<This is what happens when your boss is gone for a few hours!>

Tough decision.

Here we are in Cherryfield, Maine and we’ve got to decide whether to take the slightly shorter and more direct inland route, or stay on Hwy 1 and head back towards the shore. 

Hmmmmm. 

Seeing this totally cute guy just made up my mind for me!  We’re heading towards Millbridge on the shore so we can take darlin’ Captain Jamie’s Scenic Island tour.

So we’ll take a little longer to get to Lake Mary.  So sue me.  The opportunity to go on a boat ride with a hunky sea captain doesn’t come along every day! 

After our very enjoyable “3 hour tour” ( sing along, won’t you? ), we headed back onto Hwy 1 toward East Steuben and then into Steuben, Maine.  It appears that Steuben’s most famous resident was Socialist-turned-Catholic-Activist Martha Gallison Moore Avery.  And the big news in Steuben last summer was this “half-cooked lobster”.

We got a little bit over a mile out of town on the road towards Gouldsboro before our miles ran out.  We’re stranded here at the intersection of Hwy 1 and Gouldsboro Point Road until we can accumulate enough new miles to move us forward.

Use these pictures from Acadia National Park as a motivation to crank out some miles this weekend!  That’s where we’re headed next!

Yes - I did add 3 more miles (very painful miles I might add).  Nothing else since then.  No miles yesterday, just a lot of upside downs in the kayak.

Ouch, Paula!  Your 3 miles are VERY welcome!

All of your “upside-down-time” is just practice for when you go in person to kayak the bays of Maine!

I have 5 to donate from yesterday, today I’m resting. But that guy was worth the detour. Yummy.

Bree

8 more miles today - nice easy hike so do something nice and easy with them.

Thanks 13 miles added by Paula and Bree this weekend to my own almost 4 ½ miles, we’ve made good progress down Hwy 1. 

After we started walking this morning, we noticed a couple of intriguing road signs.  To our left, we could go down “Chicken Mill Pond Road,” or a bit further down the road we could turn right on “Guzzle Road!”

Not much further along, we arrived in one of the many villages that makes up Gouldsboro, Maine.  We decided to not venture down Hwy 186, which would take us down the Schoodic Peninsula, and through all of the other villages that make up Gouldsboro.  We keep going on Hwy 1 and come to West Gouldsboro where the highway now starts to hug the coast and it joins the “Schoodic Scenic Byway.” West Gouldsboro is the home to this cute little library.

After some more walking, we passed through Asheville, Maine which was once home to Bedfords Barn Antique Store, which gave away these wooden nickels.  My dad used to say “Don’t take any wooden nickels,” as a way of saying goodbye when I would leave to go somewhere.  Now I know what he was talking about!

It didn’t take us long to pass through East Sullivan, which in the 1930s was home to this tearoom run by two Shaker women. 

Further along the road we came to Sorrento overlooking Frenchman Bay.  Sorrento has fabulous views of Mount Desert Island across the bay.  It’s also home to this impressive library. What is it with little Maine villages and their very picturesque libraries?

But we couldn’t stand around gazing at libraries all day!  We headed off down the road, passing through Sullivan and West Sullivan, enjoying those fabulous views of Frenchman Bay.

At West Sullivan we crossed the bridge over the neck of water that separates Frenchman Bay from Taunton Bay and strolled through the community of Waukeag and then on to Hancock.  Hancock was settled in 1794 and named for that American Patriot probably best known for his large and impressive signature on the Declaration of Independence. 

We were running low on miles, so we located overnight accommodations (a vegetarian, passive-solar, off-the-grid B&B;on a working farm!!)

To use up the last little bit of our miles, we strolled up the road and came across THIS!  Not only is Ruth and Wimpy’s known for Wilbur, the 20-foot fiberglass lobster, the restaurant is also known for its lobster, fried seafood, and best of all --- its pies!  Mmmmmmmm. 

What a delicious way to end our day’s hike.

What a great idea Judy.  As soon as I’m able, I’ll add to the mileage!

6 more miles so far this week - 3 land, and 3 elliptical.

I’m so glad you decided to join us, Renata!  The more the merrier! 

Thanks for the miles, Paula!  I hope to update our progress by Friday.

I have 5.5 for you. I want that lobster! That would make a great lawn decoration!

Bree

I ran 6.85 miles on the treadmill this morning....

“Walk around North America”

What a cool idea!

oh yeah, on Sunday, I ran about 4 miles or so....

Oh wow!! 

Lots of miles added! 

I’d better get cracking and post the next report of where we’ve been on our journey since stuffing ourselves with lobster!  Especially since I’m STILL having connection problems at home (and they’ve been doing all sorts of tinkering on our system here at work and I keep getting booted off the network)!!!

Judy

Wow!  Have we ever made progress!  We’ve gotten all the way to the outskirts of Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island, smack dab in the middle of Acacia National Park!

Here’s the latest update.

Just a few days ago, in Hancock, Maine – sitting out in front of Ruth and Wimpy’s Kitchen, trying to keep Bree from unbolting Wilbur, the 20-foot fiberglass lobster to ship him home to Tennessee – who do we see show up?  Tom!  How he made it all the way across the country from Carlsbad, we’ll never know.  But he’s here and now he’s adding his miles to help us get down the coast to Lake Mary, Florida.

After convincing Bree to leave poor Wilbur alone, we got hiking down the road.  Just a bit down Hwy 1 we decided to take a short-cut down Mud Creek Road.  It’s not surprising to find an artist’s studio down this little back road.  The scenery is spectacular.

We turned right onto Pinkham’s Flats Road and passed by the community of Lamoine, where there was a dramatic winter rescue earlier this month.  After heading onto Jordan River Road we soon found ourselves back onto a major road – Highway 3, also known as Bar Harbor Road.  But not after passing the Bar Harbor Golf Course.  Deciding we didn’t really have time for 18 holes, we kept on hiking.

Not too much farther, on our left we passed the Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport.  An airport with scheduled flights??  In rural Maine?  Oh well, I guess Martha Stewart, David Rockefeller, and Jimmy Buffett (to name a few) need a quick way to get to their Maine “cottages.” On second thought, Jimmy Buffett probably uses his yacht to cruise up from Florida!

Mount Desert Island has long been a haven for celebrities and it has plenty of those huge expensive estates hidden among the trees along the shore.

But enough digression – we’re still hiking down Bar Harbor Road!

We cross over causeway over the Mount Desert Narrows and we’re now on Mount Desert Island.  We continue down the road skirting Thomas Bay, where we can see Thomas Island and the two smaller islands called “The Twinnies.” The road is now known as the Acadia Byway

We pass through the appropriately-named Eden and Salsbury Cove and Hamilton Pond and soon find ourselves at the Acadia National Park Office.  Since this is a virtual visit, it doesn’t matter in the slightest to us that it is closed for the winter!  But we continue on down the road until we run out of miles. 

We’ve gotten all the way down to the wharf where the Bar Harbor-Yarmouth International Ferry docks.  So, if we wanted to, we could hop on the ferry and end up in Nova Scotia! 

But that’s not for this trip.  We stroll just a bit farther onto the campus of College of the Atlantic where we can hang out for a while until we accumulate enough miles to keep going!

I have 4.75 more miles to add. And I’m still pouting about Wilbur, but the scenery is so beautiful it’s impossible not the enjoy this trip!

Bree