When life gives you lemons, go ride Lemonade!
Maine
Our first campsite in Maine is at Bentley's Saloon where the motorcycles and ladies'
bras hang from the rafters. They have a campground and a motel next door to the
saloon. The party atmosphere permeates the place day or night.
This is where we had the computer malfunction which delayed the updates to these pages for over two months. But now I'm back with the fun and troubles of our trips.
Bentley's has good beer, good burgers and fun times. Their slogan is "Who has more fun than us?... We do!" (No, that doesn't really make much sense.)
We were there three days, including the Tuesday car show. Over 100 cars showed up
and took over the parking lot. The cars' owners and the public walked around and
talked, drank beer and voted for their favorite. At the end of the summer the grand
total winner would receive a huge mechanic's tool chest as prize.
There were old cars, newer cars, trucks, project cars, restored cars, and some that were in the process of being restored. The weather threatened rain but held off for us.
Nearby was the Seashore Trolley Museum where we got to ride the trolley on the left
over its 2 miles of track. If you paid enough, and spent the day learning, you could
drive the one on the right yourself. I declined, but we did wander.
Trolleys were in much demand in the late 1800's and the early 1900's when people needed to get around town to work, shopping and play. Some were very utilitarian and others much nicer. Some were for sightseeing or to take to a place like Coney Island. After car ownership became common the trolley business fell on very hard times. But because of car congestion and pollution the "trolley" system has restarted, only we now call it a "subway" or "light rail" system. It serves the same purpose.
They had a restoration shop (left) and lots of others waiting for restoration. There
were many that had finished restoration and were on display. The one on the right
was for excursions and has a tiered seating to give everyone a view.
Most were stored in long sheds and we could wander through them at our leisure. The
one on the right was down right luxurious.
We headed north the next day with a stop at the headquarters of DeLorme Mapping. The
attraction is "Eartha". She is a 1 to 1,000,000 model of the earth made with photographs. It
is 42 feet in diameter, tilted on its axis and rotates.
With two balconies for viewing it was a fascinating display. There was also a map store with lots of interesting goodies for sale.
Our next interesting sight was at the end of a peninsula sticking out east from the main highway. The road wound around curves and over small hills and along causeways until it got to the "Cribstone Bridge". The bridge leads to an island off the end of the peninsula.
This bridge is built from granite blocks stacked like logs and topped with a cement
roadbed. We were lucky enough to be there at low tide and could walk out onto the
seabed for these pictures. The high tide would be over my head.
The coast of Maine is very, very convoluted. there are bays and inlets, peninsulas
and islands galore. Many of the bays have a village and harbor like the village
of Camden to the left. We are camped in Camden State Park and are at the lookout
point at the top of the hill inside the park. The view we have is 180 degrees wide
across Penobscot Bay and its islands.
After looking at it from the top we rode down to the town center and wandered through
the shops and harbor. There were several large sailing ships in the harbor available
for a day cruise or dinner cruise, if enough people signed up.
We declined. Years ago we owned a 30 foot sailboat and we found out that Kathy is not a sailor. She was never comfortable on the water whether it was the Columbia River or the Pacific Ocean. She had no interest in going out on any size sailboat.
Camden is a quintessential Maine town with the atmosphere and ambiance we had been led to expect.
The highway follows the south side of Penobscot Bay up to the narrows where there
is a new bridge. The concrete tower on the near side has an elevator up to a lookout
where one can see all around, including down the narrows.
At the base of the bridge is a fort originally constructed in Revolutionary times
and rebuilt and improved several times since to defend the interior of Penobscot
Bay from invasion. It has never seen combat.
After visiting both the lookout and fort we crossed the bridge and continued on to
Acadia National Park.
We circled the island the park covers and headed to our campground. The next day we visited the town of Bar Harbor and had lunch at the brewpub.
After lunch we wandered around town, bought some souvenirs, and headed around the park on the toll road (which was free because of my senior card from the government.
We traveled the interior through the hills and valleys and the coast around the bays
and rocky points. (The road below is one-
And we took the road to the top of Cadillac Mountain where we got another look at
Bar Harbor and its islands.
After two days here it is back onto the road north.
The West Quoddy Head Light Station is the easternmost point in the USA.
We have now made it to all four corners of the continental USA.
NW-
SW-
NE-
SE-
And we have also done the westernmost point in the total USA. We did it in Alaska.
All of these points are the road accessible points. Walking doesn't count in this score.
That night we chose Cobscook Bay state Park just because it was handy when evening
came. We registered and paid at the gate and then drove a long ways down a gravel
road until we came to our campsite. We turned in and rode a hundred yards down another
gravel road and found ourselves on a tree covered point of land with a view of the
bay through a gap in the trees. When we walked down to the shore we were totally
alone. No other campsite was within sight. Now the pit toilets were 1300 yards
away (1/4 mile) and smelly, but at that distance it didn't bother us!
This is looking east and the sunrise the next morning was spectacular. I took some pictures but being directly into the sun they did not turn out as well as viewing it with my eyes.
The bay was shallow and at low tide it was a wide mudflat with wandering channels through it.
We spent more time watching the bay change in the light and depth than we did sitting and reading in camp that evening.
The final stop in Maine is at the village of Eastport. This is where we catch the
ferry to Canada. The ferry "dock" is just the beach. the tide varies about 15 feet
here at the entrance to the Bay of Fundy.
Besides being the easternmost entry to Canada this ferry goes past "The Old Sow and
Her Piglets". This is the name of some tidal whirlpools that are between Eastport
and the first island in Canada, where we dock. These are the second-
Oh well, at least the loading onto and the unloading off of the ferry was exciting. With
the sand and gravel and the low tide crossing of the ramp I decided to do it by myself,
without Kathy on board the bike.
New Brunswick and the Bay of Fundy is coming up.