Southeast MA – Bar Harbor ME
Wed September 5, 2018
(~541 miles)

For months I’d been eagerly awaiting the upcoming New England Riders extended weekend trip to Gorham, NH in early September. I’d booked my room months ago for Thursday thru Sunday. As summer approached, I realized I’d be able to extend the trip for an extra day or two. I still need to visit all the lighthouses in Maine for the IBA tour, and figured this would present an ideal opportunity to knock out a bunch of them while I was up north anyway.

The thing is – there are a SHIT TON of lighthouses in Maine, and it just wasn’t going to be possible to get them all, even in two days of riding, while still getting to a dinner reservation in Gorham for 18:00 on Thursday. After playing with several route variations, I decided to head way north (Downeast) to get the furthest locations and work my way south. I will clean up the southern Maine coast on a follow-up excursion later this fall.

I hit the road just after 06:00 on Wednesday, to beat the worst of rush hour traffic. The weather was clear and warm, with temps predicted to hit 90 later in the day. A long slab segment on I-495 and I-95 brought me up to the Augusta area, where I detoured west a few miles to the shores of Cobbosseecontee Lake. There is a smallish lighthouse perched on a tiny island in this nine mile long lake that was established by the local yacht club. Back in the time of steamer boats that toured round the lake, the island was used as a stopping-off point for the ladies of the day to relieve themselves, hence the name Ladies Delight Lighthouse.

I’d pre-scouted the lakeshore roads as best I could using Google Maps Street View. I hadn’t identified a surefire location to get a photo, but was hopeful as I turned off the highway and eventually down a gravel lane headed toward the lake’s western shore. There were No Tresspassing signs on some of the trees, but I chose to believe they were meant for folks wanting to enter the woods lining the road.  There was some type of cabin rental place down the road a bit, but I forked off directly toward the lake along a pleasant tree-lined path.

I spotted a man up ahead, who saw me at the same time and stopped walking to stare me down as I approached. I halted, flipped up my helmet and gave him a big grin and a good morning. He returned the greeting warily, and I asked if there was some spot up ahead where I could get a quick photo of the lighthouse. He seemed to take my measure for a beat or two and asked me where I was from. I told him Massachusetts which seemed to satisfy him, and he said the lighthouse was visible but would look like a pea in a camera lens unless I had a good zoom. I told him I had a decent rig and would like to check it out for myself.

With a thank you, I continued onward very slowly, peering through the trees as I pulled up parallel to the shore, which I could see about 100 yards downslope. I found a glimpse of the structure out on the water and pulled a careful three-pointer (or more) to get myself turned around on the dirt lane.

The man followed me over and I asked him if he thought anyone would mind if I walked down to the shore between the unused-looking houses. He told me at that point that he owned ALL the property here and that it would be fine to do so. I apologized profusely for traipsing in, explaining my confusion with the signs on the way in and lack of a “Private Road” sign.

I mentioned the cabins and he said he’d been having some sort of dispute with them for a while, and thought I was from there at first. He actually was a very friendly guy and complimented my ST, though he said “next time, buy American!”. He gave me his blessing to take the picture from the shoreline and said he had work to get back to. I thanked him again, my adrenaline flowing a bit at having been called out, but glad to have met a friendly local.

It was a tough photo across the lake due to the morning sunlight complicating the exposure, but I’m hoping I got enough evidence of my visit for the IBA’s purposes.

Next stop was a few miles away in Augusta – a Liberty Bell replica on the lawn of the Maine statehouse, for the Melting Pot tour. Traffic wasn’t bad in mid-morning and the bell was easily accessible. Too bad I realized after my trip that I’d forgotten to get my motorcycle in the photo, so it doesn’t count! Looks like I’ll need to hit Augusta again when I come back up for the southern lighthouses.

I continued north on US-202 into the China Lakes region, where I hoped to pick up two or three villages of China, ME.

I hit South China first and drove in a few circles looking for a post office (I’d ridden right by it, turns out) or town limit sign, to no avail. The GPS couldn’t find a PO for this village either, so I continued on to the north end of the lake, where I found the quaint little post office for China Village, ME.

I continued on 202, enjoying the ride through some small towns, and picked up I-95 again for a short stint outside of Bangor. US-1A and ME-46 brought me to ME-9 for the next 80 miles or so up to Calais on the Canadian border.

I’d made a concerted effort to plan in a decent lunch stop for this ride, since I so often just keep riding on through when I’m on a bonus-collection streak. Reviews for Crumbs Cafe in Calais were stellar so I’d made sure it was a waypoint on my route. I was pretty hungry by the time I arrived early afternoon for a late lunch.

Not much was going on in the picturesque downtown strip of Calais, and only a couple tables were occupied in the cafe at this hour. The place had a comfortable relaxed vibe and made for a very nice lunch stop.

After reviewing the wall menu, I ordered a panini sandwich with chicken and guac. After ogling the delicious-looking pies in the glass case, I asked the shopkeep if he thought there’d be room for some after my sandwich. He disappointed me by answering honestly, saying that the sandwich would actually be quite big and some folks had trouble finishing it.

“OK, I’ll just take some hand-baked cookies to go then. But I’ll be back someday for some of that pie.”

 

He was right about the sandwich, it filled me up and hit the spot as I chilled out in the quiet cafe for 30 minutes or so.

I spent a couple minutes outside taking in the downtown scenery, before heading on my way south out of town on US-1.

I spotted this great old painted advertisement on the face of a building and pulled a U-ey to get a photo. Looks like they maintain this one for the tourists like me, but still a cool design to see.

A few miles more and I turned down Lighthouse Rd only to be presented with a “Private Road” locked gate preventing any access down the road to the only lighthouse in the immediate vicinity on the US side of the St. Croix River. A bit bummed at having come all this way, I started down the highway for another quarter mile and spotted a scenic rest stop area. On a hunch after looking at my GPS map, I pulled in and sure enough, due to a curve in the river was able to see the Whitlocks Mill Lighthouse, several hundred yards back upstream.

After snagging the shot, I zipped south for many more miles on the mostly wooded US-1. I hit a couple of frustrating one-lane construction areas between the Cobscook Bay State Park and the turn-off towards Lubec, which now feels like familiar ground after my recent foray there in the Butt Lite rally earlier this year.

I quickly found my way to the town boat ramp to get this snap across the river of Mulholland Point Lighthouse, on Campobello Island in Canada – my first Canadian lighthouse collected on this tour.

I didn’t have time budgeted to cross the border today to bag East Quoddy Lighthouse on the northern end of Campobello, so I continued east out of town. On the way out to Quoddy Head State Park, I pulled over to get this photo of Lubec Channel Lighthouse.

At last, I reached my turnaround point at the beautiful West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, my second visit here. Some fellow lighthouse seekers (from Illinois by their license plate) were walking by and asked if I knew of any others in the area. I filled them in on the locations I’d just visited. In turn, they confirmed for me that Little River Lighthouse, just south in Cutler, was not visible from the shore, which is what I’d figured.

I weaved my way back out to US-1 via ME-189 and zoomed south. My goal had been to reach my hotel on Mt Desert Isle that evening in time to do a quick circuit of the island to nab 2-3 more lighthouses, but it wasn’t looking likely before dark at this point in the day. I made good time getting down to the Schoodic peninsula and detoured off route 1 to Prospect Harbor Lighthouse in the village of the same name.

Now, to get any kind of eyes on my next target, I had to make a run through the one-way park road leading through the only portion of Acadia National Park that is not on Mt. Desert. Winter Harbor Lighthouse is a beautiful structure with a birdcage style lantern room. Unfortunately, the sun was against me once again, this time looking west as sunset approached, so this shot is the best I could do.

The rest of the park loop around the end of the peninsula was beautiful, curvey and fairly devoid of people at this evening hour during the week following Labor Day. Once back on US-1, I made quick work of the remaining distance through Sullivan, with a backroad shortcut through Lamoine over to Route 102 and onto MDI.

A few miles further into Bar Harbor’s outskirts and I pulled in to the Belle Isle Motel, who had been super accommodating and friendly over the phone, when I’d needed to call after screwing up my online reservation date.

The room was bare-bones and rather dated and small, but clean. There was a outdoor pool and a campfire going on out back, but I was pooped and didn’t even bother with dinner as I was still full from that big sandwich in Calais. It was already twilight so MDI’s lighthouses would have to wait until morning.

I snacked on some of the cookies from Crumbs (they were so-so) while tweaking my route for the following day.