Heads up - I haven't been anywhere, But this is still technically a travel blog.
Long ago here on Hive I would do a fun thing of spinning the virtual globe, randomly stopping, zooming in on whatever point and investigate whatever I found.
I somehow found even the most mundane locations a place of fascination. For example, in one random state of the US, I found a suburb full of those typical American wooden houses, but Every. Single. Vehicle, both parked and driving, were pickup trucks. I couldn't find a single exception for a fair distance.
Amazing.
Today, I ended up going down a similar rabbit hole - so prepare to experience the mundane!
I started pondering exactly why US houses are so often made of wood. It turns out, in a nutshell, it's largely because they just have a LOT of wood. This lead me to find the state of Maine had the most wood; close to 90% of the entire state is forest.
One reason for this fact is that there is only one main interstate road trundling down the East side of the entire Northern half:
If you go deeper into that big green Northern wilderness - which if you were me, you would, because like I said it's fascinatingly mundane - you mostly get this:
Some small roads, but barely any people. The population density is negligible, the living costs cheap. And I wonder how many schools there are per 100km - 0?
Most of those roads still don't even have any Street View capability, either, but I did find one near a river. After trundling down the road for a bit in the greenery, I actually came across a house - with a man! Living there in exactly the kind of lifestyle you'd expect if you ever watch American movies:
Git awf mah lawnnnn or ah'll shoot y'all wi' mah gatlin' gun
He even had one of those classic rusty mail boxes:
But he in fact was not completely isolated in the forest as I imagined!
Just down a bit more was a sort of makeshift little hamlet of people, and this is where things got pretty interesting, in an exceptionally dull kind of way. I really started to daydream about the stories that could be told, but are never heard, by those living in this far-out lifestyle, not too far, geographically speaking, from New York City.
Barely 50 metres down from that redneck hick was a property coned and taped off, looking new and shiny with a decent middle-classy blue car, and a happily waving woman who put up an astrology-type sign on the wall of her home...? shop? in the shape of a barn. Immediately to her left was an abandoned, overgrown minivan.
This is what caught my attention. On this little isolated street in Maine where barely a dozen people live their lives, there's quite a blend of poor-looking folk and the more middle class.
Case and point, immediately next door, you have a pretty run-down, overgrown home (left), and a pretty run-down tiny hut of a place next to that (right) whose outside area is completely unpaved, grass cut using a rusty hand-pushed lawnmower and a weirdly placed, creepy-ass rocking chair blocking the front door.
In contrast, just a dozen or so metres beyond that, you come across a whole different world of home:
Not only is the home large and well-maintained, its garden freshly installed and beautifully presented, but this family clearly has some cash to spare with that RV, kayak, and outside barn areas with seemingly a chicken coop hiding at the back and even a well behind the RV. However, flip 180 degrees and their view is...
A burnt down, dilapidated shed/house?. So many untold stories here!
This human grassy opening soon closes up, however, and we're back to narrow roads surrounded by trees once more.
And just for fun, here's a church with a weirdly open graveyard. Surrounding it are large houses, all with equally un-bordered land stretching as far as you can see.
Everything, of course, was still built from wood.
And that, fellow bored readers, is Northern Maine in a nutshell.
They're not called gardens here, they're just yards or property or something, gardens actually have produce, flowers, et cetera growing in them—garden.
Maine. Best lobster on earth.
Is that not what I'm seeing? Flowers, greens, perhaps some taters and carrots? Immediately in front of the house, to the right in the photo
As for lobsters... never been one for seafood so perhaps my dreams of moving there when I'm old is a mistake heh
It's possible, looks can be deceiving, doesn't look like there's a garden in the yard, though.
Ain't eating habits fascinating? Seafood's about the only meat I'll consume. Turkey, too, but I'm married to a chef so I'm admittedly the pickiest diner ever and finding minced / sausage / anything turkey in EU or UK is complicated like finding a garden in that yard. = }
Entertaining write up man.
Cheers! I aim to please.
Yeah I'm starting to grow my cooking skills in the Chinese cuisine given I live there and all and I have to work around a lot of seafood... I guess i'm just picky in all the wrong ways
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I can see how simple and peaceful life is here😍
Yeah from a distance it looks very quaint and relaxing. But I wonder, for example the first guy, is he suffering in any way? Boredom/depression/joblessness, who knows...
Zero Cost Travel is amazing! Thanks for sharing this peaceful place.💓
I genuinely feel like I went there just a little bit haha XD
Cool post idea.
They don't call me 'Cool post idea Mobbs' for nothing