We departed Bar Harbor and headed down the coast to Camden, Maine. Not too far out of Bar Harbor we saw this roadside store with a lot of metal sculptures on the lawn, and just had to stop. BTW, Bigfoot is a big deal in Maine. You can’t go anywhere without seeing him on a shirt, a beer bottle, a sign…they are just Bigfoot crazy!
These are really cool, and I’d love them for my lawn on Halloween, but in California, if you put these out, they’d almost certainly get stolen. Maine, not a chance. I’m starting to understand why people love this part of the country!
Along the way we crossed this really cool bridge, and on the other side was a viewing area with info about the bridge.
The Waldo-Hancock Bridge was the first long suspension bridge in Maine. The original bridge, built in 1931, was retired in 2006, when the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge, seen here, opened. You can see the foundations of the old bridge on the left side of the new bridge.
As we entered Camden, we saw this house on the main drag with an entire Halloween skeleton football team! Nicely done!
They even had a Cal player! Based on the current season, showing him as “dead” isn’t too far from the truth. I love the “ref dog” biting the back of the KU jersey. I wish Cal could use “ref dogs” as an actual excuse!
This Civil War Monument was near the waterfront, and lists all of the local soldiers from Camden who died during “The Great Rebellion”. We ended up seeing this same statue in several towns as we traveled the state.
We stayed at the Grand Harbor Inn, right on the waterfront. I highly recommend this hotel!
You can’t get better views from your balcony than this!
This is the view of Mount Battie to the north. The Maine colors, once again, are amazing!
The river that creates the waterfall at the bottom of the above photo runs directly through downtown Camden.
We had excellent weather in Camden….we have been quite fortunate! We tried hiking up to the top of Mount Battie, but the trail turned out to be way too challenging for us…it appeared to be a mile of scrambling over rocks, so we ended up driving up to the top. Good choice! The views are excellent!
This tower was built in 1921 on the site of a former hotel at the summit of Mount Battie. The tower is dedicated to the men of women of Camden who served in WWI.
Since we didn’t do the hike up to the top of Mount Battie, we found another hike on the north side of the mountain. The hike to Bald Rock was still a little difficult, but much easier than our initial effort up Mount Battie. This is the amazing view from Bald Rock! These are some of the best fall colors yet. This is Maine personified!
On our last day in Camden we visited the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. The breakwater is seen below, stretching 4,300 feet out into the bay.
You can barely see the lighthouse behind the building in the below photo. This spot is a walk to take slowly, as the nearly mile long breakwater is pieced together with various blocks of granite. I wouldn’t want to bring kids out here, but we did see a woman walking her dog. As a matter of fact, if you look closely at the below photo, you will see a dog all on it’s own. That’s what happens when you use Google’s “Magic Eraser” and it deletes the woman and not her dog! Ha!
Looking back down the breakwater from the lighthouse. The breakwater took 18 years to build, from 1881 to 1899. Building this massive breakwater 130+ years ago is impressive!
Our last stop in the Camden area was the Owls Head Lighthouse, built in 1852.
This is a stunning lighthouse. I just wish we could have gone inside.
The view from the base of the lighthouse is beautiful!
Next up, we headed to Boothbay Harbor, Maine, another beautiful spot along the Maine coast!