Farewell, Maine, and All Your Beauty

We were taking in the last bit of Maine's coast as this would be our last day in Maine and heading to Massachusetts. And although it was the last bit of this state, it certainly wouldn't be the least. We headed to Old Orchard Beach, where it reminded us a bit of the Florida coast, and even had sandy beaches and an amusement park. We really enjoyed taking in the beach as it was almost empty, but observed the workers covering up the rides at the amusement park, closing up for the season.

We headed further down the coast and saw in our tour book that there is a spouting rock in Kennebunkport, along with one other attraction that we would like to see, so that's where we headed. Once again, the town didn't disappoint, and there were tour buses, so the town was still busy with people.

We weren't there at the right time of the tide, but we think this could be the spouting rock.

And last but certainly not least, is the Summer home of former president, George H. W. Bush.

   Here----v

Enlarged ^

Nice, eh?

And a nice tribute to our 41st president.

Our last town we wanted to stop in is Ogunquit, a town our friends Catherine and Joey recommended for us to visit, and I can see why they loved it so much.

Didn't get a lot of pictures, but enjoyed walking around this charming town.

We are now in Falmouth, MA for a week, and I may or may not be really enjoying a condo with a nice bed and a hot shower any time I want. We did get a welcome from these fellas while we were driving around.

I guess Key West has their chickens, Cape Cod can have their turkeys.

We will be enjoying a day in Boston tomorrow on The Freedom Trail.

LL Bean and Irresponsible Dog Owner

We continue our journey down the coast, with our destination for the night being Freeport, the land of everything LLBean. But we first get to enjoy more coastal towns and oddities like these two fellas hanging out beside the road at different homes.

Love it.

As we were driving, we noticed we were coming up on a pretty impressive bridge. And the closer we got, the more impressive it became. 

If you look at the top point, you can see some Windows where there is an observation deck where we enjoyed 360 degree views. 

Also right below the bridge was Fort Knox (no, we didn't make a detour to Kentucky), which is located right across the river from Bucksport.

And here is a selfie of us after 2 weeks camping in a Prius.

They set up the fort for Halloween, but some days this is how I feel^. Anthony couldn't resist getting a pic with this lovely.

And here is Bucksport.

A lot of towns look like this in Maine, but was able to get a good pic of this town from the Fort. 

We stopped in Camden on our way down the coast and got to enjoy it for a bit. There were people out and about, and I couldn't imagine it in the summertime. How do these towns absorb all the people who visit in the summertime?

But at this point in the season, we saw a lot of this:

We stopped in Rockport and got familiar with Andre the Harbor Seal, who was the star of books and a movie. He passed away in 1986, but left quite the impression on this area.

Rockport.

We had planned to stop in Rockland, but by that time the misty rain had started and the fog had rolled in, so we didn't stop.

When we told people we were coming to Maine, everyone who had been here before said we had to try the lobster roll. We asked Penny, our friend from Bar Harbor, where the best place would be to try one, and she said she didn't know of any better place than Red's Eats in Wiscasset. So we had been watching the dot on our map of Wiscasset very carefully because we knew we were going to get a lobster roll there. Even when we got there, in spite of it being drizzly outside, sure enough there was a small line. It is also highly recommended by TripAdvisor. It is not that impressive from the outside, just a roadside stand, but the amount of lobster on that roll was pretty impressive.

We headed to Freeport as our destination of the day and found the Flagship store of LLBean. The whole town is pretty much shopping, as there are all kinds of outlet stores all around to enjoy.

The next morning brought sunshine and we decided to head back up the coast to visit some towns we missed on the way down because of the weather. We went through Bath, the home of Bath Iron Works, who builds battleships, frigates, cruisers and destroyers. But more importantly, it is the home of Bikeman. Anthony recognized the sign from videos he has watched while working on his bikes.

And got to enjoy Boothbay Harbor, which is another beautiful town. There weren't that many people here and the stores were winding down, but we got to enjoy it without the hustle and bustle of a lot of tourists.

Although Boothbay was a great little town, Anthony and I will always remember it as the town with an irresponsible pet owner. We unfortunately stepped in some dog poo, and spent most of our time there walking through water puddles and scraping our shoes on curbs, lol. I hate it when that happens.

"Toe Knee"

This is Anthony. 

On Sunday, we were driving by a general store near Whiting, Maine, when I spotted this fully loaded bicycle sitting out front with kitty litter bucket rear panniers on it. 

We turned around so I could take a photo of the bike to send to my friend, Bob, in Chattanooga because Bob also has kitty litter bucket rear panniers on his touring bicycle.

This is Bob^

The owner of the bike, Tony, was sitting on the porch of the store so I started what I thought would be a normal conversation with him. The regular, "Where are you riding from?; Where are you heading?; How long have you been riding?, etc."  Turns out that he is mute. He could make some sounds, but no words.  He could understand my questions, and was able to respond by gestures and letters written in the air by him.  When I asked his name, he first pointed to his toe, and I responded "Toe" and then he pointed to his knee, and I responded "Knee."  I just wonder how many times he has said his name, Tony, that way. 

He started his bicycle trip in Oregon 6 months ago and had ridden through 38 states at the time we met him. His plan is to ride down the east coast to Florida and then head west to California and then turn north and travel to Washington state to end his trip. He plans on riding in all 48 states by the time he completes his trip in 6 more months. 

Self-supported bicycle touring itself presents many challenges and difficulties. It is hard to imagine how much more challenging it would be having communication barriers. Like most touring cyclists, he seemed to enjoy communicating the details of his trip to me, and I certainly was blessed being able to communicate with him in a non traditional way.  I find his accomplishment to be very inspirational. 

Schoodic and Downeast

We headed up the Atlantic Coast via U.S. Highway 1. Our first stop was Schoodic District, which is part of Acadia National Park. 

We were told that in the summer this is the section of the park you go to if you want to get away from the crowds.

All this time we have been looking for Puffins and we knew we saw them when we saw these:

Only we would think these ^ Buffleheads (ducks) could possibly be a Puffin. v

(Pic taken from Wikipedia^)

Thanks, Sherrie, for setting us straight.

Our next stop is Lubec, the Easternmost town in the US.

Right in front of the lighthouse was what looked like a huge whirlpool, and we saw on the atlas that we were very close to the largest whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, so we thought this must be it. When I asked one of the locals, he snickered, and said, that's not it. You have to get on a ferry to see the biggest one, which is nicknamed Old Sow, and is 250 ft across. Now I know why the local laughed.

I also asked him where the easternmost point is, and we did find it.

Our next point of interest took us over the Canadian border. . .

To Campobello, where the summer cottage of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family is located. 

We enjoyed this tour and wanted to give a shout out to Uncle Raymond for the recommendation.

The speed limit was 80!!! while we were in Canada, so Anthony threw caution to the wind and took off.

Jk, this is in km, which is about 49 mph. Knew that would freak you out for a second.

Sunday night we stayed in a campsite close to Pembroke called Reversing Falls. It was right by the water and got to enjoy its beauty. (The first picture is like the roads we have been going down to get to these remote campsites, and we are usually on them for miles.) There was only one other camper there that night.

We woke up the next morning and our next stop was Eastport.

Wait, I thought Lubec was the easternmost town. Oohhh, Eastport is the easternmost CITY. Well, okay. 

We found a town called Calais (pronounced callous, I was pronouncing it "kal-A" like Colbie Caillat), and cooked our breakfast by the river that separates the US from Canada, which you can see right across the way.

All these towns are shutting down for the season and a lot of the restaurants and coffee shops are already shuddered up for the winter. We were lucky to find a coffee shop open to enjoy our morning brew. 

We were taking a route where we think we saw Katahdin, the tallest point in Maine, from a distance and is the ending or beginning of the Appalachian trail. And are still enjoying the ever changing colors.

I wanted to post this just to give you a chuckle.

We have traveled 2,606.9 miles and our average is 32 mph. Haha. I think he thinks he is trying to beat his bike average.  How many hours have we been in this car??!!??

A Walk In The Woods

On Saturday we wanted to try, for the second time (the first time was too cloudy), to summit Cadillac Mountain. The first time we made it half way up South Ridge Trail before turning around, and this time we were going to try the north ridge trail. When we made it to that parking area, it was completely full, so the next path was the gorge trail. I thought if I conquered the Beehive, I can hike anything. So off we went on the Gorge Trail. 

I was thinking, what a nice leisurely stroll.

You know, very pleasant.

Nice little waterfall:

Interesting rock formations:

Then the real fun begins:

Yup, had to channel my inner Billy Goat to make it up these rocks. 

Here's a pic of the people who more than likely drove their cars to get there:

And of course we saw this.

That is Bar Harbor and looks like a couple of cruise ships.

It never gets old.

And finally, the summit!!

We thought there would be a big plaque, lol.

We even saw what looked like a wedding:

And then the descent.

If anybody lost their Hilton key card, it is on a rock at the Gorge Trail.

Interestingly enough, as I was scooting down the rocks, Anthony called me back to where he was and pointed down to the ground. And there was my cell phone:( thankfully he was behind me and saw where it had fallen out of my jacket pocket. That would have made me very sad. Can you imagine doing "find my phone" the approximately two miles up again??

Yay, we made it back. 

The next picture is the Beehive, the one we hiked the day before.

Then a zoomed in picture.

If you look closely you can see people climbing.

We also got a zoomed in pic of the lighthouse on Egg Rock.

The only other lighthouse we saw up close is in Bass Harbor.

We learned that each lighthouse has different blinks/lights, I guess, so the boats can distinguish where they are on the water. 

This is our attempt at looking for Puffins.

I don't see any, do you?

Today we will be leaving beautiful Bar Harbor and Acadia heading north to Lubec, the most eastern point in the US.