57 miles. Another road closed and more hills.

Today was supposed to be a “light” day as we ease to the finish line in Maine. Note: Maine is not flat. There are so many little hills and ridges that are very steep so each mile is like a wind sprint followed by recovery downhill and immediately another wind sprint. When I ran track in high school and college, part of our training was sprinting 1/2 lap then speed walking 1/4, sprinting 1/2 lap and walking another 1/4, etc. almost to exhaustion. This is what yesterday and today have been. Whew! Our granny gears are getting a workout.

Since our hotel didn’t serve breakfast we left early and got to the Brunswick Diner after 20 miles or so for a “good food” (their wifi passwords) breakfast. After breakfast the fun began as we once again found our route completely blocked by construction on a bridge! We had to double back on the road we had just traveled and eventually got on to US1 in Bath at the bridge over the Kennebec River. The detour added about 4.5 miles to the day and also added a few expletives along the way. We were able to warn two other cyclists (two women with heavily laden bikes including violins) about the blockage so I hope we saved them a few miles.

Our route is again only a few yards on the other side of the construction zone but impossible to get through.

An anhinga drying his wings seemed to mock our road closure agony

Once through the death defying run up to and over the bridge on Rte. 1 we paused to get a photo of some new Navy vessels docked at the Bath Iron Works.

Wrapped and concealed Navy ships at the Bath Iron Works.

After the bridge we were able to rejoin our mapped out route to Wiscasset where we stopped for lunch, our first Maine lobster roll of the trip.

Not sure if this photo was meant to be of me eating in Wiscasset or of the gull over my shoulder waiting for leftovers.

Wiscasset harbor. Our first glimpse of the Atlantic.

Getting rolling again was difficult and the traffic on Route 1 was very heavy but we struggled up and down some more hills to the Down Easter Inn in Damariscotta.

Tomorrow will be more of the leg and lung burning to Searsport for our last stop before Bar Harbor!

Maine art