Our meeting house on the road to New Harbor.
July 17, 2010 — SEACHANGE, Maine
Between expectation of the end of the trip and a series of
difficult hill climbs, the last day of tour brought me frustration during most
of the day, but a reward at the end.
When I had talked to Alison the night before, she sounded as
though she wanted us to arrive at Seachange, her family’s summer house on
Pemaquid Point, at the same time. She and her son, Luke, and brother, Ian, were
flying into Portland as I had done a week earlier and then driving up to
Seachange. Along the way, they were going to stop for groceries as well as
making a traditional stop for fish tacos and lobster rolls in Damariscotta, the
gateway to the point.
After figuring out their timing — arrive at 2:30, leave
airport by 3:00, drive to Damariscotta, shop for groceries, eat some food —
they would be on the final road to Seachange at about 5:30, which meant that I
could loll around Augusta in the morning and take my time riding south.
I was partly right.
I ate a continental breakfast at the hotel and then packed
up and rolled out by about 10:30 a.m., asking about museums before I left. I
rolled down to the Fort Western Historic Site, but it didn’t open until the
afternoon. A reproduction of the original fort at Augusta, overlooking the
Kennebec River, allows visitors to go back in time, but it doesn’t to skip
ahead to the afternoon opening.
So I rode over to the capital grounds to find the Maine
State Museum. Very nice museum. Admission was $2 if I remember right. The
museum is in a nondescript building with the state libraries and archives. It
has four floors of exhibits, everything from paleo-indian excavations to part
of the hold of a 19th century ship built in Maine to a two-story
working water wheel. It was very nicely laid out and well organized. I’ll have
to ask Paul about it the next time I see him.
It was 12:30 by the time I got through and hit the bike path
south to Gardiner. I almost stopped in Hallowell, where the Old Hallowell Days
were in progress. Funnel cakes and cotton candy down by the riverside, art
booths and craft tables up along main street. Instead of stopping, I rode
slowly through to see the wares. When I got to Gardiner, I ate lunch.
Back on the bike, I crossed the Kennebec and headed into the
rock-ribbed country between the Kennebec and the Damariscotta River. It was
rough two-lane roads, mostly quiet because even the motor-vehicle drivers look
for easier roads! They dove into a valley and then climbed steeply onto the
next ridge, then dove again.
I went through three quaint New England towns (almost forgot
to use that cliché): East Pittston, Head Tide and Alna, each quainter than the
previous.
The difficulty of the up-and-down riding slowed me down
considerably and it looked to me like I wouldn’t make it onto Pemaquid Point on
time to see Alison, Luke and Ian. It was 5:30 by the time I got to
Damariscotta, and surely Alison had been keeping them moving to see me at Seachange as early as possible.
I thought about stopping for a bottle of Gatorade but kept
on going until I found a convenience store somewhere south of Bristol.
Back on the road I came round a bend and saw a car pulled
off on the shoulder near a house. The cars’ warning lights were flashing. It
took a few seconds for it to sink in, but then I smiled broadly. As I
approached, here were Alison, Luke and Ian sitting in a row, slightly hidden
from my approach by trees and a rise of ground.
Big hugs and welcomes and how-did-you-time-this-so-wells. Turns out that Alison had seen me pedaling through Damariscotta when they had stopped for food. She yelled at me but I was too far away (or too focused on roadway traffic) to hear her. They finished eating, got groceries and drove down the point, catching me just after Bristol and before New Harbor.
Ian drew me a map to sort through the many splits in the
road leading from New Harbor down to their house, which saved me riding to the
end of every road on the peninsula to find my way, and which I surely would
have had to do without the map.
And so I am arrived at Seachange, the summer house designed
by Alison’s dad, Herb Fowler, for his sister, Deedee, and which now is shared by a half
dozen cousins of the next generation.
The surf is in constant flux outside, the tide rolls in and
out with the weight of the moon, the lobster boats come and go with their buoys
and traps, and the whole of the world changes without ever really changing.