The long arm of Google has finally reached Maine, and now a lot of us are going to be spending time reading maps.

Google quietly increased its coverage of the "Street View" feature of Google Maps, and it now includes Maine.

Observe Press Herald Plaza.

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(Hopefully no one can see me goofing off at my desk.)

It was over a year ago that Google Maps rolled out Street View.

Now they've gone and doubled the number of cities it covered, and they even featured Portland Head Light among the new destinations on their Google LatLong blog.

(The Official Google Blog has the expanded coverage on a map to give you an idea just how much Google is watching you.)

Ideally the street view feature was created as an additional aid in navigating and finding your way around on a map. If you are anything like me, you find your way around through landmarks as much as street signs.

But Street View also had an unintended side effect - catching people in embarassing acts.

Aside from catching people in their bathrobes or talking to their cat, Street View also raised broad privacy concerns.

Even though the Google Maps van takes photos from public streets (also a newspaper photographer's best friend BTW), some people don't like the idea of their home or their random activities getting captured for all time, only to be seen by someone looking for directions to Bennigans.

And now, it's all come to Maine. So while we can all be happy to have better visual cues when we're looking for directions out to Rick's Cafe in Naples, you can bet we'll all be checking to make sure we weren't caught on the map.

But...since we're all going to be poring over this thing anyway, I want to issue a challenge: Send in your best finds on Street View in Maine and we'll post them on the blog.

Time to see what the Way Life Should Be looks like.

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