Five Days of Mountains and Ocean

Day 1 – Monday

We’ll start off at the hotel, find 302, and head west. Portland and Windham aren’t all that exciting, but the scenery gets a little better as we get into and through Naples.

If you’ll be wanting something to wet your whistle later, Food City in Bridgton will be a good stop. They have a ridiculous beer selection, and they’re cool because they’re an employee-owned company.

Moving along, still on 302, we’ll bang a right in Fryberg. There’s a fun road I want you to see. Careful though – I got air (on a Vulcan 1500) coming back west to east on this once, accidentally.

There are a ton of places to eat in North Conway, so we’ll take a ride down the strip so everyone can get a good look. We’ll stop at a covered bridge or something at the other end and decide where we want to eat lunch, then bang a u-ey and grab lunch.

Moving west, again, we’ll be on the famous Kanc (the Kancamagus highway). It’s a beautiful stretch of 112 with some fun corners. Careful on the switchback. I bottomed out once, but I was coming the other way (on the inside of the corner) and had a passenger.

We’ll find 302 again at the end, but this time we’ll be riding it east, and landing in Littleton for the night.

Day 2 Tuesday

Well, we were on 16 a bit for Day 1 (over in Conway), but we’ll be on it a lot today. It’s a very pretty ride I only discovered a few years ago, and runs along a lot of the Androscoggin River. We’ll head up north and cross the ME/NH border in Rangely, and stop for lunch in town. The pickings here are a bit slimmer than Conway, but they are still good.

We’ll saddle up and mosey east along 16 until we get to Dover Foxcroft (Dovah, as the locals say) and stop for the night there.

Day 3 Wednesday

This will be a short riding day, but… It ends in Bangor early, and the place we’re staying is right in the downtown area, so we can venture around on foot. I may leave you to your own devices if my wife is in town for the night. She’s got an office up there that she visits about once a month.

Day 4 Thursday

We’ll set out from Bangor and take what locals call The Airline (Route 9) for a ways east. We’ll bang a right on 192, and head for Machias. Lunch will be there.

Afterward, we’ll be sticking to the coast as much as possible and make our way to Bar Harbor (Bah Hah-bah, if you want to sound like a local). It’s a tourist town, so there will be plenty to do and places to eat. You may even see someone you know “from away.” If we make it in early enough, we can explore Mount Desert Island a bit (and check off Acadia National Park if anyone’s got a bucket list of parks they’re working on).

Day 5 Friday

This will be our last riding day together. I know, it sounds sad already…

We’ll leave the island and again try to hug the coast as much as we can. There will be traffic, but it will still be fun. When I’m coming through here, I like to pull over at a crowded intersection every so often, just to sit and shoot the breeze with someone.

We’ll stop in Rockland for lunch, and then make our way back to the hotel in Portland.

Headed Out

What happens next depends on your travel arrangements. There may be a late flight out of PWM, or you can stay at the Sunday night hotel again and grab a shuttle to the airport Saturday.