June 6 – Southwest Maine Coast

View Larger Map

It was time for a road trip. We headed down to the southern tip of Maine and drove back up staying as close to the coast as we could.

We started the day in the sun but as we drove south it got cloudy and a bit cool. Around noon we were back to mostly sun and very pleasant but not hot temperatures.

Since the interstates are usually boring and also because I95 is a toll road we skipped it and took US 1 instead to get south but it even was is not very interesting to us. If you weren’t in a town, you mostly saw trees. If you were in town, it was the “main drag” and was very commercial. Motels, restaurants and stores.

LOTS of clam and lobsters shacks/pounds/restaurants.

The southernmost city is Kittery. It is outlet store heaven. That was not the purpose of today and we really didn't need anything so we skipped them.

Heading back north we started to see some more interesting places.

The road was fun to drive as it was very twisty and turny.

We got back right on the coast at York Harbour. There wasn’t much of a beach here. It was also kind of cold in the wind.

A bit farther down there was more sand. Our first real stop was the lighthouse at the tip of the point.

Nubble Light is on its own little island.

We spent some time scrambling over the rocks.

One guy was fishing and caught himself a nice one.

A big resort was next door.

Of course, there was the obligatory lobster shack nearby and it was lunch time.

We had some crab cakes and clam chowder. We didn’t have lobster because we overloaded a bit last night. We each ate 2 1 pound lobsters.

Our next stop was Perkins Cove.

Of course the end of the point we were on was covered in little shops.

It was a popular spot for artists.

From here you can walk along the shore for a bit over a mile on a paved path called the Marginal Way.

There was lots of rocky shore line to look at and explore.

We walked in front of some pretty amazing homes.

And almost the whole path was lined with more wild roses that smelled great.

At the far end of the path was Ogunquit Beach.

The shore here was lined with massive resorts with lots of people out on the lawn chairs, even though it was a bit cool.

The path ends in Ogunquit. We walk through a bit of town heading towards the beach. We wondered why someone went to so much trouble to make this fence kind of unfriendly when it was around a resort.

The beach itself is like a giant sand bar that is separated from the shore. You have to cross a bridge to get to it.

Part of the shoreline must be protected because suddenly all the resorts stopped.

and the WAY down at the far end development started in earnest again.

We head back to the car, retracing our steps on the Marginal Way.

On our way to our next destination we made a quick stop at Wells Beach. It a very narrow strip of land that sticks out into the ocean.  Anything that isn’t beach is wall to wall houses.

Finally we headed to Kennebunkport. This is where the uber rich have there places. We thought we had seen big places before. Some of these would put the places on Post Road in Toronto to shame. You could see a bit of them from the road but most were well set back behind large gates.

One place that everyone comes to see is Presidents Bush’s.

and the place and SUVs for all the Secret Service at the entrance.

Then we headed home.

It is supposed to rain for the next two days so if we don’t do anything interesting I will not post an entry.

One interesting thing I will add. I was reading someone else’s blog the other day and they talked about going to do the Mount Washington Auto Road. They got there and were told that they could not go up because their particular year and model of car would not stay in first gear. If the engine revved too much in first gear the car would automatically shift to second, which would cause it to go too fast down the mountain. However rather than going away disappointed, the guy at the booth said that since their car was a Honda, they got two free, normally $60 a person, guided trips up the mountain courtesy of Honda. I thought that was pretty cool and great public relations.