Heads up - I haven't been anywhere, But this is still *technically* a travel blog. 

Long ago here on Hive I would do a fun thing of spinning the virtual globe, randomly stopping, zooming in on whatever point and investigate whatever I found. 

I somehow found even the most mundane locations a place of fascination. For example, in one random state of the US, I found a suburb full of those typical American  wooden houses, but *Every. Single. Vehicle*, both parked and driving, were pickup trucks. I couldn't find a single exception for a fair distance. 

Amazing. 

Today, I ended up going down a similar rabbit hole - so prepare to experience the mundane!

I started pondering exactly *why* US houses are so often made of wood. It turns out, in a nutshell, it's largely because they just have a LOT of wood. This lead me to find the state of Maine had the most wood; close to 90% of the entire state is forest. 

One reason for *this* fact is that there is only one main interstate road trundling down the East side of the entire Northern half:


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23tvAaM9xDeFjzyTnwyQirEsHgsULc6SstfbnuXSdY3niosffgsHsmHY19co26dhwWtuA.png)

If you go deeper into that big green Northern wilderness - which if you were me, you would, because like I said it's fascinatingly mundane - you mostly get this:


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23swiKANVRdXQnD7ez7wsF7T2wkKfDrc3Xb3aJ9eg4RjKQM23TYfUvFixn7pc2KXPTKfF.png)

Some small roads, but barely any people. The population density is negligible, the living costs cheap. And I wonder how many schools there are per 100km - 0? 

Most of those roads still don't even have any Street View capability, either, but I did find one near a river. After trundling down the road for a bit in the greenery, I actually came across a house - with a man! Living there in exactly the kind of lifestyle you'd expect if you ever watch American movies:


<center>![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23tSKXoS7S4Vn6nusghYGE4f9M5MXYYt8dJ3uSYT3aXQ3F6gRP7j18iNkWnVNWAR2anAE.png)
 <sub> *Git awf mah lawnnnn or ah'll shoot y'all wi' mah gatlin' gun* </sub> </center>

He even had one of those classic rusty mail boxes:


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23swrU69n3zX7d1cC5oyYukXxL19nW2DouVyJ6VQj8iwM2n6EpnMfNqgxS7JN1dMVEYtq.png)


But he in fact was not completely isolated in the forest as I imagined!

Just down a bit more was a sort of makeshift little hamlet of people, and this is where things got pretty interesting, in an exceptionally dull kind of way. I really started to daydream about the stories that could be told, but are never heard, by those living in this far-out lifestyle, not too far, geographically speaking, from New York City.


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/Ep3dqZL3xX4FSnt2GLyiVpyvhsesQo4VGJEQnEcaLyqHjB18oXKAJ9iQcP8TaEQMKSM.png)


Barely 50 metres down from that redneck hick was a property coned and taped off, looking new and shiny with a decent middle-classy blue car, and a happily waving woman who put up an astrology-type sign on the wall of her home...? shop? in the shape of a barn. Immediately to her left was an abandoned, overgrown minivan. 

This is what caught my attention. On this little isolated street in Maine where barely a dozen people live their lives, there's quite a blend of poor-looking folk and the more middle class. 

Case and point, immediately next door, you have a pretty run-down, overgrown home (left), and a pretty run-down tiny hut of a place next to that (right) whose outside area is completely unpaved, grass cut using a rusty hand-pushed lawnmower and a weirdly placed, creepy-ass rocking chair blocking the front door.


<div class=pull-left>https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23vhwnUHdCNCQ1sX9WovhpcGMm9i9z6GtxKVXyfmS8GExKTnm6SQPuGDpnnX3d8kGY7Xf.png</div>


<div class=pull-right>https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23tbnq5QFsTEtbspyQq7R5rFTB8aPUpBL1ZzXwW7aHtBKra8fydPA6C29P8davzAZbYs4.png</div>

In contrast, just a dozen or so metres beyond that, you come across a whole different world of home:



![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/Ep3dmi3nkaZk62kYnkKGLkyvDDe53jzptHmyZU3LxYvnGCvsqrrB2o6usAMMA7rWE9j.png)

  

Not only is the home large and well-maintained, its garden freshly installed and beautifully presented, but this family clearly has some cash to spare with that RV, kayak, and outside barn areas with seemingly a chicken coop hiding at the back and even a well behind the RV. However, flip 180 degrees and their view is...



![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/23wMTvwESzyUmN5fo22USvdGBqxUfPNS7jZXWcdwmFyEAsRJNodqtvnH4dH4yUb1LEnMX.png)


A burnt down, dilapidated shed/house?. So many untold stories here!

This human grassy opening soon closes up, however, and we're back to narrow roads surrounded by trees once more.

And just for fun, here's a church with a weirdly open graveyard. Surrounding it are large houses, all with equally un-bordered land stretching as far as you can see. 

Everything, of course, was still built from wood.


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/2432HkjWjgFKb9KWU1sJ6bpcpe2VHk8QkJjycfFN5JFCRbSW77ZE9Mp7xLxDrUSb6oTcc.png)


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/mobbs/2423x5JkNXHHppaFuWnHZVHtNnu6KrYQzha688XicD1m1HZ2G53VvXAK8AcBESfqug1mL.png)


And that, fellow bored readers, is Northern Maine in a nutshell.

[//]:# (!pinmapple 46.39050 lat -69.16770 long  d3scr)