I’m standing at the base of the Mulholland Point Lighthouse on Campobello Island. This is Canadian soil, though I can see my native land less than a quarter mile away across the bridge. I am in New Brunswick. Lubec, Maine is on the other side of the inlet.

Lubec is the most eastern town in America. I am closer to the African continent here than I would be at, say… any other point along the eastern seaboard. Get out your grade school globe and check me on this if you don’t believe me.

This also means, from my current locale, that I am living on Atlantic time. It’s 12:05 at the lighthouse. Across the water in America, it’s 11:05. I’m reminded of standing on Georgia soil back home and looking across the river at Phenix City, Alabama. Two worlds divided by an unseen line in the universe, yet somehow the same.

In a lot of ways, Maine has felt like foreign territory to me. If I try my hand at the Maine dialect, I get laughed at. I cannot pronounce many of their words. It appears that they name the geographic features of this land, particularly rivers and mountains, after the sounds that come from a sack of taters falling down a flight of stairs.

Imagine you’re driving along. A bridge is coming up. “What’s the name of this river?”, you ask your navigator as you approach the steel and concrete structure. And she says, “This is the Passagassawakeag River.”

Warning. Trying to pronounce this word may cause uncontrollable episodes of vocal jocularity that result from numerous attempts not to “passa gassa” while figuring out how to articulate accurately the name of the aforementioned waterway.

I’ve never seen so many compilations of vowels and consonants put together in unspeakable forms. I’m sure the Native American language is behind some of it. Mix that with the French explorers who came here ages ago, and you get “nooks” and “schoodics” and “eagues” and “nochetts” “tahdins” enough to confuse the heck out of this Georgia boy.

Maine is growing on me, though. We’ve been here long enough that I don’t need GPS to tell me where to turn onto our cabin road anymore when we come home at night. I can name some of the mountain peaks in the distance. I’ve learned a little bit about the logging days of the 1800’s along the Penobscot River. And most importantly, there are no venomous snakes in Maine.

I’ve also noticed that the Maine squirrels could teach our Georgia squirrels a thing or two. I’ve seen a lot of these long-tailed critters cross the road in front of us on our travels. Not one has ever done the hesitation-spin-around-hop left-hop right-stop-and-start-over dance on the highway. They all scamper straight across the road in one shot.

The porcupines are not so bright. They are the Maine version of our roadkill possums and armadillos.

We have ventured out in nearly every direction from our home base. If you marked out our trips with stick pins and string, it would look something like a wagon wheel with Dedham, Maine as the hub. Two Georgia Crackers on an adventure of a lifetime. We have seen the coast, and we have seen the mountains. We have eaten lobster, and we found sweet tea in Bangor. We have stood to read the historical markers, and we have hunted for moose at sunset.

But of all the things we’ve done, meeting the folks here has provided us with some of our most enjoyable experiences. We southerners are not so different from these Mainers. We all carry pictures of our grandkids. We’re all just trying to do our job and make life work for our families. We enjoy good laughter. We know what it means to be kind to a stranger.

“Show a little grace,” said Jerry, our tour guide at Acadia. “That’s all it takes to get along in this world.”

Good advice. There are great people everywhere you go.

We did come across one cashier who wouldn’t cozy up to us, but maybe she was having a bad day. The customs officer on the Canadian side struck a zero on the friendly scale. But other than that, everyone we’ve met has been more than courteous and helpful to us.

We even found a gal in Guilford, Maine who moved here from Atlanta a little over a year ago. She and her husband bought a Bed & Breakfast up in the mountains and made Maine their home. Unfortunately, she is a Roll Tide fan. I’m glad I met her before the game.

Crossing the state lines, having fun with the accents, standing at the edge of the North Atlantic, seeing the purple mountain majesties rise above the blood-red blueberry fields has me feeling a little bit patriotic on this trip. I’m seeing America through the lens of a camera instead of through the screen of a TV.

I haven’t traveled from sea to shining sea, but I have visited places from Key West to Lubec. In towns all across the highlands, a lot of red, white, and blue flags are flying. There’s one stretch of the scenic highway along the coast where there’s about a mile of American flags on both sides of the road. Every two hundred feet or so, there is a signpost calling attention to the phrases from our pledge.

I pledge allegiance… The notations are spread between the flags. …to the flag…of the United States…of America…and to the Republic…for which it stands…one Nation…under God…indivisible…with Liberty…and Justice…for all.

As you drive by this scene, Old Glory is flying from the top of a 150 ft crane off to the left. It’s hard not to feel a lump in your throat; to have a sense of pride for this country and the people who stand together under its colors.

One afternoon we drove the forestry roads up into the mountains around Moosehead Lake. We were following the signs to the crash site of an American B52 that went down in a training exercise in January of 1963. Seven of the nine crew members perished. Only the pilot and the navigator survived.

It’s one thing to see wreckage in a museum. It’s another thing to see it scattered across a mountainside like shards of aluminum trash. There was five feet of snow on the ground that night. The wind chill was 30 below on the west side of Elephant Mountain.

The pilot went back to active duty after a few months. The navigator lost his leg due to complications from frostbite. Small flags have been placed across the site for over a quarter-mile up the mountain.

It’s hard not to think of this place as holy ground.

I’m glad we came here. The beauty and splendor of this land is overwhelming. Maybe because Maine is so different than Georgia. Or maybe because this is America, my home. Maybe a little of both.

No one from Maine will likely ever read this. But if they do, I’d like to offer an invitation to come visit us good folks down south. Stay awhile.

Our sweet tea is the best.