The summer of 2013 was all about lighthouses. I don't know what it is about lighthouses but I love them so much. So my mom and I spent two days in Mid-Coast Maine seeing as many lighthouses as possible.
The only hiccup was that we didn't have a boat. And seeing as how most lighthouses are designed to face the ocean, we had to get creative.
Our first stop was Lincolnville, ME. We got there just in time to miss the ferry and had to wait two hours for the next one. Oops!
They crammed tons of cars, trucks, a giant dump truck, and an ambulance onto the ferry. We spent an hour on the island checking out the lighthouse and marveling at the yachts that were docked nearby.
Grindle Point lighthouse was the only lighthouse we were able to go into. Mom and I climbed the tower (which was quite short) and scaled a ladder to get up to the tippy top.
Another highlight of the lighthouse tour was Rockland Breakwater. If you want to see this lighthouse you have to work for it. The lighthouse is 7/8ths of a mile out on a rocky breakwater. You could barely see the lighthouse from the shore.
It was super low tide when we visited so the side dock was down an extremely steep ramp. But I braved the steep grade to get a side photo. At high tide, the water is known to wash over the breakwater.
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| Mom on the breakwater. |
The low tide and setting sun made for a gorgeous photo!
On day two of our mid-coast lighthouse tour we hit up Owl's Head Light. I loved this lighthouse! We had to walk quite a ways from the parking lot and climb a hill and many stairs but it was worth it. Owl's Head sits way up high on the edge of a cliff. From the top you had almost a 360 degree view of the surrounding bay.
We also stopped at the picturesque Marshall Point lighthouse. This was a small light but it was gorgeous. The house located on the grounds is super fancy.
Marshall Point lighthouse is in St. George so there were dragons everywhere!
Through our many, many miles we saw cool things. We stopped at this tiny gift shop that featured oreo cow (Belted Galloway) products. Mom chatted up the lady to learn about the brown oreo bull that was a little too friendly for my liking. It kept coming up to the fence with it's giant, snotty, ring-filled nose and I was all "OMG it's so big get it away from me!"
People love their lobster buoys in Maine.
Our last stop was a river cruise of the Kennebec River. Before it started, Mom and I had an "eat out of the trunk picnic" with some PB&J that we stole borrowed from the hotel's breakfast spread.
The river cruise took us past 7 lighthouses...many of which were very small and rundown.
It was the Hell's Gate cruise which meant that we went upriver as the tide was going out. It was crazy how fast the tide was going out. It was rushing so quickly that giant metal buoys were pulled completely underwater and our boat had many turbulent moments.
Our lighthouse summer adventure was awesome. We ended up seeing 11 lighthouses in two days. Only 40+ more to go!
