time for. I needed to make the miles if I wanted to get to Barrie where I’d be staying the night so I headed for the border. I didn’t understand why maps.me wouldn’t put me on the interestate but apple maps did and then I passed a toll gate so I was mad. Apple maps is suppose to avoid tolls too but it didn’t. I don’t know why there aren’t signs beforehand either so I wasn’t happy. I got off as soon as I could and then I was back to the country roads that took a lot longer. I also didn’t know that bridges were tolled across the border but there’s not much that I can do to avoid that.

Due to the timing of the flights to Vancouver, I only had a few days in Toronto. My good friend Jenna agreed to let me leave my element at her parent’s place while I’m away so I spent a night with them. Somehow it came out during dinner that Japan is opening up their border again. My response was something along the lines of, “Oh no, oh no… I think I’m going to Japan…”

And just like that the next adventure is beginning.

Instead of a round trip to Vancouver for three weeks and a job search to launch my career, I’m going to go to Japan for two months! I am so excited! I feel bad that I’m spending so much each month traveling while all my friends are starting careers but Jenna’s always been really good for giving me perspective and she reminded me that once I start working I won’t have the time. Also, I shouldn’t feel bad that everyone’s working and I’m not because most of them probably wish that they could travel too.

I was so excited about Japan that I couldn’t sleep. Two years ago in the pandemic I promised myself that when Japan opened I’d go back. I’ll be revisiting some of the same places I’ve been before but I’ll also be seeing some new places. This is will also be an opportunity to revisit Japan with a critical eye to architecture and to gather research for future architectural writings continuing on from what I began with my book, Emotive Architecture.

It seems like there’s a constant need for motion in my life, to move on and keep going. I wonder how much of that is caused by not having a home and how much of it is effect. I still want a home and a place to base myself out of, but I’m so excited for Japan and all that I’ll experience there!