"One Day at a Time, 2015” ….. Maine ….. (August 19 –
August 27) …..August 25
August 25 – Tuesday –
Another very interesting ride
PS Sometimes I add more than one link if the attraction/city has lots of information.
We headed west again towards Ellsworth on Route 1 until we
whizzed by the The Big Chicken Barn, and I made Bruce turn around as this was another stop I had
on my bucket list. Now we aren’t into
buying much anymore, but when you read that The Big
Chicken Barn could swallow you up for over a day, well, I
just had to see it! WOW! They surely weren’t kidding. We walked up and down the aisles saying
things like, “we had one like that,” or “Neal ought to see this,” or “I can’t
believe that they have this here!” It
was fun, didn’t take long, and was free!!
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| Most of my pictures were blurry but the links I provided have lots more. This was on the first floor. |
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| The second floor is all books and magazines! |
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| My mom had a collection of "heads" like these. She had over 100 of them. |
On toward Bucksport
we went. We had been told about the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory and Historic Fort
Knox. That’s where we
were headed. First we went right to and
through the town of Bucksport. That’s
what we usually do; go through the whole thing, then turn around and go back
slowly, stopping if we see something that we want to stop at. We remarked about a huge, empty plant at the edge of town and
later heard the story. Shame, shame on them.
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| The boat (close up) with the bridge in the distance. |
We walked on their waterfront walkway and read the signs
along the way taking lots of pictures.
Bucksport is the “gateway” intersecting Acadia Highway (US Route 1) to
Bar Harbor and Camden with Route 15 reaching to Blue Hill and the Peninsula as
well as Bangor. We enjoyed a granola bar
and an apple and proceeded onto Verona Island then to the bridge.
Oh my, now this is some bridge. Looking back through the pictures I took,
several of them make me dizzy all over again to look at! First we read the information about the old bridge and then we parked and
went into the new bridge and observatory.
Yup, we had to break out the wallets here!
This is America’s only bridge observatory and one of three
in the world. There are pictures on the
first level showing you the plans for it and details of the building. You then get in an elevator and ride up, up,
up – 420 feet above sea level. They warn
you to take a minute when the door opens because when you step out, the height
smacks you right in the face. Neither of
us is afraid of heights, but I will admit that as we walked up the two flights
to get to the very top, I was hugging the wall a bit.
These two are of us going over the bridge and looking upward at the observatory.
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| This is at the first parking spot you come to looking toward the bridge. |
I couldn't get the details in one picture.
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| This is the bridge that was taken down. |
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| What you see when the elevator doors open. Of course, it was cloudy!! |
These two are from the very top level!!
And this one is on the ground looking up where we had just come from.
After the bridge and observatory, we entered Fort Knox.
This fort, built after the war of 1812 to protect the Penobscot River
and Bangor upstream from a possible invasion by British forces, never saw
action or had a shot fired. Bruce had
researched it a bit the night before and learned that the fort was designed by Chief Engineer Joseph Totten with a number
of other engineers serving as superintendents.
We have no idea if he is related to Bruce but found the story
interesting.
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| It doesn't show up well but those are many, many brick stairs going down, down, down and that is Bruce. I held on to the railing and took my time. It was damp and wet in there. |
After wandering around together for a bit, I needed to use the rest room so I told Bruce I would meet up with him later. Then I proceeded to get lost! It’s no easy feat to find your way out of a fort!! Thank heavens for cell phones!
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| This is where I kept coming out to when I got lost. It was an open square with lots of openings and staircases. I went up, I went down, I couldn't find my way. |
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| This is a blurry photo that mentions the ferry Joseph G. Totten which made countless trips across the river when the troops departed. |
On the way home we stopped at a farm stand selling fresh
Blueberries. They were very tiny but don’t
let the size fool you – they were yummy.
I took a photo of Brock and also the maps that they put up mid-year to
show everyone where people are from who have stopped at their stand. Pretty impressive!
This was a great way to end our stay here near Bar Harbor
and Acadia National Park.
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