Belfast to Trenton

June 10, 2015

We woke to a spectacular morning! Bright and sunny and 68°F by the time we sat for breakfast at 8:00 AM.

Fresh blueberries on homemade waffles for breakfast! With, allegedly, local bacon (although that part was not so good).

So short-sleeved shirts were in order for the day. And only 37 miles to Ellsworth (although that plan changed later and we did 45).

Today's ride to Ellsworth

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followed by our ride to Trenton

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Belfast is a cute and historic town with plenty of good eats and activity. We had wandered around the night before and caught hold of a few gems:

There are many attractive buildings in town, but this one really caught my eye (now a restaurant).

And check out this public art . . . a snow chair of sorts (look closely).

But this morning we were even more lazy than usual, knowing we did not have far to go. We left the B&B a little after 10:00 and rode leisurely through town, taking the pedestrian bridge across the Passagassawakeag River (try and pronounce that once, much less three times!).

This pedestrian bridge actually has a bascule span that allows small boats to pass upriver!

Belfast Harbor as seen from the river crossing.

On the far side I met Jerry and Terry, two touring cyclists headed for St John, NB. They had started in New York and seemed to be fast movers and loaded slightly lighter than we were (no camping gear for these folks). We would run into them at least two more times over the course of the day! We also saw a large tour group (supported) headed south. So as Happy and I left town, we saw lots of cyclists, which is always a good feeling!

We needed that, as most of today's route was not particularly exciting, mostly following US-1 north and east. And we are headed more east than north these days as we go up the coast. We still had a decent tailwind most of the day, and I stopped now and then to take a picture of whatever interested me.

I love these odd but purpose-built structures.

As you can see, it was a great day. At least for us. We overtook the two jackrabbits, Terry and Jerry, somewhere in Bucksport with a flat tire.

Terry and Jerry were great sports and fun to chat with. He replaced the tube twice before leaving, the first going flat while I was inside buying bananas. Not discovering the cause, he replaced the tire on the second go-round! Who carries spare tires? I never do, but then, I ride much wider tires!

I'm not sure they were too happy with the attention we were giving them lol! Prior to this, though, we had all crossed this spectacular bridge over the Penobscot River.

It has an observation deck within the westernmost pylon (elevator accessible). This was one expensive bridge.

We finally arrived in Ellsworth after climbing many long, steepish grades. We did take a few side roads along the way, which were (of course) even steeper than the mainline US-1, but that was OK. Our overall total for the day was still under 2500 feet.

In Ellsworth we stopped for iced lattes (now remember, yesterday we stopped for hot chocolate) and pondered our options for tackling Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, both located on the same island, Mt Desert.

Ellsworth was originally the end of our day, and we were then to travel to Bar Harbor the next day and lay over a second day there so we could explore Acadia National Park. I had explored getting closer today but hadn't found any good options. Many hotels are not close to food sources unless you are driving. And the ones that were close to food were further than we were looking to travel. And even then, we would need to add that additional mileage to the departing day's mileage when leaving the park. So lots of variables were in play.

Ultimately, we decided on a motel near the airport, just another eight miles down the road, that was only a mile to a lobster pound restaurant that had indoor seating (the other two were pretty much take-out joints). We would spend two nights there and use tomorrow to do a loop through the island, visiting Bar Harbor and Acadia's famous carriage roads. Somewhere in there, we would grab breakfast (probably in Bar Harbor) and a late lunch (somewhere south of Acadia). Then a repeat dinner at the lobster pound. This plan also spread our miles out a bit and saved us a day on the schedule.

All that probably sounds confusing. I'll work on the logic later! After we checked into our motel, we cleaned up and headed for Lunt's where I had my first whole lobster dinner.

I had eaten lobster before but never tackled a whole one, so here we go:

So this was a big step for me. A whole creature right there on the plate in front of me. No flinching on my part (the beer helped) as I continued my exploration into the seafood diet (somewhat in suspense since Florida). Maybe tomorrow I will try the haddock . . . or a larger lobster!

Today's ride: 45 miles (72 km)
Total: 2,592 miles (4,171 km)

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