Day Three – Portland ME to Peggy's Cove NS (591 miles)
Saturday morning, and we knew it was going to be crowded going up the coast so we set out early and headed up US1. We decided to wait for breakfast and catch something along the road. US1 parallels I-295 and runs through the little towns of Yarmouth and Freeport before breaking away and heading almost due east to Brunswick. In Brunswick the road runs along the Androscoggin River and then over the New Meadows River. Next we ran into Bath (KMZ) where the high bridge over the Kennebec River offers fine scenery of the surrounding area. Continuing on US1 as we approached Wiscasset where we found a nice spot for breakfast; Karen's Kitchen (KMZ). It might have been our best breakfast of the trip, we continued on through Wiscasset and over the Sheepscot River where I realized we had stopped to take a picture in 1994. In the 1994 trip report I now know I had mislabeled the caption, oh well no one will notice. Another few miles and another previous spot revealed itself, this time Sherman Lake; I believe we stopped there on the return side of the 2001 trip. As the day was getting longer the traffic was picking up. We slid through Rockland (another previous stop (1994)) before noon but it was slow going. The weather was beautiful but the slow going made it a bit too hot. We crawled along the coast and then through Rockport before reaching the beautiful town of Camden. As we went through Camden I thought my wife like to shop here but there really wasn't much for us. On the north side of town (KMZ) we hit the Camden Hills State Park (yes we also stopped here in 2001), but this time we stopped at the gate to speak with the attendant and she informed us of the wonderful view that could be had by going back out across US1 and up Mt. Battie Auto Road. The view from up here was indeed spectacular. We took many pictures of Camden Harbor and Penobscot Bay. Additionally we could see Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park and Mt. Megunticook, the highest of the Camden Hills and the highest peak on the mainland. After the visual feast we set back out onto US1 where the continued congestion only led us to devise a breakout option. We decided to head north on ME46 just past Belfast (KMZ). This was a very small tightly confined road that made passing difficult but we managed, and hit ME9 east and began to make good time. ME9 is a nice open road that is fairly straight but one that offered good scenery and has great passing capability. We rode hard and realized we would soon be in need of some gas. We decided to go through Beddington, where we thought we spotted a gas station, thinking we would find something soon. As we got close to Wesley we became fairly concerned. We passed a little stand where Steve thought he saw a pump but we rode past and decided after cresting the next hill to turn around and investigate. We were pleasantly surprised to find out they indeed had gas, so we filled up. After gassing up we stopped again at the crest of the hill to take in the full view. Arriving in the border town of Calais (KMZ) the heat had increased and the long line of vehicles waiting to cross over into Canada didn't improve our comfort. After about an hour we were through, and blasted up Canada 1 toward Saint John. We stopped near Anagance NB for a quick stop before filling up on gas at Sackville. Once back on the road we stopped at the Nova Scotia welcome center (KMZ). The terrain had gone from lush green forested areas with rolling hills to flat mostly treeless terrain. We had already ridden about 450 miles at this point and we had lost an hour in the time zone change so we were running short on time quickly. We had wanted to see the Tidal Bore on the Bay of Fundy but we simply were out of time. We blasted toward Halifax and made our way to the motel well after sun-down. When we arrived at the Clifty Cove Motel (KMZ) we quickly realized what we had missed by arriving after sundown. It was a great place with a fantastic view, Adirondack style chairs setup to to soak up the view and a full compliment of riders from all over the place. We walked around and met some people before calling it a night.
