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battered shores and lonely lighthouses standing on rocks of granite, but the towns I passed
through were just messy and drear, and the countryside was wooded and unmemorable.
Once, outside Falmouth, the road ran for a mile or so along a silvery bay with a long, low
bridgeleadingoverittoalandscapeofsnugfarmsnestledinafoldofhills,andIgotbriefly
excited. But it was a false alarm and the landscape quickly grew dull again. The rest of the
time the real Maine eluded me. It was always just over there, like the amusement parks my
dad used to miss.
At Wiscasset, a third of the way up the coast to New Brunswick, I lost heart altogether.
Wiscasset bills itself on the signboard at the edge of town as the prettiest village in Maine,
whichdoesn'tsayawholelotfortherestofthestate.Idon'tmeantosuggestthatWiscaset
was awful, because it wasn't. It had a steep main street lined with craft shops and other
yuppieemporiaslopingdowntoaplacidinletoftheAtlanticOcean.Twooldwoodenships
sat rotting on the bank. It was OK. It just wasn't worth driving four hours to get there.
AbruptlyIdecidedtoabandonRoute1andplungenorthward,intothedensepineforestsof
central Maine, heading in an irregular line for the White Mountains, on a road that went up
and down, up and down, like a rucked carpet. After a few miles I began to sense a change
ofatmosphere.Thecloudswerelowandshapeless,thedaylightmeager.Winterclearlywas
closing in. I was only seventy miles of so from Canada and it was evident that winters here
were long and severe. It was written in the crumbling roads and in the huge stacks of fire-
wood that stood outside each lonely cabin. Many chimneys were already sprouting wintry
wispsofsmoke.ItwasbarelyOctober,butalreadythelandhadthecoldandlifeless feelof
winter. It was the kind of atmosphere that makes you want to turn up your collar and head
for home.
Just beyond Gilead I passed into New Hampshire and the landscape became more interest-
ing. The White Mountains rose up before me, big and round, the color of wood ash. Pre-
sumably they take their name from the birch trees that cover them. I drove on an empty
highway through a forest of trembling leaves. The skies were still flat and low, the weather
cold, but at least I was out of the monotony of the Maine woods. The road rose and fell
and swept along the edge of a boulder-strewn creek. The scenery was infinitely better-but
stilltherewasnocolor,noneofthebrilliant goldsandredsofautumnthatIhadbeenledto
expect. Everything from the ground to the sky was a dull, cadaverous gray.
I drove past Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern United States (6,288
feet, for those of you who are keeping notes). But its real claim to fame is as the windiest
place in America. It's something to do with … well, with the way the wind blows, of
course. Anyway, the highest wind speed ever recorded anywhere on earth was logged on
