We got up at 4:15 AM in Portland Maine. We had a three hour layover in Baltimore Maryland. We arrived in Oakland, CA, then took BART to see Brian’s mom in San Jose.

Eleven hours of airplanes and airports. Ugh? Or Yeah! ?  Depends on you. We like to walk every available concourse, end to end or until we get tired. We look for observation decks and kids play areas. And we write in blogs! On board, we sometimes play cribbage on the iPad.

This is what a normal day’s flight paths over the U.S. look like, from a display in the observation area at the Baltimore airport:

Observations about New England.

There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts in every town, like Starbucks in the west. 

Even though the area is called “New England”, most people drink coffee, not tea.

The coastline is an intricate mix of land and water, salt and fresh, trees and rocks. If we lived here, we would want to learn how to use boats of all kinds. We would probably not do more swimming, because the water is too cold, at least the ocean water.

Seasons are important. Although we were only there for a short while, we noticed artwork depicting seasons in many places we visited. It seemed you could not last long if you were not aware of the seasons. Entire towns close. We often  Winters must be really harsh in Maine.

Private land dominates. We couldn’t find places to hike except in rare parks. Walking around on Deer Island was dangerous, because cars went by so fast.

In the cities, people come in every color and wear all kinds of clothes. In rural areas, people are mostly white skinned. Dress is much more casual and uniform, like gardening (or fishing?) clothes.

Driving seems a competitive sport here. Maine drivers pay no attention to speed limits. In Connecticut, drivers are impatient, darting between lanes and trying to pass everyone. And they are never going over the speed limit because there is too much traffic.

Maine is known as the Pine Tree State. The percentage of conifers was a lot higher than in Connecticut or New Hampshire. 

Lobster was in season, so we indulged.  We also ate crab and scallops. Great proteins here, but vegetables were rare. Perhaps people eat their veggies all at home and don’t want them when dining out? Lettuce and tomatoes were about it unless you ordered special side vegetables. 

So, off to California, a six hour flight. Grandma Pat picked us up at the BART station closest to her house. Her she is with her son Brian in her back yard.

• Coast-to-Coast Trip