There's really no better way to end a New England road trip. Just look at this guy! He's delicious.

This is the final road trip in the series. Over the past six months, we've blogged from Jacksonville to Key West, Seattle to San Francisco, Austin to Albuquerque, Las Vegas to Denver, Chicago to Memphis and Baltimore to Bar Harbor.

We've covered close to 10,000 miles, received thousands of tips and met hundreds of brilliant people all willing and proud to show us their corner of the vast landscape that is the USA. And we still haven't scratched the surface. We hope we come back again soon to cover a small fraction of the places we missed.

Oh, and the place is famous for its margaritas, holding a best-in-town award from the Bar Harbour Times. Tonight's special: an apple cider margarita. It would be rude not to ...

Top tip, folks. Loving the Side Street Cafe, a one-storey wooden detached building with a veranda wrapping around the front, lined with fairy lights.

The menu tells it how it is: "Here's the deal … you can really add lobster to just about anything on our menu! You want a lobster-topped cheeseburger, go for it!"

Seriously, what's not to love here? 

It's completely dark now, but Bar Harbor is buzzing. It's certainly a tourist hot spot. We drive past plenty of little souvenir shops and ice-cream parlours. There's an outdoor movie screening in the square, which has drawn a crowd. 

Most importantly, the street lighting here is really low, so you can see the stars. We've got an outdoor table at the cafe (it's packed inside) and it's just warm enough.

Dear readers, Vicky's epic, five-day road trip up the east coast is about to come to an end. From the streets of Balitmore, up the steps of Philadelphia, through Boston's shores and ends and capped by the cliffs of Maine – it's been one hell of a trip. It wouldn't have been possible with Greta, Kylie and every generous tipster who guided them and left comments along the way.

Recap with the complete map, if you'd like, and thank you for all your help!

Phew. It's tough nigh impossible to beat Greta's photos from the top of Cadillac Mountain, but something's got to tide us over while the team descends through Wi-Fi-less national park. Thus, the work of Maine's adopted son, Winslow Homer.

The Met (of Art), who ought to know says Homer's "regarded by many as the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century", and his work can be found in most of the nations' major art museums, including Portland's own. 

The Boston-born artist made his name sketching the American Civil War for Harper's Magazine and eventually moved to Prout's Neck, Maine, where he spent the rest of his life. He also produced what's considered his greatest work there, which largely revolves around – you guessed it – the sea.

And we're off for celebratory end-of-trip drinks and dinner at the Side Street Cafe in Bar Harbor, following tips.

Just think, if we'd queued for Reds Eats we would have missed it all.

We're at the top! There's a little car park and some walking trails built into the rocks, offering the perfect viewing platforms. The suns just about set now, leaving behind a gentle glow. 

Wow. Actually, to our complete surprise, our timing is spot on. The sun is dropping more with every turn the car takes around the mountain. The sky is turning pink and mauve. We can see for miles. The islands dotting the sea look incredible. 

The Eye of the Tiger is back on the stereo to see us through. It's the song of the trip. Note to Rocky: you boxing up those Philly steps is nothing compared to our epic east coast road trip.

We're here! Acadia National Park! Now powering through to get to the top of Cadillac Mountain, racing against the setting sun. We need pics from the top! 

Strongly recommended by readers, Acadia mashes the qualities of other US national parks into one: an island, a forest, a swamp, lakes, and mountains.

In fact, it has the tallest mountain on the US Atlantic coast. It's literally all downhill from here on the American east coast. Plus there's a 'Night Sky Festival', hiking, biking, your pick of fishing along cliffs or beaches, as well as loons, falcons, bobcats and seals. This is exciting.

Sights seen on the journey: plenty of pretty Maine chapels with their white steeples, one chipmunk, a sign welcoming "leaf peepers", the Baits Motel (for fishermen). 

And a pirate-themed crazy golf course. Why didn't anyone tip that? 

Below the line, lamericaine recommends heading to the top of Mount Battie in Camden, Maine. Vicky's committed to Acadia at this point – especially now that she's caught sight of encourage signage – so we can enjoy Mt Battie vicariously, with Christopher Setterlund's video on YouTube. 

It's $4.50 to get up there, and Setterlund provides dry commentary and a camera-guided tour of the many lighthouses and landmarks (including Acadia itself!) visible from the top of the hill.

But is it "Bát-tie" or "Bat-tée"? 

Signs for Acadia national park appearing now. Think we're about half an hour away 

Today has been another incredible day for weather. It started cloudy but soon cleared and the sky is now perfectly blue, with bright sunlight illuminating the multicoloured leaves in the trees. We just missed a thunderstorm the day before we got to Baltimore and since then it had been perfect, dry T-shirt weather - with just a little touch if autumn freshness – all the way. Is the weather always like this at this time of year or have we been lucky? 

 We hit the small town of Union and there's a farmers market going on (crates of vegetables, raw honey, goat meat and goat-milk soap). Some of the traders are bartering.

It's a huge contrast from the interstate driving we've done earlier in the trip. The landscape has opened up. The forests are stretching further and further out in all directions. Occasionally there is a little inlet of water, or a lone wooden house.

A bit of fishing for Maine tuneage for Vicky's time on the road just led us to excellently named Gordon Bok. Wiki gives us an endearingly biased account of his work, and makes Bok sound rather like the mythical king of the world's sea-people:

Bok draws on his experience in and around the working boat culture of the Gulf of Maine. He spins into song the diverse voices of fishermen and other sea-folk … At times, he reaches deep into the wealth of sea myth that haunts the North Atlantic. To animate these legends of Selkie-folk, sea fairies and boat spirits, he resorts to freer forms.

As much energy as Bok invests in making songs – many of which have grown permanent roots in the rough shores of New England and have all but passed into tradition – he is equally energetic as a folklorist and gatherer of songs. His repertoire overflows with contemporary songs written by his friends from all over North America, Australia, and the British Isles, but it only starts there: he sings, in the original languages, folksongs from Italy, Portugal, Mongolia, French Canada, Latin America, and the Gaelic Hebrides, among other places, not mentioning the huge body of old anglophone folklore over which he exercises mastery.

He is also an artist/master craftsman mainly dealing with sea themes done in wood carvings.

So there you have it. Gordon Bok.

Ok, mobile soup-eating accomplished. It wasn't easy, especially as we have just left route 1 and are now on more windy roads towards Bar Harbor. Things have really started to get stunning now.

We're booked in tonight at Ledges by the Bay, a waterfront hotel in Rockport. So we're heading back there after we've hit Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.

Clearly we'll be needing a drink to celebrate having made it all the way from Baltimore. Where should we go? With sea views, of course.

Littoral Maine 

Except, like an idiot, I don't order pie. I order soup. Who gets soup to eat in the car? I mean it is acorn squash, apple cider and sage soup. But still. Not the greatest of car foods. I hope you don't have potholes in this part of Maine. 

Then it's a quick stop at Treats – a deli cafe – for takeout. A fresh pumpkin-maple pie has just come out of the oven? Smells fantastic.

On the way out, we talk to a customer, Betty, in an excellent lighthouse sweater.

She's originally from New Jersey, but now lives in Maine. Her twin sister's still in New Jersey; they were born a few minutes apart but on separate sides of midnight, so they have different birthdays. She's exceptionally sweet and holds Greta's hand throughout our conversation.

They do lobster roll here too, but, in truth, we are still watching the clock. We want to get to Bar Harbor while it is still light. We're going to be decisive. We'll get drinks to go, and some takeout food from a spot Greta knows a little further up the hill. Our drinks order? It's got to be three of the house specialities, Sarahnade, a mix of homemade lemonade and pomegranate. That'll hit the spot.

One of our kind tipsters suggested Sarah's as an alternative. It's a traditional-looking restaurant directly opposite, with a big painting of a ship above the bar and wooden booths, with views over the water. 

Painted white and red, it's tiny, like a little streetside food wagon, just at the bottom of the hill, before the Donald E Davey Bridge. There's a handful of a parasoled plastic tables behind it, but the set-up is fairly grab-it-and-go. If you can get anywhere near it, that is.

I still can't get over the queues. The lobster rolls are said to be legendary and something certainly smells good. Unfortunately, our schedule is just too tight to wait. Although, on the upside, it looks like we have plenty of other options nearby. 

Ok, the warning signs were there. We'd had lots of tips for Red's Eats and we've read online how all its popularity causes "the longest 'traffic jams' in Maine". But still we weren't quite prepared for the length of the queues of people outside. They're huge! Not sure we have time to spare for this.

We're taking ExileMan's advice below the line, and popping over the road to Sarah's, where "The bread and soup bar is a hearty and wholesome meal".

Wiscasset is seriously cute. A line of shops - delis, art galleries, antiques shops and homeware stores - leads down to the waterfront.

The guys are just getting into Wiscasset now...

Here's what we've scratched up about Wiscasset.

First the pro forma history lesson: Samuel de Champlain fetched up here in 1605. A couple of hundred years later, it was the busiest seaport north of Boston. Then came the trade embargo with England leading up to the second war of independence. Bye bye prosperity. Damn Brits! However, the good years did leave behind lots of pretty houses, so now Wiscasset does a nice line in tourism. Possibly with lots of Brits.

Now the interesting bit: In 2009, the town LOST a legal battle to reclaim an original copy of the Declaration of Independence that was ACCIDENTALLY SOLD by the estate of the daughter of a former town official, Sol Holbrook. (How do you ACCIDENTALLY sell a defining piece of your history?) The court ruled that the true owner was not the town of Wiscasset, but Richard L Adams Jr, who bought the document in 2001 for $475,000. Where did he buy it from? A London book dealer, of course. Damn Brits!

These roads aren't just tree-lined now, the trees are spreading out as far as we can see.

Ah, look, this is more like it. New England trees lining the road, their leaves turning.

Ah. No snow globes, sadly. But we like their collection of old 3D maps that look like they've come off classroom walls and the globe marbles.

I like this place. I like the fact that someone one day thought, "You know what this place needs... the world's biggest globe in the foyer."

But, anyway, we're done. Time to head back to the car.

Next stop: Wiscasset for lunch.

Feeling a bit dizzy now. We're going to exit through the gift shop and see if Greta can add to her snow globe collection. A globe within a globe maybe?

It's open to the public and there is a map shop. We've climbed the stairs to look at it from above. It's slowly spinning and we're pointing out countries excitedly as if we've never seen one of these things before.

This is a great tip! We never would have known this was here. The world's biggest globe at the offices of map company DeLorme. Even Greta, who lives up the road in Portland, has never been here.

Eartha

(as tipped by ExileMan and aeausa)

Housed in a three-story glass atrium in the HQ of the DeLorme mapping corporation in Yarmouth, Maine, Eartha is a model (1:1,000,000, 1mm = 1km) of the earth with mountains and landforms in full 3D, that rotates and revolves, simulating the earth’s real movements.

So far, so unremarkable.

Now the good stuff: It measures 41.5ft in diameter and weighs 2.8 tons, took two years to build, and it represents earth as it is seen from space.

It took two years to build and is the world's largest revolving globe.

Stick that on your bedside table!

We're back in the car, heading to what we've been told is the biggest globe in the world.

As Vicky, Greta and Kylie hit the road again, it's nice to be able to give you a sense of the landscape they're driving through. We've dug up this film - Neptune, which is still in production, by independent Portland filmmaker Derek Kimball. In part, it's a love letter to the wild and rugged landscape of Maine, and it's relying on donations to be finished.

Kris and his wife Marilyn, who is from Maine, have been here for six years. Before that they had a crafts shop in the west Highlands for 30 years.

Marilyn says it is taking some to readjust, coming from a community where they knew everyone. It's changed a lot since she grew up here.

She says: "It was a farming and fishing community, now it's a tourism community. Our house [a traditional "shack" handed down from her mother] is now stuck in the middle of of millionaires' row. But it's the same everywhere with a coastline. It's the same in the Highlands. It's probably the same in the Seychelles, too, with locals there wishing they could live on the beach."
These guys are lovely. We tell them we'll send tourists their way to buy paintings. "Sure," says Kris. "They can come to my house, too."

The lighthouse itself is as picturesque as you might expect, sitting proudly on its little rocky headland, surveying its territory and the scattering of boats below. There are patches of yellow and purple wild flowers all around.

Well, this fella couldn't be more Maine.

Except he is from Scotland.

The very Scottish sounding Kris Kristiansen sells his oil paintings of Maine seascapes here, donating a portion of the profits to the town for the upkeep of the lighthouse, a few metres away from his stall.

We buy one of a boat being tossed around in a storm. It's called All Washed Up, which seems appropriate as we're pretty tired right now from our mad dash across the east.

We like to think we leave no stone unturned in our quest to animate a destination. So, ever since Vicky raised the question about Portland music last night, we've Alan in our NY office has been trawling his internal jukebox to bring you the sweet Maine music. Here's what he found - the first four bands are from Portland, ME:

Following a Twitter tip-off, our (not so hungry) bloghounds are heading off to Portland Head Light at Cape Elizabeth. It's another blast from the colonial past, built in the late 18th century:

Portland Head has long protected Portland and the adjacent area. Cape Elizabeth residents were deeply committed to American independence from British rule. In 1776, the new Town of Cape Elizabeth posted a guard of eight soldiers at Portland Head to warn citizens of coming British attacks.

Getting down with the US breakfast lingo, we've ordered our eggs "medium easy". And we do love the unlimited coffee refills out here.

"Anyone for more of the shakes?" says the server, as he hovers over our mugs with the filter pot.

We figure that since our donuts were "heathy" this morning, we can justify a second morning food stop. That's fair, right?

Darla, owner, with her hair in braided pigtails, is quite a character. There's been a diner on this spot since the '30s; it's been Marcy's since the late '80s, and she bought it two years ago.

We're sitting up at the bar and she's talking to us as she turns over a grill laden with eggs and hash browns.

We are here to show Brits what an American breakfast is all about.

"You're gonna ruin them," she says.

Great tip below the line from KentuckyFriedColonel, another stellar tipster on this trip. And we do like a starry, starry night.

KentuckyFriedColonel

27 September 2013 4:12pm

I didn't know if you knew that it's currently the 5th Annual Acadia Night Sky Festival around Acadia National Park. There seems to be loads of events happening until Monday, and the great thing is that they're happening at night! You may even make it in time for today's activities. Link is here:

http://www.acadianightskyfestival.org/

Our call for local Portland musicians has been answered.

We've just meet Megan Jo Wilson (left) and Sara Hallie Richardson. We will have to cue some of their sounds up for the car journey later. *

* But if you just can't wait - here's clippage.

We haven't had chance to go to an all-American diner as yet on this trip, so we're following this tip for Marcy's, from a non-affliated tweeter called @marcylara.

To help those cruise ship blow-ins understand a bit more about Maine, here's a clip from New England comic Tim Sample on getting to grips with the Maine accent - accents being a particular talking point on this tour. As suggested by reader aeausa, who has been serving us well with tips all week.

Woah. This is unexpected. We turn a corner and run into the mother of all cruise ships.

Greta, who lives here and is offering great insider info as we go along, says: "I always find it funny to see people coming off the cruise ships dressing how they think Maine should be. All hiking boots and chunky sweaters, even when it's 85F out and they are only walking around town."

Portland is a city of 500,000 people. There's an eastern prom and a western prom. We are on the east side. By the road is a row of archetypal New England houses, big and detached with inviting verandas. Below a long, green park runs alongside the ocean, which is dotted with sailing boats and tree-filled islands. We're looking out over Casco Bay. It's pretty idyllic around here.

We're taking a drive around town. We're at the modestly named Top Of The World park, in the East End, looking out over the city. 

While Vicky, Greta and Kylie experience a near-religious sugar rush in the Holy Donut, we'll set the day up with some tunes. Vicky asked last night if any famous musicians/bands hail from Portland (Maine)... we haven't established that yet, so if you know any, spare our blushes and let us know.

In the meantime, we wasted no time in asking the Portland music blog Hillytown.com to give us a playlist. Here's what we got. Enjoy. And send us your requests. Please. And we'll play 'em.

Now Leigh, the owner, has come in.

The business started when she started experimenting in her kitchen just a couple of years ago and took her donuts down to a local cafe. They sold like the hot cakes they were and she saw a gap in the market for comfort food with an organic twist.

We're spoit for choice here: Maine blueberry, sweet potato ginger, apple cider. From the old wood frontage, retro signs and worn-in furnishings, it feels like it has been here for ever, but it turns out that's a ploy; it opened in March 2012. They're opening their second location next month.

We meet Jeff, the owner's brother-in-law. Which one is his favourite?

"That is like asking which one of my children is my favourite."

He wriggles on the spot.

"Maybe the dark chocolate sea salt, that's the most popular one. Or the bacon cheddar." 

First stop of the day: The Holy Donut.

Thanks to @avcrofts for the tip on Twitter. It's pretty busy in here, a steady stream of people at the counter, getting their morning donut fix. They make their donuts with mashed potato and all natural, local ingredients. Even the coloured glazes come from fruit juice.