A Coastal 4th
That more ships and boats throughout the history of ships and boats call Maine home than any other state, and surely any other nation, was made obvious to us over this holiday weekend, and is attributable to several factors:
Maine has a lot of water, and water is best traversed on a boat, and Maine has a lot of wood, which floats better than witches…obviously.
Less obviously: rocks; Maine has deep channeled rivers and ports due to the way that its schist has been forced up in folds and interwoven threads of igneous granite and minerals erode at different rates under the onslaught of its tremendous, and I mean Amazonian, or Oregonian, or Mobilean rates of precipitation, and, well, it’s geology, init? Basically, less sand and silt obstructions allowed for bigger and bigger schooners to be launched into ME’s famous rivers at the right moment in history.
These rivers, the Merrimac, Kenebec, Sheepscot, Penobscot, Androscoggin, to name them in the reverse order to which we found them, have forced our course over the past week, powered America’s industrial revolution, and are a unique window into the our social history. We’re totally unable to relate this history with you here, but here’s our slice of it.
Since we last connected with y’all, we spent a few days that feel like weeks. Our current theory about this gap, between time and duration, is that we are squeezing more into days than normal. After driving the loop road through Acadia NP, and stopping for a few short walks in the fog, we got a cheap hotel in Bar Harbor–that’s a lie, as there is no such thing, but we got the cheapest possible–and then continued down the coast, stopping eventually in the beautiful and historic (these adjectives apply to all the towns we mention heretofore, ok?).
We followed the Androscoggin River south to the coast, learning that it has become a model for restoration, once being written off as dead, and now ready to host salmon again, and visited the impressive Fort Knox and Penobscot Narrows Bridge.
We eventually made it to Belfast, and parked in a municipally-regulated parking spot behind the main street businesses and next to the Belfast Boathouse. By 6am, this village was busy as a bee, with ship-building and lobstering making room for eco-tourism and yoga classes.
We next swung south to Boothbay Harbor, as I have vague memories of going there with my parents when my Dad designed for Rockport shoes. The brewery was full, with limited capacity and growing holiday crowds, but we ate lobstah chowdah at a roof-top restaurant. We covert camped at Southtowne by a beautiful pond we had all to ourselves and then meandered along the coast–meander was the name of the river in the first philosopher Thales’s home town in today’s Turkey, fyi–mainly by the Sheepscot River, one of the last on the east coast that maintains a salmon run.
We tried to stop by the Bath Ship works on the equally famous Kenebec River, which has its source way up in Moosehead Lake, but it’s locked up tight as they building a destroyer for the Navy, and are on strike. We honked in support of the workers protested at the gate.
For the 4th of July, we had a picnic at Two Lights State Park just south of Portland, which is a really cool city, full of breweries and cafes and red-brick streets. We grilled some oyster mushrooms we bought at one of several amazing farmers markets we found up here, one in Portland on the recommendation of a really funny local woman we met in a bar there. She was an activist who worked with local farmers and indigenous people, and really inspired us to stay humble as we traveled through these communities. It was great, and a rarity, to actually talk with locals; such a commonplace is another victim of covid 19.
BUT, before the picnic, K took a nap and I took a walk, and it led to a strange altercation with the USCG and Portland Constabulary, and another really rewarding convo with locals. I followed a trail to wherever it leads–in this case, to the wrong side of a patch-work fence surrounding the Coast Guard station at Cape Elizabeth lighthouse–and that’s what happens sometimes.
We found a cool camping spot via I-overlander in South Portland for our 2nd night in this great city, even though the covid shutdown of public restrooms is becoming an issue. Martin Phelan, a child-hood friend–no, THE child-hood friend–from Ireland recently learned of our x-country wanderings, and reminded me of my former life in this area.
Salem’s witch trials have long interested K and I, especially as K is, in fact, a wicked witch from the west, so we drifted a few miles down Route 1 to Massachusetts and explored the sad scene’s red-line. Tonight we stealth-camp on a turn-out on the “Great Marsh” just south of beautiful Newburyport, MA on the Merrimack River.
