Today was moving day. Left Ellsworth to head to Portland for a
couple of nights. We know from the pictures that the driveway will be better. The
driveway to the house in Ellsworth was steep, gravel and rutted. Any one of those is reason for caution but all
three? We stopped on the road to assess
the situation and I immediately told Kim that I wasn’t going to do it, would he
please ride Zeus up the hill? Yes, he would as soon as he got his bike up
there. That took a little longer than
expected because Flame fell over and it took time to right it again. The trailer lost traction on the gravel at a
slow speed and decided not to go forward.
It sort of slipped sideways which stopped the bike and caused it to fall
over. Don’t know what’s worse: being the one falling off the bike or
watching it happen. 😧 That messes with
your heartrate for sure. Grateful that
no harm came to Kim or the bike. Kim drove Zeus up with no problems.
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First stop of the day was the
Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory. This
is what atlasobscura.com has to say about the bridge: While there are innumerable bridges and
observation towers scattered around the planet, it’s considerably more
rare to witness the combination of these two lovely structures.
There
are only a handful of bridge observatories in the world, and this
2,120-foot-long cable suspension bridge over the Penobscot River (aka “the
Narrows”) between Verona Island and Prospect, Maine is home to one of the
them. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory has the distinction of
being the first bridge observation tower in the U.S. as well as the
tallest public bridge observatory in the world.
The
bridge itself is a beautiful sight and worth a stop while driving along
Route 1 in itself, and the 420-foot-high observation tower makes it all the
better. Taking the elevator up 42 stories to the observation room you’re
met with beautiful 360-degree views of the river and bay below, the nearby village
of Bucksport, and the historic Fort Knox, which, built in 1844, is one of the
best preserved fortifications on the New England seacoast. Some say it’s the
best view in Maine.
We were all enthused about riding to the top to take in the view. All except Adam...he’s not a fan of heights
and wasn’t enthused at all about this part of the adventure. He was game enough to go to the top with us
but kept his eyes closed the entire time we were up there.
The elevator goes up 42 floors in 50 seconds...then there are two
flights of stairs to climb to the top.
There was a group of kids in before us and some of them were coming down
the stairs as we were going up. Misery
must recognize misery because one of the kids said to Adam, “Don’t feel
bad...when I was up there I almost puked.” Adam responded along the lines of “Believe
it or not, that doesn’t help as much as you might think.” 😏
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While waiting for the elevator
the woman next to me started a conversation by saying, “Oh, I see you’re wearing
boots so you must be on those motorcycles out in the parking lot.” We struck up a conversation...she lives on
Cape Cod and I eventually told her the purpose of this trip. I made the mistake of saying phrase ‘the New
England states’ and then mentioned Delaware, New Jersey, New York in the next
breath...that’s when she stopped me.
With a smile she said, “Oh, no, they’re not part of New England. We are
picky about that and might take offense.”
I hastily explained that I know all nine states aren’t part of the New
England region...that I usually say the east coast or northeastern states when
talking about this trip. With another
smile, she said, “Yes, east coast is better. That’s an acceptable description.” Whew! Glad I got that right...😎
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Right
near the bridge is Fort Knox, a fort whose history I’m still trying to figure
out. It was definitely interesting in an
old army fort kind of way. I thought it
had been an active fort during its heyday but not the case. Maine.gov tells it this way: The fort garrisoned
its first troops from 1863 to 1866. These troops were mostly volunteers
undergoing training before being sent to their active posts, and included
members of the celebrated 20th Maine. Troops were also briefly stationed at the
fort during the Spanish-American war in 1898, but never saw military action. Emphasis added by me because I find it incredible that a fort was built
that wasn’t used for fort-like activities and now it’s a historical spot. Kim
asked about the cannons and was told that they had never been fired.
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Bristol, Maine is home to the LaVerna Preserve-Hiking Area. The 120-acre preserve
features some 3,600 feet of shoreline, 2.5 miles of trails, and a diverse array
of wildlife habitat, including mixed hardwoods, coniferous forests, forested
wetlands, freshwater marsh, and gently sloping overgrown farmland. (Taken from the brochure).
The 1.25 trail is very well maintained with bridges to cross the swampy
areas. The end of the trail was the rocky
shoreline of Muscongus Bay, which is really the ocean. The rocks were very climbable and at the top
we were treated to a great view of oh, so many lobster buoys and little islands
in the distance. The rocks themselves
were well worth the hike. The brochure
indicated that they were metamorphic rocks.
Had to look that up....americangeosciences.org explains
it like this: Metamorphic rocks are rocks that
have become changed by intense heat or pressure while forming. In the very hot
and pressured conditions deep inside the Earth's crust, both sedimentary and
igneous rocks can be
changed into metamorphic rock. Not sure that explains much for me. 😐 It looked like huge sections of layers
of sediment near the shoreline were just pushed upward by a giant hand...but
not all the way to a vertical position.
The rocks and therefore the layers were slanted which resulted in a very
unique look. There were several opinions
among us as to what might have caused it...I personally like the giant hand
theory. 😉
Spent maybe a ½ hour exploring the rocks before we headed back.
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The other day we were warned to avoid the town of Wiscasset
because there is always a traffic backup in that area. Well, we didn’t have any traffic issues at
all but then we came through at about 8 p.m.
Perhaps that’s the key to a fast sneak through town. 😎
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We stopped for supper in the little town of Damariscotta at King Eider’s
Pub. It had wonderful crab cakes as
advertised. Could have eaten more than 3
but that was my entrée allotment.
It was going on dark when we finished supper. As Kim and I were gathering the appropriate
gear for cooler nighttime riding, I heard a long, low mournful sound. It took hearing it for a few repetitions but I
finally realized it was a fog horn...and as I stood there listening I found it to
be a very soothing sound.
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We were in the gift shop at the fort and the volunteer mentioned he’d
lived in Maine for years. I pulled out
my notebook with ‘the word’ and asked him if he knew how it was pronounced. He quickly came up with ‘passa-mah-wahm-keg’.
When I mentioned that he was the third person to put an ‘m’ in the
pronunciation when there wasn’t an ‘m’ in the word, without missing a beat and with
a twinkle in his eye, he said that the ‘m’ was silent. Huh? 😏
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Tuesday’s miles: 178
Total: 2,036 miles
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