Maine - Day 19 - Boothbay Harbor and Bath

Pemaquid Point Campground
Sunday, 19 August 2018

I woke up really early this morning, and for the first time in months I saw a whole sky full of stars.  It was wonderful.  I even saw the Milky Way, which I haven’t seen in I can’t remember how long.  It took me a long time to find the Big Dipper, though, even after I checked my little compass.  Turns out it was much lower in the sky than I expected and all the silly tall evergreens in the campground were hiding it.

Because half of Maine is so much farther north than any other state in this region, I tend to think of myself as being far north.  I keep having to look at a map to realize I’m on about the same latitude as Eugene, Oregon, which is halfway down its own state. Most of Minnesota, all of North Dakota and part of South Dakota, all of Montana, most of Idaho and Wisconsin – they’re all farther north.  I guess it’s the skewed way our US maps are shown that makes Maine seem so much farther north than it is.

Thoughts under the stars.

today's out-of-focus route

Today I decided to do a little sight-seeing and drive to the end of some of these peninsulas.  Starting with the one I was on.

bell house & fog horn tower

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse and keeper's house

Only a few miles from the campground is the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, where some ham radio enthusiasts were having an “event,” according to the sign they’d hung up.  When I got there, one man was on a radio receiving calls, and then others arrived and started setting up other radios.  I couldn’t quite understand but maybe they were going to see how many would respond to them on this one day?  Anyway, it looked like they were having good clean fun and you can't beat that.

The lighthouse was commissioned in 1827 by John Quincy Adams.  The bell house and the fog horn tower were built in 1897 and 1898, respectively.  That's a long time for buildings to be standing up to elements like these.

I drove back up to Damariscotta to pick up Rt. 1 and, while I was waiting at the town’s one traffic light, a man pulled up next to me and looked a little angry and said, “What are you doing?”  Then he looked at the dogs, who were looking out the window, and he looked more closely at me and said something like oops.  Turns out his sister has an RV like mine, also with a Texas plate, and he thought I was her.  Much better ending than I’d been afraid of.

I’d been sort of looking forward to Boothbay Harbor, but the poor thing has turned into a major tourist town and I couldn’t do anything except drive through town, try to avoid hitting anybody or anything, and get out as soon as the streets would let me.  I found several parking lots, but I also saw a sign saying RVs would have to pay $20 to park there, which I wasn’t interested in doing.  And anyway, it was just a picturesque Maine fishing town.  Very picturesque, I grant you, but there are certainly a lot of others that aren’t so crowded.

Boothbay Harbor via an internet search

After that, I was on a quest for a wi-fi signal.  The campground doesn’t have one and my hot spot wasn’t picking up one, so I kept going farther west.  I stopped to rest and walk the dogs in Wiscasset but still couldn’t get a signal.  Actually, I was getting one – my hot spot kept telling me it had one and my computer was saying it had one – but I kept on not being able to get online.  So I finally called my hot spot people who figured out where I was and said I was only on the edge of their signal and I was probably getting only 2G, which is why my equipment said it was okay when it wasn’t.  They told me to keep going west along Rt. 1 and I’d get a signal booming in.  So off to Bath I went.

I can’t think of a town named Bath without thinking of Jane Austen.  But it turns out this Bath has a lot of charm.  I saw a sign saying to go to the Maine Maritime Museum to see the 1906 Mary E, the oldest surviving Bath-built schooner.   Apparently Bath was once a big ship-building town. 

Bath, looking toward City Hall

Another claim to fame is its Chocolate Church, named for its paint color, I’m sorry to say.  But it’s beautiful on the outside and I was completely unable to find a vantage for taking a photo.  I figured I’d get one online but now find there aren’t any that I’m allowed to use, so you’ll have to look it up for yourself.  It’s no longer a church but is now used as an arts center.  In October they’re getting Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins.”

I see shops selling marijuana all over down here in the southern half of Maine. Mostly they advertise medical marijuana, but not all.  Apparently Maine's at an in-between stage on its marijuana laws - the (Democratic) legislature recently overrode the (Republican) governor's veto on a bill that will allow retail sales of recreational pot; Mainers are allowed to possess up to 2½ ounces, but must use it in their own homes.  Restrictions on medical marijuana are different, and legal sales of it are well-established.  The gov. is term-limited out of office this fall so nobody expects him to bother implementing the law he vetoed and are waiting for his successor to set up the system.  And now you know.

Today was convertible weather, based on the number I saw with their tops down.

Many many stands along the road selling wild Maine blueberries, so I decided to stop for some.  They really are the wild ones, rather than the cultivated ones, which you can tell because they’re so much smaller.  Maine is the only state that commercially produces wild blueberries.

And I never did find a wi-fi signal, so I’m getting a little desperate for one and think I’ll just cough up the money for a KOA night tomorrow just to be sure I can get one.