Day 3: Scarborough to Pemaquid Point (75 miles)

The campground I stayed at was the furthest inland I had yet been in Maine, but it put in a good position to go through Portland. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there, and I was a little concerned biking through an unfamiliar city with no clear directions (besides north), but I figured I'd play it by ear. The first bit, 22 and 9, was pretty typical suburb riding - 4 lane road, fast cars, something of a shoulder, massive sprawl. Once I got into the city it became lite-urban riding; lots of stuff crammed together, not much traffic, roads wide enough that cars can pass you, but with enough stop lights that you usually end up passing cars.

By the time I got into the heart of the city, I was on a street I didn't recognize heading in a direction that seemed northward (at least, the ocean was on my right).

Fortunately, Portland is a pretty awesome place to own a bike. Once I got down to the coast, there's a nice path that runs next to the water and eventually crosses under and over a bridge, bringing me north of Portland. From there, I picked up route 1 again (nicely marked by bike route signs) and continued north. At some point, unbeknownst to me, 1 turns into a restricted highway. Of course it does this without giving any indication that it is doing so until you're stuck on it. But, the shoulder was plenty wide and mostly clear of debris, so I kept going because there wasn't really any alternative. At some point a sheriff passed me without incident, so I figured it was OK.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who had made the mistake, because I met this guy hanging out in the ditch by the side of the road. He was out doing a century, and encountered a malicious acorn that punctured his rear tube. Without the gear to fix it, he was stranded for the moment. I stopped, seeing an excellent opportunity to lighten my load a little bit. I gave him a tube and showed him how to change a flat (it was a good thing I stopped the other day to pick up the schrader/presta converter, because the valve stem wouldn't have been long enough to fill otherwise). Once the problem was fixed, we were both able to continue. I left him by the side of the road trying to call off the rescue, but later saw him fly by when I was stopped further up.

I made a few more stops along the way, including at the rest area seen above. But, a tropical storm was supposed to hit the coast pretty hard that evening, so I tried to keep moving on. Once I reached Damariscotta I called the campground at Pemaquid to see if they were going to stay open for the storm. They were, so I boogied down the peninsula so that I could get set up before it hit. I would have liked to save money by stealth camping but, at least off the route where I was, there was too much development to be particularly inconspicuous and I figured it would be better to be somewhere established during the storm. I also met a really creepy guy at the rest area, so a campground seemed like the best choice.

Once I got to the campsite, it was starting to get foggy. But, the rain wasn't supposed to hit until a little later in the evening so I decided to take a walk to the lighthouse. I'm glad I did, because watching the waves crash upon the rocks and the sea in tumult was quite spectacular. I was unable to capture it with photos, but it made traveling 200 miles through city and suburb and RV campground worth it. Later that night I made my first blog entry from the road while hanging out in the barn where the campground owners said I could keep my bike during the storm.