What an awesome day! It started on Route 1, and finished with an unbelieveable ride around the Schoodic Penninsula. The two times I visited Acadia National Park before I only saw the part of the park on Mt. Desert Island. I suspect that's true of most visitors to that park; it was really hard to believe how few people I saw out on the Schoodic Penninsula part of the park. But let's start the day at the beginning.
I headed out of Ellsworth, riding toward the east. For some reason I've been thinking north, but the coast of Maine in this area heads more to the east than to the north. I thought it was me losing my sense of direction, but I had a long conversation with someone who lives here, and he expressed the same confusion. (I don't believe he was a Maine native, but a transplant.) I remember on my first day on Mt. Desert Island I was on route 3 west, and I thought I was heading north at the time. I wasn't... And they do call this area of the state Downeast.
At one point - not too long after I left Ellsworth - a car pulled to the side of the road in front of me, hoping to get directions. The license plate and the occupants of the car were from Nova Scotia, and they were (hoping to be) heading to Portland. I was able to tell them they were heading towards New Brunswick, and that they needed to turn around to head towards Portland. Lucky for them that they asked me a pretty basic direction question since I'm not too familiar with the roads in this state other than the ones I am planning to use myself. Of course we could have consulted the state highway map that's riding along in my panniers.
Route 1 was decent for cycling even though it is a pretty major road in this area of the state. I did discover something interesting though, and that is that I don't agree with the scenic route designations. The portion of route 1 that skirts Sullivan Harbor and Frenchman Bay is designated as both a National Scenic Byway and a State Scenic Highway. From that designation I expected to be able to see more than trees, and while there were a couple of sections from which the water was visible, most of the time the scenery was trees. The road started with good smooth pavement, and had paved shoulders too, but that stopped once I crossed the bridge from Crabtree Neck to West Sullivan. Funny, that's exactly when the National Scenic Byway designation started. The road surface degraded and the shoulders disappeared. At some point it improved again though. And while it's nice to have paved shoulders, I'm used to riding on narrow 2-lane roads with no shoulder, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for me. But scenic byway? When I hear something like that, I think of the road up Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier National Park - and this really didn't compare. OK, OK, I'm a bit fussy! It was still a good ride...
Yes, there actually are some water views along this section of Route 1. I was pulled in by the National Scenic Byway & Maine Scenic Highway designation and expected many more water views than I had. But then again, the road around the Schoodic Penninsula (pics later on this page) made up for this one!
An interesting (miniature) building at the entrance to a cemetery. Building? Maybe I should call it a large dollhouse, considering that I was taller than this structure!
The National Scenic Byway designation did continue around all of Schoodic Penninsula, so I guess you could say that the designation was partially correct.
Knowing that I needed to pick up food for dinner, I made a quick stop in Winter Harbor to check out the shops. Just as I pulled into town, the noon fire whistle started shrieking. Do you know how hard it is (as in impossible) to cover both of your ears when riding a loaded bike? My ears seem to have survived though. I went into J.M. Gerrish Provisions, and the choices there looked good. It was about noon, and they were open until 4. I talked with the folks there about how long it usually takes to wander around the Schoodic Penninsula. I really just wanted to verify the distance. I preferred to loop back to Winter Harbor to pick up food instead of letting it heat up in my panniers. It turned out that I had plenty of time for a good-paced ride and for time to just absorb the beauty, so my bike and I headed out again.
The loop from Winter Harbor, around the Schoodic Penninsula, and back to Winter Harbor turned out to be twelve miles. And as it turns out it's a loop that I would happily do multiple times (just for exercise) if I lived in the area. There were sections in the trees, but there were many sections along the water. I stopped at Schoodic Point, swapped my bike shoes for my Chaco sandals, and spent some time wandering around the rocks and trying to capture pictures of crashing waves. It's anyone's bet whether any of the shots I took did the job! The area was rocky, not sandy. In addition to the crashing surf, there were sections of the rock where grasses were growing, and sections with clumps of beautiful purple iris - both of which looked like they were growing in crevices in the rock. And there were pools of standing water too, far enough back from the ocean that I don't think they would be covered at high tide. Very interesting, and very beautiful.
I'm staying at the Oceanside Meadows Inn, in Prospect Harbor. When I called for the reservation, the innkeeper told me he was putting me in an oceanfront room on the second floor. The four windows in my room are open, and as I write my journal entry I am sitting in a rocking chair in front of one of the windows listening to the waves crash on the shore. This inn is made up of 3 old buildings - 2 houses with sleeping rooms, and a barn that has been renovated for use for functions. The houses are lovely, and there are plenty of sitting rooms scattered throughout the houses, a fireplace in each house that apparently are burning fires most nights (probably not needed tonight!), and access to coffee, tea, and ginger snaps (!) whenever desired.
I knew that I needed to bring food with me for dinner, and I also knew that I would have access to a kitchen. I stocked up at J.M. Gerrish Provisions in Winter Harbor - the second time I passed through WInter Harbor, that is. Dinner tonight? I had an amazing hummus and veggie sandwich, some curried cous cous, a wonderful fresh kiwi, and of course chocolate - a brownie - for dessert. I guess you could say I've had no trouble sticking with my preferred diet of veggies & seafood on this trip!
It was a great riding day today, and I'm ending the day in a very nice place. Those two things together make me a happy cyclist...
