Kittery, Maine - This is it. I know the stated purpose of this trip was to make it coast-to-coast, but there was always a tacit understanding (in my head, at least) that the ultimate finale would come when I rolled up the driveway of my childhood home, 12 Davis Road, Hudson, MA 01749. At the rate I'm going that'll happen tomorrow afternoon.
Of course, I'd have been home a long time ago but for a pleasant detour, my four days aboard the windjammer Angelique. I arrived in Maine on the "The Cat" catamaran from Nova Scotia (a speedy but soulless trip, full of too much plush seating and slot machines and not enough sea air) in a torrential downpour, which was pretty good timing on my part as I only had to bike for about 200 feet to the ferry terminal where my dad was waiting with the family minivan. From there he drove me to the touristy-but-awfully-attractive town of Camden, Maine, where we boarded the Angelique.
The trip was awesome in a lot of ways and a letdown in others. As this blog makes fairly obvious, I'm used to pretty active vacations, and the passengers on board don't actually have a lot to do. We got to lend a hand hoisting and lowering sails and such, but mostly we just watched the scenery go by.
Fortunately, the scenery was majestic. We spent three days plying a random course through the hundreds of tiny islands of Penobscot Bay, some uninhabited, others occupied by the gargantuan summer homes of the rich and/or famous. Some of us went swimming in the nippy Atlantic, many of us made a few token shore excursions in the ship's rowboat, and all of us spent a couple of hours on an empty island enjoying a mammoth lobster bake. (I had 4 of them, which is actually more lobsters than I've had in my entire life, combined, up to this point.)
The other part I really enjoyed about the trip was simply cruising along without the rlentless drone of an engine beneath you. The voyage really does feel much more serene when the only sound is the ripples of water against the hull and the sail billowing out with the wind.
The trip finished Thursday morning, and I had my dad drop me off at Damariscotta, which is the point at which my route to Bar Harbor and the route I'm taking back to Mass. (I got another Adventure Cycling map for this part of the trip) diverge. From that point, it was 220 miles back home.
I've now covered about 140 of them, so tomorrow should be a relatively brief final day. I must admit I've enjoyed this portion of Maine more than I did the jaunt into Bar Harbor, mostly because there seem to be more backroads on this map. The main roads south have mostly been mob scenes, jammed as they are with late-August vacationers, but get about 100 feet off them and you're in the middle of classic New England: qauint farmhouses, meadows, stone walls. Even the crowded roads have been enjoyable at times, as the maps have routed me right along the sea shore past some stunning vistas of a very frenetic coastline.
In about half an hour I'll be in new Hampshire and leave the Atlantic behind, turning inland past Exeter and into Massachusetts. I'll spend tonight camping in New Hampshire somewhere, one last time in the old sleeping bag (which could use a good airing-out anyway.)
Lest you think this blog is about to peter out, stay tuned: I'll have a final entry about the last miles of the trip as well as some more photos and a bunch of lovingly-compiled statistics from the trip.
But now: To home!