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[img][650:497]http://img307.imageshack.us/img307/2616/routeio2.jpg[/img]
This weekend's "plan" was to get up early Saturday and start driving up into Maine, aiming to hit Acadia Nat'l Park and then find a room. The park is a huge island right off the coast, with mountains all over it. But Friday at the end of work, I got a call from our friends an and Alice from WI, who invited me to come up to Maine that night, to see their baby at her parents'
summer property up on the coast near Bath. Can do. Traffic, blah blah blah, 3 hours, man oh man was that place gorgeous. This is it, seen from the water:
[img][650:487]http://img321.imageshack.us/img321/3959/dscn2866tf8.jpg[/img]
We got up Saturday, had breakfast, and then took the boat out onto the bay.
Bath Iron Works is the largest american shipyard left, and it's around the corner. They're building a destroyer. Bath is a coooool town. Connie Chung lives there. I saw her house.
At noonish, I headed on up towards Acadia. But I hit traffic right away somehow, so I had to backtrack inland, about 70 miles up away from the coast, and then back down. Once I got back to the water, I passed this, and had to turn around:
[img][650:476]http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/6531/markclarken4.jpg[/img]
Once into the park itself, I was floored at how beautiful it was. As usual, it would've been better with no people, but I was able to dodge families pretty effectively by climbing steep hills and driving fast. The gist of it is a huge park covering most of the island, with mountains overlooking the bay and the atlantic. There's an inland lake, and on one side is Bar Harbor, meccah for skinny-legged rich old white dudes with penny loafers, no socks, and upturned collars. The town, viewed from above:
[img][650:488]http://img490.imageshack.us/img490/898/dscn2880pb6.jpg[/img]
That park around sunset is where things began to get seriously pretty. I honestly am sore from smiling. Maybe I don't do it enough.
So I left around 6:30, and drove another 3 hours inland to Bangor (home to Stephen King if memory serves), asked around until I finally found a place with 1 smoking 2-bedder left for less than $100. That makes 2-for-2 with Days Inns. Sunday I got up and out by 8:30, and headed dead west on 2.
Once you get close to the border with New Hampshire, Maine gets a corner of the huge White Mountains Nat'l Park. I turned and followed a park road for awhile, and came across this, viewed from a wooden foot bridge:
[img][650:488]http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/8480/dscn2885wi2.jpg[/img]
Then back up to 2, and into NH. Here, the mountains get pleasantly tall.
And after a quick meatball sub (and a stained shirt), I headed south right through the midst of them. So as I'm buzzing along, I see 4 middle-aged hikers come out of the woods up ahead of me with tons of gear on, and as I get nearer, one of them sticks his thumb out for a ride. ?! So I turned around, figuring someone might be hurt, etc. Turns out they just wanted a ride for one of them to go back to their car, 10 miles down the road the way I was going anyway, who would then come back and pick the others up. "Sure.
Hop on. Watch the pipes, they're hot." So I carefully drive the guy about 10 miles down the road doing 65, to the ranger station where his car was. When he got off, he had a HUGE smile on his face, and said something like "Maaan that was cool!! That was just awesome!" "Better than walking, huh?" He tried to give me $2, but I wouldn't take it. "I get 60 mpg. I'm just glad you enjoyed it." Nice guy. And it made my day.
So then I tooled around the mountains for a while, going over the extremely bumpy Bear Notch pass (ruts and bumps 10 or 12 inches high);
[img][650:487]http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/6246/dscn2890af2.jpg[/img]
... to the scenic Kankamagus Highway, and then down a bunch of small roads to Boston again. I got in around 7:30... not too bad, but still 11 hours for the day, which is pushing it.
Miss yall. Home soon (end of august).
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