Westward Ho (*UPDATED)

Bar Harbor, Maine to Ashland, Oregon: 3,449.2 miles

 

Our marching orders issued from Mapquest

There comes a time in every journey when one's wanderlust begins to dissipate and thoughts of hearth and home begin to drown out the road's siren song, and it becomes increasingly obvious that it's time to return home. That time has arrived. We would have liked to meander down the coast of Maine, perhaps as far as Cape Cod in Massachusetts, pitching our tent for another week to week-and-a-half, but frequent rain, cooler weather and financial considerations have finally tipped the scales homeward. Also -- to come right out with it -- we're both homesick. So after four-and-a-half months of vagabonding about this great country, we've decided to point our car towards the setting sun and press on home. We had almost headed back right after our stay in Massachusetts, after the jolt of cool damp weather first assaulted us, but Acadia has been our goal since the very beginning, so we managed to hang in there for another week. We're glad we did and yet we eventually woke up one morning and, as we were planning the day, came to the simultaneous realization that we were just bidding our time. So it's with not a small degree of ambivalence and sadness that we have begun the slow crawl across the map . . .