Southwest Harbor

I rose my first morning and drove to Acadia where I rode the 45 minute climb to the top of Cadillac Mountain.  There were numerous waterfalls from last night's rain on the way.  The mountain was completely covered by fog, so I was tight knuckled as I rode my bike to the bottom of the mountain.

After breakfast, Kathie and I did laundry and visited the library book sale.  We then visited the Seawall-a spot at the bottom of Mount Desert Island where a wall keeps the sea back and an expansive stone covered beach is home to seagulls and gives a great view across the ocean.

We spent the afternoon in Southwest Harbor-a cute village full of shops.

We also visited the Charlotte Rhodes Butterfly Garden: a garden dedicated to helping butterflies survive at every stage of life.

WOW!  What a garden, what a concept!

Rockland and the Farnsworth Museum

We drove through the rain to Rockland, Maine and visited the Farnsworth Museum-known as the "Wyeth Museum".  We were able to see paintings by three generations of Wyeths, along with many Maine painters through the ages.

We had lunch at the Rockland Cafe-probably the only customers not eating seafood!  Rockland has many older buildings with unique decorative features.

At dusk, we finally rolled into Southwest Harbor, Maine and were ready for a week in the Little Yellow Cottage and Acadia National Park.

Damariscotta

We drove around the inland waterway until we reached the small town of Damariscotta.  It is a small New england town with lots of small shops, a bakery, restaurants and a respectable bookstore.  We entered a quilt raffler, visited the knitting shop and witnessed a fender bender.

Then, we drove down to Pemaquid Point, basked on the rocky shore and saw Pemaquid Light.

We spent our final night in Boothbay walking across the footbridge to the opposite shore where we visited the giant lobsterman  at Brown's Wharf.

Cycling Boothbay and Southport Island

Kathie and I rode 25 miles from our hotel through Boothbay to Southport Island- a nearby and almost attached island.

The island is reached by crossing what is called a "Swing Bridge" because the entire bridge actually swings out across the water to allow boats to pass.

On top of the bridge was a new Osprey nest, which was fun to see as the young birds tried out their wings.

We passed through a small village with Civil War graves and a small school marked by a large number 2 pencil.

As we came near the ocean, we saw a small lighthouse near Hendricks Head beach.  We also rode through the small town of Newagen.  Newagen also had a small lighthouse and at one time was the summer residence for the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz.

The following day, we were tired from riding and decided to take it easy.  We just drove over to the opposite harbor-East Boothbay and found we liked it even better.  We lounged on the rocks feeling the ocean breeze at several places-something that would have turned into burnt people in North Carolina-but here the breeze and the air was cool and nice.

We had lunch and conversation at the East Boothbay General Store and saw a Great-Grandfather of my Ford Ranger as we left.