I’m sitting here on my deck in Gardner Creek, New Brunswick, Canada, staring out at a late afternoon sky over the Bay of Fundy on my last night of my 5-week road trip across New England, Maine, and eastern Canada that I playfully named my Jake Doe Journey. Tomorrow I have a six hour drive back to Boston - where it all began - and then a flight back south to Atlanta. It will be a full day of travel. But right now, before the final night’s packing begins, I’m reflecting on some of the highlights from my bucket list trip.

I do plan to make an Instagram and Facebook post in a few days with a best-of collection of my sign photos. The Rockwood city sign headlining this post is in that collection. This red color is all over up here, and I’ve found myself calling it Maine red, or forest red. It lives in beautiful contrast to the natural colors of the land and the woods.

Seeing it in person was special. I stopped at 9am on a Wednesday morning and was the only one there in an empty dirt parking lot. It’s a big lake, but in an accessible kind of way. The loop around the perimeter is about three and a half miles. I didn’t walk it. I was too busy taking photos and videos and marveling at the scene.