from Hancock, Maine

It's effortless for me to wake up to the first few moments of daylight, the time just prior to the sun making its way over the horizon. I love those quiet and still moments especially whenever I’m up here in Down East Maine. Because when I'm up here, it's vacation time.

The saying "Home Is Where the Heart Is" has really meaning to me. I'm blessed to call Down East or any other place for that matter my second home. Over a dozen plus years ago when Ma Smith retired, we began our annual treks to Down East. I'm a first generation born American [my folks are from the Philippines] and the husband's family roots up in the New England/Maine area can be traced back to circa 1616.

My husband and I learned to fly airplanes together [that's another journal] and now we're learning to ride motorcycles. We're in our second year of riding and this is mostly my journal with a few insights from hubby from time to time. I really love to ride. How do I know this? Well, for me it was a lot like learning to fly. It's a lot of practice, preparation, and constant vigilance and amongst all that it's still a lot of fun!

Yesterday was a major milestone for me on my first bike, a 2007 Yamaha Virago 250cc. I had my first 150+ day ride. It was the first time we used the GPS to circumvent one of those small-town traffic jams. A tractor trailer hauling a tanker got stuck crossing US Route 1 and we thought, why are we sitting in this traffic? We're on vacation, time on our hands, and great weather is a-wasting. A quick U-turn and off we went exploring a part of Down East we hadn’t been on before. Truth be told, the first detour we took looked like a decent road on the GPS, but we ended up backtracking as the road itself became narrow, the ratio of gravel to hard-pan increased and eventually we hit gravel and dirt. I'm thinking for my next bike, maybe a sport tourer?

Yesterday's route was a coastal town tour. We rode through Searsport on the way for lunch in Belfast. We told Ma Smith we'd be home by 5pm for dinner and had to stick to that schedule so as not worry the ole gal. For the return trip, we explored the Blue Hill peninsula and took a 15-minute break in Castine, fueled up again in the Town of Blue Hill and hit the rush hour in downtown Ellsworth.

The thing about vacation spots like Ellsworth, the "Gateway to Acadia" is that you can count on throwing in another class of drivers, the distracted, disoriented or lost vacationer. Been there, done that. When my ire gets up a bit, that's my red flag to bring out the "observer" in me and be patient, stay within the traffic flow and anticipate.

We arrived "home" early enough for me to clean off the bike chain a bit. Even working on my bike is fun! At the table, we shared our adventure stories and there was daylight enough for a quick warm-up-the-chain ride and lube before tucking the Virago in for the night.

from Hancock, Maine

Been busy visiting with family and today after dinner the weather abated enough for a brief ride. I’ve been mulling over upgrading to a bigger bike next year. It’s been fun shopping again and sitting on bikes at the local showroom.

My primary concerns are price, curb weight and seat height. My hubby suggested that I take his V-Star 650cc Custom for a spin in the school parking lot. It’s a lot heavier than what I’m looking at, but the 650cc is about as big an engine that I’m considering moving up to. After walking the clutch the length of the parking lot, I was ready to do a few loops around the lot and into second gear. That was a lot of fun!

As a follow-up to our ride earlier this week, there’s still a bit of gravel and sand when transitioning from the primary to secondary roads. There are many small towns that U.S. Route 1 passes through, so take care to notice when the posted speed limit changes.

The roughest road we were on was when we turned off of U.S. Rt. 1 on our way to Castine. Fortunately, pot holes are not the issue, but there’s a lot of frost heave and the road edges are extremely uneven. The only smooth part of the lane to ride was along the crest which happened to be the dividing line.

I’m not a great one for taking pictures because I just love to ride. We did make an effort to stop and explore the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge at Fort Knox. Here’s a photo of the old Waldo-Hancock Bridge.


And a portion of the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge. There's an observation platform at the top.

It's great seeing pictures of the bridge online and knowing someone is enjoying this part of Maine. I'm about an hour and a half west and we love to head for Ellsworth, Acadia, Schoodic, Castine, Camden!

Have a wonderful trip!

Tom C

From Hancock

The Downeast Tour: Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Point, Jonesport, Machias and Lubec.

The other day was another great ride opportunity for hubby and me. I knew once I made it past the 150+ mile barrier that my rides would get longer. So it was no surprise that this Downeast route ticked just over 200 miles. We rode through hilly landscapes of blueberry fields dotted by large boulders, evergreen trees fragrant of balsam, water views of white water river carving through town and rocky coastlines.

Our day trip primarily consisted of riding U.S. Route 1 North with an occasional detour to three peninsulas for photo-opts and lunch and if time and weather allowed. It turned out to be a pretty good plan because I find riding on the highways to get monotonous and have been known to let out an occasional yawn at 65mph. The detours offered a change of pace, more challenging road conditions, and more encounters with small town traffic.

The first detour off of US1 was to Schoodic Point via Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor. Taking these detours heading north, made merging back onto US1 easier. We didn’t have to worry about crossing the path of the southbound traffic. This time of year it isn’t an issue, but local folks say that as the Summer season gets more intense so does the traffic.

What I like about riding and touring in particular is to challenge and push myself outside my comfort-zone. I like to know exactly what we are doing and when. So when our only plan for lunch was to grab something along the way, that’s a big deal for me. As we do more trips like this, I’ll most likely get used to the spontaneity, but for now it’s oh so very exciting! As we approached Jonesport and the hour nearing noon, I pulled into the first place that looked to be a local grocer. Off of Main Street, we stopped at centrally located food establishment with picnic tables and already a couple of bikes in the lot.


After our lunch break, we decided to omit our third peninsula detour so as to make the dinner reservations that Ma Smith made. So, back onto US1 to Lubec, Maine considered the easternmost town in the contiguous USA. As a nice surprise, the hubby suggested we check out a little gourmet chocolate shop in town known simply as Monica’s Chocolates. (Notice the Harley parked close to the chocolate place? They rode up just seconds after we did. )

I’m like, yeah right. But you know some of the towns and villages of Maine have surprised me over the years. Some really good culinary talents in both American fare and ethnic cuisine have come up here to start their own restaurant and a few of them do well enough to endear themselves to the locals. They offer great, well prepared meals and at respectable prices. If you’re ever up in Downeast feel free to inquire where the locals like to eat out and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

I enjoyed reading your posts. It looks like you're having a lot of fun out there. I'm looking forward to my first long trip on my bike. I just wish the road in front of my house wasn't so dangerous. I have to pick my riding times very carefully. I enjoyed your pictures too.

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www.reginarussell.weebly.com

Acadia National Park Tour on June 16th: Park Loop Road and the highlight being a ride up to Cadillac Mountain.


We were ready for a change of pace. With another great summer (pronounced sum-mah) day for picture taking, the best choice for a ride would be on Mount Desert Island. Folks near and far were turning out for a great three-day spread of mid-70 degree temps and blue skies. Traffic in town doubled that morning. Rather than pulling out onto US-1 like we usually do, we had to wait for something like a whole minute for an opening in the traffic.

When we got our park pass, we were also given the opportunity to have our names added to the motorcycle list. This supposedly was to facilitate future visits in to the park by eliminating the need to display a vehicle pass or in our case applying the annual sticker to our bikes.

Our first photo op is typical of what you’ll find in the Park and in particular on Park Loop Road. The majority of their resurfacing project is nearly complete and it makes for a really nice, comfortable ride. There are lots of spots to pull over to enjoy the view, so if one parking area is full, travel along a little further and you’re sure to find available space at the next pull-over.


Here’s a view of Sand Beach. There are two great hikes that we can recommend and are accessible from Sand Beach, Great Head and Beehive.

We had stopped at Thunder Hole, but the timing wasn’t quite right. It’s a big stop for tour buses, so this was a great opportunity to practice some slow maneuvering. The gift shop sells cold drinks and light snacks. We kept riding along until we got a bit ahead of the crowds. This is Otter Cove

By about this time, we’re about half-way along the one-way section of Park Loop Road. The next two notable stops remaining are Jordan Pond and Cadillac Mountain. My first experience on a motored two-wheeler was a scooter up here two years ago. Back then Hubby couldn’t convince me to go up the mountain, but today with all kinds of riding challenges behind me, my confidence was up, the weather great and it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.

With this thought in mind, I suggested that we skip Jordon Pond [since we had hiked the trail the other day] and head directly up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. Hubby was thrilled and now I’m a mixed bag of nerves, excitement, and determination. When I get like this, I’m all business and my only goal was to make it up to the summit without stalling my bike or dropping it. I really only started to enjoy myself when I successfully maneuvered through this one hair-pin–like turn.

We didn’t quite ride our bikes to the summit. The upper lot was full and they were directing all traffic to the lower lot, but it was still a great way to end our Acadia tour.

Coming back down was also a challenge. We didn’t want to overheat our brakes, so we experimented with engine braking and pulse braking. In the end, we had no brake issues and arrived back on Park Loop Road none the worse for wear. . .and it was a wicked good ride!

July 2009: Exploring DE-PA-MD (Part 1 of 3)

Our big local ride was on a beautiful July 4th summer day. We met another couple for a good hardy breakfast to start our day. We all ride Yamahas; the guys on their V-Stars and me on my Virago

The guys work together and are a couple of tech-heads. Greg researched the route the night before using his Blackberry to access Google Maps. Hubby, aka ‘Ox’ as in strong as an Ox, recreated the route for the Garmin Zumo. I have to admit that the GPS was a big help on this route because to ride by so many scenic spots, we had to take a lot of left and right turns. If we only stuck to the primary or secondary roads, I think we would have missed out on a few postcard-like views.

Ox was on point, I was in the #2 spot (I need practice and patience in following others.) and with Greg and his passenger/girlfriend, Christine bringing up the rear. Starting in Delaware, the first part of the leg took us in, around and out of town; then through planned neighborhood communities, large residential lots; and a golf course or two. I felt like I was getting an opportunity to burn off that breakfast. The relaxing part of the ride was when we entered Pennsylvania and we paralleled Brandywine Creek through heavy woodland areas. Much of this section of road averaged about 30 to 35mph. At times the speed dropped to 15mph for the severe or blind corners.

This is an accessible recreational area that the locals enjoy. There’s bicycling for the serious road enthusiast, float tubing and kayak/canoe groups, picnic grounds and horseback riding clubs.

After leaving the area, I was surprised to find us riding through a very hilly country-side. There’s one memorable hilltop that gives a vantage point of seeing a cluster of other hilltops for miles and miles.

About an hour or so into our ride, we stopped at a gas station, where we happened upon a pair of big bikes in the parking lot. With some embarrassment, I have to admit that I was surprised that the two riders of these bikes were women. While my companions were indoors choosing to cool off and finish their drinks, I had stepped outside to take some pictures and took the opportunity to say hello to the two women riders.

They were so nice in a cool rider kind of way. They didn’t mind that I was decked out in my bright pink and white jacket and rode with a flashy pink-white-silver helmet. I dress for conspicuousness (for the benefit of cagers to see and avoid me.) We were all three riders, out enjoying the weather, the landscape, the chance to meet someone new and the freedom to ride where we choose to ride. When we parted company one of the women said to me, ‘You ride safe there little sister.’ I was so touched by the familiarity and sincerity of her words that when I think about that July 4th ride it still makes me smile to this day.

Your Acadia post reminds me of my trip I took with Holiday a few years ago. I have a video up on the internet of riding down Cadillac Mtn and around the park. I love the riding all around the park - too bad it's all highways or straight roads to get there!

Great write-up!