Our last Maine Coastal Day

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 27, 2022

After a couple days in the mountains and forests of the interior of Maine, we're taking our son Blake to the coast. We're a little sad to think that this is our last Maine coastal day, because we have enjoyed that rocky shore line so much! It's quite a drive to get there from our campground in Medway, so we planned a couple stops in Bangor to split up the drive. One stop was at Stephen King's residence. This prolific writer of horror novels has lived in Maine most of his life. He uses the city of Bangor as the inspiration for the town of "Derry" in several of his books. The old turrets and the bats and spiders on the front gate look spooky, and we hoped to catch a glimpse of the writer.

The side yard is adorned with this interesting tree carving that included more intricate spookiness. We later found out that the Kings no longer live at this address. The house is now used as a writer's retreat, and the family actually lives next door--in the house that we totally ignored.

Besides Stephen King, Maine also claims to be the home of Paul Bunyan. This 31-foot-tall structure is the largest statue of this lumberjack hero anywhere. Denisa took a picture of her two heroes with their best lumberjack poses in this stop in Bangor.

Bangor was a good half-way stop on our trip to the coast today. There are lots of peninsulas of land that lead down to the ocean, and we're driving down one that we didn't visit when we were creeping up the coast in the motor home earlier. At the end of the peninsula we parked in the lot for the Barred Island Preserve and started up the trail. We were glad to see wild raspberries at the beginning of the hike.

It was a 1.1-mile hike across the rocks and tree roots and through the forest.

But the drive and the hike were worth it for Blake to get his first look at the Maine coast line. It would have been a shame to fly to Maine and not get to enjoy the smell of salt water for the day.

It's a rocky coast line, and the two goofballs that Denisa is hanging out with this week were jumping rocks and exploring.

We're wandering more of God's wonders on our last Maine coastal day. Have we mentioned how much we are enjoying Blake's visit?

From our rocky coastline, we can see a nearby island.

If we had perfect timing, we would have arrived here at low tide. But that would have been at 5:40 a.m. At low tide, the island in the background would have been connected by a sand bar that we could have walked across.

The map of our trail today shows that sand bar, with the island attached.

But we were almost at high tide, and no sand bar could be seen. Blake surveyed the situation, wondering if it would be possible to get to that island in spite of the tide difference.

By this time, several groups had arrived at our beach and they were wondering the same thing. But it was Blake who decided to try it. We watched as he walked through the ocean water, looking for the shallowest section to cross.

When he made it all the way to the island and pulled himself onto the rock, the small crowd on our beach erupted into cheers of approval.

While Blake was walking on hidden sand bars, Denisa was playing in the sand. We found some beautiful purple sea shell pieces to use to write "Deer" on this Deer Island beach.

We were certainly blessed with nice weather on our last day on the coast!

While the other on-lookers cheered Blake's successful arrival at the little island, no one else decided to try it. When Blake returned, he talked Mark into joining him so they could explore the little island together. Denisa has written about the fact that these two often enjoy adventures together, and these two goofballs headed across in the 61-degree water.

Denisa could take their picture with the zoom lens as they made their way to the far point of the island.

The views from there were of open seas and more rocky shore lines as the Atlantic Ocean opened up in front of them.

They got to watch the antics of the seals playing in the ocean. We were glad that Blake got a good look at these playful animals that we have enjoyed all along the coast.

They made the entire circle of the island, and Denisa took a zoomed-in picture as they appeared together on the other end. What a couple of goofballs!

From their perspective, they took a panorama picture of Deer Island, where you can barely see Denisa waiting on the beach for their return.

It was a nice little adventure to their own deserted island as Mark and Blake made their way back.

We have been blessed with nice temperature and no wind as we are wandering more of God's wonders with one of our favorite people! Even though it's August, we enjoyed a high temperature of 73 degrees.

Mark and Blake were still wet as we started the hike back through the forest.

Our next stop was the lovely little fishing village of Stonington, Maine. While Maine will land around 100 million pounds of lobster this year, 12 million pounds will pass through this little harbor. This is the top lobster landing port in the state that brings in the most lobster.

Lobster is the life-blood of the town. Even the ice cream store is decorated with a large red lobster. It's quite possibly the only ice cream shack that also sells lobster. We must say that their chocolate chunk raspberry and the blueberry ice creams were our favorites of the summer.

It was a gorgeous last Maine coastal day, with views like this.

Flowers love the humidity here, and the window boxes all over town exploded in color during their short growing season.

We were suckered into our next stop of the day, just a few miles out of the way. We saw signs along the road about "Nervous Nellie's" and so we made the detour to check out this strange collection of old buildings. We were surprised to see that the parking lot was full, so their advertising works.

The inside rooms are decorated in a surprising collection of memorabilia. We used words like weird and eclectic to describe our stop at Nellie's.

Visitors are encouraged to enter the buildings and interact in any way they want.

That would include climbing the tree house and posing for a picture at Denisa's request. While it was an interesting stop, we still haven't decided if we liked it or not. We're also not sure if we would recommend it to others.

With all this coastal touring, we promised Blake a lobster meal. He chose a stop at the Friar's Brewhouse Taproom in Bucksport, Maine. The descriptive sign at the front says, "Three Franciscan Brothers converted their Bucksport hermitage into a brewery. Now they can spread the word, one barrel at a time." They have some unusual rules at this eating establishment. For example, no cell phones are allowed. They don't offer free wifi, and their menu says, "Talk to each other . . . pretend it's 1995. . . exchange stories and conversation." You'll have lots of time for conversations, because they are proud to tell you that their service is slow. A sign outside tells you the if you don't like slow service, you should go some place else.

The friars are in charge of the cooking and brewing, but they also have a "no photograph rule." Their menu explains that you can take pictures of your food, the ocean view, the signs, pictures on the wall . . . "However please don't try to photograph any of the brothers. If you get caught, your visit will come to an abrupt and quite likely unpleasant end. . . no kidding." So we took a picture of the picture on the wall which was allowed.

Their monastery and brewery are seven miles away on Orcutt Mountain. The menu points out that they are friars--not monks. They wear "habits"--not costumes, and yes, they are quite hot in the summer. Being called "Friar Tuck" is quite insulting, and they have heard all the friar jokes.

Blake ordered the lobster roll, which was loaded with more lobster than he could eat. It's definitely big enough to share.

We don't often take pictures of our food, but the Baguette Banh Mi that Mark and Denisa shared was quite picturesque. It was also big enough to share.

From the back deck of the restaurant, we got a full picture of the viewing towers on the Penobscot Bridge that we crossed with the motor home a couple weeks ago.

It was getting late as we started the long drive back to the motor home. But we had another stop to break up the trip. Blake experienced his very first hand-pumped water at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum.

We took a few pictures of the covered bridges and water-powered mill. This is a free historical site that is open to visitors from sun-up to sun-down.

The sun was going down as we left, and it was dark for the last of the drive back to our campground. Blake enjoyed his one day at the ocean, and we were a little sentimental about ending our last coastal day in Maine. After being near the Atlantic Ocean for most of the summer, we don't know when we'll see this ocean again.