July 31, 2024 – Downeast Brunswick, ME
We made the forty minute drive to Thomas Point Beach.
Our day began with a trip to a laundromat and a McDonalds’ session to do some updates for our ski club website and to download pictures from the previous few days. People may be interested that, for the most part, we don’t use cameras for our photography. We just use our phones and then edit the results.
Then it was off to explore a couple of the peninsulas and islands that extend south from Brunswick. The largest of these is Great Island which connects to Orr’s Island and in turn crosses a unique bridge to Bailey Island.
The bridge to Bailey Island is called the “Granite Cribstone Bridge”. It is so named because instead of the usual piers to support the roadway, this one uses cribbing that looks like wooden beams stacked horizontally except that these stacked beams are of granite. Cribbing is usually used as a temporary structure but they don’t plan on replacing this one any time soon. It has been that way since 1928. There are strong currents in the channel it crosses and the cribbing is more resistant to erosion.
The southern tip of Bailey Island is called Land’s End and that’s pretty much what it feels like. The wind was blowing and, except for a few large rocks to the south of the tip, there was nothing else to impede wind and waves.
The rocks at Land’s End are often referred to as the Giant Steps. That’s because the rocks have fractured into a sort of stairway. The stone that makes up the very point looks, for all the world, like wood. It is clearly sedimentary but the layers are only a sixteenth to a quarter of an inch thick. Their varying colors and the way they erode give an appearance of wood in both pattern and texture.
Wandering back to our campsite we made a grocery store stop and then prepared a dinner of sautéed corn, zucchini, pepper and shrimp with a bit of Old Bay to spice things up. Yum!
Aug 1, 2024 – Downeast Brunswick, ME
We spent some time writing and reading in the morning. Then it was off to explore on this nice sunny day. The first part of our drive went past the huge Bath Iron Works shipyard on the west side of the Kennebec River and down Harpswell Neck to Potts Point and Ash Point. The area was pretty but we found little else of interest to us.
Then, heading up and around, we drove out the road to the end of Basin Point and that was a different story. Seemingly out at the end of nowhere there was a large restaurant and modern marina with floating docks named Dolphin Restaurant & Marina. In this area, nearly all boats are tied to moorings instead of docks because of the large tidal range. Here, the boats were in slips and the overall arrangement was much like we’d expect to see on the Chesapeake except that the pilings were taller to allow for the tidal range. The restaurant, while elegant looking, seemed a bit formal for us for lunch.
Fortunately, there was a Downeast style open air option next door called Erica’s Seafood. It was a combination fish market and restaurant. Sandy ordered a Crabster sandwich and Bill had a bowl of clam chowder. We sat at a picnic table under an umbrella enjoying our meals and the beautiful setting.
We had yet to explore Brunswick so we first headed to the train station/visitor center to gather some information. They had literature about other things but nothing about Brunswick, itself. So we struck out on our own. Many of these coastal towns have a history of water-powered industry and massive industrial buildings that lined their rivers have now been repurposed.
One such building along the Androscoggin River houses a Sea Dog Brewery Restaurant location. We opted for a visit and drinks. Nice place with a great river view. Next stop was for books, first to a Barnes & Noble (Sandy’s bookstore) and then to the Goodwill store (Bill’s bookstore).
Dinner that evening was grilled chicken sausage, broccoli, Caprice salad and buttered red beets.
Aug 2, 2024 – Downeast Brunswick, ME
The campground we’re in is a curious place in multiple ways. Not only is it a campground but it hosts many special events. For instance, this week it is hosting an event for the hearing impaired. We only figured that out when Sandy tried to help a little boy who was lost. Finding his mother, she related about the event. Another event this week was a gathering of veteran-owned businesses. Once their stands were set up with signage, we figured out that all the businesses were related to the use of marijuana. In fact, Maine has many cannibas shops!
Another unusual campground feature was campsite electrical hookups. Instead of having outlets installed at individual campsites they’d installed scattered communal groups of outlets, each of which had multiple 30 and 20 amp outlets. That was fine if your site was near a group of outlets. We weren’t near one and considering the temperatures and that we’d be there for four days, we purchased an additional 50 foot extension cord at Walmart to extend our range to over 100 feet in case we wanted power.
Our first intended stop for the day was to be at Popham Beach State Park. Guess again. The parking lot was full and staff were turning cars away. People were parking along the road and walking a long distance to spend the day on the beach. We simply moved on since all we wanted was a look.
However, a sign pointed ahead to Fort Popham State Historic Site. It turns out that a remarkable granite fort had been built by the English to guard the entrance to the Kennebec River. This was part of the first English attempt at settling New England. That settlement was the Popham Colony which didn’t last long, like 1607 to 1608. The area was later settled in 1659 by John Parker II, who bought most of the land the town was built on from the Indians.
The fort is strange looking but was very well constructed. The main face is semicircular in shape with two layers of casemates for large cannons. The upper levels of the fort are reached by a pair of remarkable spiral stairways built of granite. They are really pretty cool. The fort was never actually completed and was used over its history mainly for training and housing soldiers during the Civil War and the Spanish American War.
Continuing along the coast we stopped briefly ay Phippsburg. A tiny village, today, it is famous for its ship building history as well as its ice cutting past. A pond next to the harbor was used for cutting ice in the winter and a large ice storage house was built on the site. The ice was shipped all along the US east coast.
Returning up the peninsula through Bath we passed the huge Bath Shipyard. Most remarkable from the road besides the monster cranes that line the facility along the river is the great blue wall we drove past. The wall is actually the side of the dry dock inside which ships are built for the Navy.
It was lunchtime and we looked for a place along the river. The Kennebec Tavern Restaurant & Marina filled the bill nicely. It was a beautiful day and the business also operates an attractive, small marina that looked over the river. Nice place!
For the afternoon we headed towards Georgetown Island and Reid SP. The park is known for its beaches of which it sports two, Mile Beach and Half Mile Beach. The parking lots here, though busy, weren’t full so we could actually park and go out on the beach. They were pretty with soft sand and bounded by rock promontories. We climbed the rocks at the near end of Mile Beach to take a couple of photos. The skeeters got to us, though, at Half Mile Beach and we didn’t spend much time there.
Just poking around we turned at a sign for the Five Islands Lobster Company. It was on a very pretty harbor but we didn’t feel the need for another lobster dinner. Walking out the narrow road past the lobster house we came upon the Harborside General Store. They had tables and chairs set up, were selling delicious blueberry lemonade and featured two entertainers singing and playing guitar, harmonica & mandolin. They sang songs we actually knew the words to and we found a pair of chairs and enjoyed a set of their music.
Aug 3, 2024 – Downeast Brunswick, ME
We woke to yet another rainy morning. Sitting in a shady campsite in cloudy weather for four days was running our batteries down. So we used the extra extension cord we purchased yesterday to stretch over 100 feet to the nearest outlet. That was sufficient to recharge our batteries and even run the A/C for a while after a hot, muggy afternoon.
Having dealt with the electrical issue we headed into Brunswick to check things out. First objective was to visit a dedicated gluten free bakery. Unfortunately, it was closed. Brunswick was a river mill town and has the usual huge mill buildings ripe for repurposing. Cabot Mill Antiques was in one of those buildings. It was a very large and well managed antique cooperative and we walked much of it, admiring vendor’s wares.
Bowdoin College, a liberal arts school, is in Brunswick and we drove through the campus and admired some of the buildings that surrounded its quad area.
We wanted to be able to see some of the aerial performances of the Great State of Maine Air Show that was happening just a couple of miles away. We’d hoped to be able to see something from one of the open areas within the campground. And, while we could hear them, there was no visual sign of the early performances. So we decided to try somewhere else.
We only needed to drive about half a mile to a road along a field where we found other people parked and with their chairs set up waiting for the show. We saw several prop stunt planes do their stuff and then the finale, the U.S.A.F. Thunderbirds. While we couldn’t see the stunts that happened near the ground we could see the high aerial parts and they were very cool.
