**Warning-If you have a fear of heights, you may want to avoid viewing the following photos.**
Bright and early on Sunday we headed out.
To where you ask?
Here of course.....
While Tim's may have better coffee, Mickey's Place still has better breakfast sammies....
After breakfast we started our busy day!
First on the agenda was something I had wanted to do on the last trip to Maine 2 years ago.
We crossed the river to Brewer and took Route 15 south to Bucksport.
See this bridge?
The bridge to the left is the old bridge, that was opened in 1931, it replaced. It's called the Waldo-Hancock Bridge(for the names of the 2 counties it connected).
Both bridges are quite high up.
The last time Hubs and I traveled on this stretch of road was in about 1988 on an overnight trip to Campobello Island so we had traveled on the old bridge then. This is a National Historical Landmark now.
We got to talking with one of the 'Rangers' working at the bridge & accompanying national park site when I mentioned that we had come through here many years ago. The Ranger could remember all the way back to the mid 1950's when he first got his driver's license. There use to be a toll on the Waldo-Hancock Bridge back then. You had to stop, honk your horn and the toll keeper, who lived next to the bridge, would come out and collect your toll. If it was late at night when you rolled up you just kept track of how many tolls you owed and paid up later when you crossed at a "decent hour".
Even I am not as old as that Park Ranger. ;-)
And here is the new bridge from below......
That support tower actually also holds an observatory. It's the first bridge observatory in the US as well as the tallest public bridge observatory in the world. It reaches 420 feet into the air.
Here's a photo of the old bridge from the top of the Observatory......
The elevator climbs from the bottom to the top in 50 seconds. Well not quite the top, as you still have to climb 2 flights of stairs to reach the top vantage point.
But when the elevator opens and you step out, you are 2 feet away from a glass wall overlooking the river.
Here's Hubs posing for the camera.....
One of the older ladies from England in the group after our ascent looked a little green around the gills as she exited the elevator.
Here's a view of the Penobscot River looking south toward Penobscot Bay and the Atlantic beyond....
And here's the view looking north...Fort Knox Historic Site to the left shore, Verona Island to the right & Bucksport Maine on the far shore.
After our towering adventure*ahem*, we headed back up Route 1 to Bucksport and then east. We decided to meander along the Blue Hill Peninsula, along Route 175/176.
We like to do that in Maine. Just pick a road down one of the many finger-like peninsulas along the coast and drive until the road and the land ends. You never know what you'll find and if you find nothing, well, at least the scenery is nice.
We stopped at one of the many take-out clam shacks that dot the coast line. This one we happened upon in Penobscot Maine, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
Here is the view from our lunch table overlooking Littlefield Cove on the Penobscot Bay.....
The clam shack was 30 feet to the left of our picnic table, which faced a gently sloping green down to the shoreline. It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze and the best place on earth I could have imagined to eat freshly caught fried clams and scallops.
We continued meandering the peninsula down to the quaint village of Stonington. The main street was small and the storefronts were mainly artsy-fartsy clothing boutiques catering to moneyed preppies and "art" galleries. I prefer the villages that still retain the look and feel of working harbors so we hightailed it out of there quickly.
We ended up in Ellsworth around dinnertime. After a quick run into Reny's discount store we had dinner at Helen's Restaurant. We had been to the original Helen's up in Machias on that aforementioned trip to Campobello in the '80s. Don't know if both are still owned by the same folks but the food was good and fresh. We didn't have room for the pie however, which is what Helen is known for. I saw that Helen and crew had a framed photo of themselves posing with Bobby Flay. Did he come through Maine here and do a Throwdown??
Ellsworth was as close to Bar Harbor as we wanted to venture this trip so we headed back to the campground and lit up the old campfire.
Speaking of campground neighbors.....the only sighting of the folks next door on Sunday was a quick glimpse of the Dad as he retrieved his laptop from the car and shut himself back into the RV. The Mom did emerge briefly to hike up to the office area to do a load of laundry. Otherwise, all 4 were hold up in the RV when we were around on both Sunday and Monday. To be fair, we weren't at the trailer much either day. They hadn't brought any kitchen stuff or food with them that we saw so we KNOW they had to leave to at least eat.
At least the Dad seemed to have gotten the pyromaniacal urges out of his systems and I could sleep with both eyes closed now.
To Be Continued....
Sluggy
