Starting and Ending with LL Bean

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 11, 2022

We left our no-hook-up site in Biddeford, Maine, and headed further up the coast an hour's drive to another no-hook-up site. We had hoped to get a Boondocker's Welcome spot, but it didn't open up. We are learning how to use this new resource, but it doesn't always work out. We were blessed with cool weather, so we will be quite comfortable in our spot at LL Bean in Freeport, Maine. This is a well-known boondocking place, and even though we found a spot easily this morning, the RV parking lot was full by evening.

We didn't have much planned for the day, so we decided to go on a lighthouse hunt. It's amazing what google can find! Coupled with Denisa's book on Maine lighthouses, we were ready to drive some back roads on the Maine coast. 

After driving on a series of gravel roads that few tourists will see, we parked and walked up a trail to the light keeper's house. Someone lives there, but the signs said that visitors were welcome to walk right up to the Doubling Point Lighthouse.

From the lighthouse, we looked up the Kennebec River to see the giant cranes from the shipyard upstream.

This lighthouse hunt is a little like searching for geocaches. It takes you on roads that you normally wouldn't drive to places that you normally wouldn't see. The directions to get to the second lighthouse today said: "Take 127 toward Arrowsic for 4.5 miles. Turn right onto Steen Road, then bear right on Bald Head Road (dirt). This roads ends after about 0.5 mile in small parking area. Take footpath that begins straight ahead, listen for the sound of water and look for the shoreline. Cross the small wooden bridge and take the path through the woods on a path marked with faint yellow blazes. Keep the water to your right on the way to the lighthouse."

Welcome to Squirrel Point Lighthouse. We guarantee that we wouldn't have found it without some instructions, and it felt like we had found the Easter egg in this hunt.

That path through the woods had lots of roots showing, and a few mosquitoes. While we have heard about the aggressive mosquitoes in Maine, we are glad to say that we haven't seen many so far.

We haven't had a flower picture in a while, so we'll include this unusual bloom that we found on our hike.

After traveling all those gravel roads, we headed back up the peninsula to the town of Bath, Maine, and its lovely water-side park. This town is most famous for its shipyards that produced a full-sized battle ship every 17 days during World War II.

The shipyard is still producing ships, and we got in the traffic jam caused when the ship builders changed shifts today. We couldn't help but notice the massive orange crane that takes a prominent space in the town's skyline. It's the well-known symbol of Bath, Maine.

We noticed an old bridge on our way this morning, so we stopped in to check it out when we returned the same way this afternoon. Built in 1892, this suspension bridge was used by the millworkers that lived on the other side of the river to get to work. After 130 years, it's still in use for getting people from the town of Topsham to the town of Brunswick on the other side.

We're pretty excited to see that Maine blueberries are now for sale along the road. We're happy to be here during blueberry season!

While we have enjoyed a wonderfully cool day, the winds have shifted into gear and it started to spit rain. We had hoped to go kayaking this afternoon. In fact, we had tried to sign up for the sea kayaking tour through the LL Bean Discovery Program this evening. They offer free tours with a guide, but participants must provide their own equipment. Our inflatable kayak didn't qualify as the required "sea kayak with a double baffle." We went to Mere Point at 5:30 p.m., just to see if we could paddle the same route without a guide. Considering it was windy and chilly, we were really glad that we didn't have to go kayaking. Is it crazy that it's this chilly in August? Back to our parking place in Freeport, we went shopping at the LL Bean store. This company is a great host, offering free trivia nights, outdoor movies, and live entertainment on different evenings on their campus. We'll end the day like we started it--thanking LL Bean for hosting us for a free night's stay and posing with the duck-boot-mobile.