Sherry and I took our first motorcycle trip together this past Sunday through Wednesday and headed up to Camden, ME as home base for riding roads north. Terry was not feeling well and was not able to join us. He did provide route suggestions that were awesome!
We left our house at 9 AM on Sunday. Check in time was not until 3 PM, so we decided to do a side trip up the Mass-NH coast on route 1A from Salisbury to Portsmouth. Turns out this was not a good call. It was a super hot Sunday after a rainy Saturday and the whole world decided to go to the beach. We made it to Hampton Beach w/o too much trouble. We parked, strolled and had a snack before getting on the bike to ride up 1A to Portsmouth. It took 50 minutes to get from Hampton to the Portsmouth traffic circle to hop on 95 N to Maine. Also part of the coast was fogged in so we couldn't see much. We'll have to do that ride again under better conditions, including cooler weather. It was freakin' hot and humid the whole trip.
Our ride up Camden was 295 to Brunswick and route 1 to Camden. We stayed in town to be able to easily walk to restaurants. We had a nice dinner on the harbor. Here's a picture of the harbor around sunset.
On Monday we rode Terry's route; a great mixture of roads, including a ride on the Airline (route 9), the blueberry barrens on route 193 and lunch at Bayview Takeout in Beals. Our first stop was the Penobscot Narrows bridge. We decided to pay the admission to visit the observation deck in one of the bridge's towers. Some bridge pics below.
Looking south from the observation deck at the Penobscot River and route 1.
Looking west down on the bridge. Cool suspension cable layout.
Sherry had a super fresh lobster roll at Bayview takeout. I had a cheeseburger and we split broccoli cheese bites that were great!
Stopped for slices of blueberry pie at the intersection of route 1 and 187 on the way home. It was a long hot ride back to Camden.
On Tuesday we took a "shorter" ride, 4 hours round trip, to Stonington, ME. We took route 15 south off of route 1 to Stonington. Route 15 is both beautiful and in some portions a very technical ride. Lots of hills complete with blind rises some with turns and/or steep drops at the rise. One hill was roller coaster-like with a very steep drop and rise to the next hill. The ride also included a trip over the Deer Isle - Sedgwick Bridge. It's the longest suspension in Maine and was built in 1939. The southbound approach is steep.
We arrived about 11:30 and looked for a place to eat that had air conditioning. We selected the Harbor cafe.
Sherry had a lobster role and I had a pastrami Ruben. Both were excellent.
Stonington is a picturesque fishing village, that was over run with tourists that day, including us. I was amazed at how many people were there for an off the beaten path location.
On Wednesday we were on the road by 8:30 and had a decent but hot ride with no troubles until 495 south bound in Massachusetts where there was a huge traffic back-up due to an accident at the 290 interchange. This really sucked because we were so close to home and it was hot. We were able to get off at route 62, but of course there were detours and lane closures in Hudson and Marlboro due to road work. We got home about 1:30.
Total trip was 847 miles. It was a great trip, but we wish it was at least 15 degrees cooler.
