[photo deficient RR]
About mid-summer good pillion Josie and I decided that we would not be making it to EOM this time around. Looking at all the pictures and posts from those that did, it looks like we missed out on a really great time. But there will always next year's EOM... or the next year, or... well, you get the idea.
Instead of trekking the thousand odd miles to the south, we decide to invite a few friends to spend the weekend up in Acadia before the foliage tourists take over the place next month. Unlike our previous spring time "Maine Chowder Runs", we wanted to keep the number of bikes down to a more manageable group, so this was sort of a stealthy arrangement compared to typical. I also didn't want to publicly announce an alternate ride at the same time as EOM because... well, that would be bad form, and I happen to like the folks that put on EOM.
So, the prime objective of this short trip to Acadia would be the massive and gluttonous consumption of Steamed Lobstahs and Clams, hence the A-SLaMER!!
The loosely formed plan was for us to meet up in Brunswick, ME on Friday night, then ride up the rocky coastline to Bah Habah on Saturday and spend the day on Sunday knocking around Mount Desert island and enjoying the Acadia National Park area. ionbeam (Alan) and co-pilot Helen joined me, TMJ and our son (we'll call him Freddie, mostly 'cause that's his name) for a pleasant back-road exploratory ride up to Brunswick on Friday. Everyone rolled into the designated Brunswick motel (Travelers Inn) late afternoon, and the weekend party was on!
The cast of suspects characters were the five of us previously mentioned, plus the bluejags (John and Gail), the Asphalt Junkies (Paul and Gina), FJRed (Ed not Fred, and his better half Grace), the bbdigs (Jack and Jane) and their good friend Gordon, the 08FJR4ME's (Dave and Ann) and our token Long Island buddy Big Ogre (Mike). We would be meeting up with MEM up in Bar Harbor as she was flying back from a Phoenix vacation on Friday..
After a few parking lot adult beverages (a regular NERDS tradition to be upheld at all costs) we stumbled on down the street 'en masse to a nice pub & restaurant, the Lion's Pride Pub, which happens to has an awesome tap selection and reasonably good pub grub. Highly recommended if you are in the area, and a definite addition to the NERDS RTE list! :thumbsup:
The weather forecast for Saturday was pretty awful and, unfortunately, this is the one time that those forecasters got it right. :glare: So it was to be a rather dreary and drizzly slog up the Maine coastline for our intrepid eaters on Saturday. I doubt there are too many photos of that day from anyone. After an early rise we made it the 5-6 miles to Mae's Cafe in Bath for breakfast just as they opened up at 8AM. Mae's always does a great breakfast and has been a regular stop on the Maine Chowder rides in the past.
After our hearty breakfasts we wandered out through the Boothbay Harbor area and then out on the Pemaquid peninsula to the lighthouse at Pemaquid point. This is one of the more famously photographed and painted lighthouses in Maine, but in the gloomy mist it wasn't too spectacular this day. So what to do when the riding sucks? Go find another place to eat, of course!!
We rolled into the famous Moody's Diner on Rte 1 in Waldoboro for a little lunch. Now, I've lived for a while in Maine when I was younger, and my whole immediate family are a bunch of Mainiacs. Mainers don't actually eat lunch. No, they eat "dinner" at noon time, then at night they have their "supper". The idea is that a hard working man (or woman) should eat their biggest meal mid day. But, riding around on motorcycles, even in the rain, we were not hardworking men and women. So most of us just sampled some chowder or some of the most excellent pie a la mode.
After lunch it was decided to just Bee-line to to Bar Harbor as everyone had already had enough liquid sunshine for one day. So we took a direct line route north, rather than sticking along the coast, and rolled into the Aurora Inn and Motel right around 4PM, only to see Mary Ellen walking back after making a run to the IGA. The Bar Harbor IGA sells all the important necessities for a parking lot social. Beer, wine, bourbon, scotch and all kinds of munchies. Oh yeah... being a Grocery store, they do sell groceries too, but we wouldn't be needing any of those. We had rooms reserved in the Aurora's Motel section, which is just twelve rooms in a n old fashioned motel format, and it is right in the middle of the village, so everything is right in walking distance. And since the weather was so pukey, the few other patrons that had booked rooms in the little motel had already gone home in their cars to New Jersey or Pennsylvania, or wherever they came from, so we had the whole place to ourselves. Weekend party on, round two!!
After we "braced ourselves" with a few libations, we headed out for the walk across town to find some of the target food-stuff creatures, preferably after they had been bathed in boiling water or dunked in very hot oil. MEM had got a tip from someone (forget who?) before we arrived to try a bigger place down on the waterfront, so that was where we headed. Some of us had the big red sea spiders, some had the fried mollusks, but all of us had a pretty good time of it. Well, that is, at least until the bills arrived. We were definitely paying the tourist season prices there, but hey... it was all good. Can't be Yankee frugal all of the time. After dinner, Jack insisted that we go by Ben and Bills for ice cream, then back to the motel parking lot to finish the party we had started earlier.
The really good news was that the weather was due to break for Sunday's ride around Acadia!!
[/photo deficient Ride Report]
(to be continued)
About mid-summer good pillion Josie and I decided that we would not be making it to EOM this time around. Looking at all the pictures and posts from those that did, it looks like we missed out on a really great time. But there will always next year's EOM... or the next year, or... well, you get the idea.
Instead of trekking the thousand odd miles to the south, we decide to invite a few friends to spend the weekend up in Acadia before the foliage tourists take over the place next month. Unlike our previous spring time "Maine Chowder Runs", we wanted to keep the number of bikes down to a more manageable group, so this was sort of a stealthy arrangement compared to typical. I also didn't want to publicly announce an alternate ride at the same time as EOM because... well, that would be bad form, and I happen to like the folks that put on EOM.
So, the prime objective of this short trip to Acadia would be the massive and gluttonous consumption of Steamed Lobstahs and Clams, hence the A-SLaMER!!
The loosely formed plan was for us to meet up in Brunswick, ME on Friday night, then ride up the rocky coastline to Bah Habah on Saturday and spend the day on Sunday knocking around Mount Desert island and enjoying the Acadia National Park area. ionbeam (Alan) and co-pilot Helen joined me, TMJ and our son (we'll call him Freddie, mostly 'cause that's his name) for a pleasant back-road exploratory ride up to Brunswick on Friday. Everyone rolled into the designated Brunswick motel (Travelers Inn) late afternoon, and the weekend party was on!
The cast of suspects characters were the five of us previously mentioned, plus the bluejags (John and Gail), the Asphalt Junkies (Paul and Gina), FJRed (Ed not Fred, and his better half Grace), the bbdigs (Jack and Jane) and their good friend Gordon, the 08FJR4ME's (Dave and Ann) and our token Long Island buddy Big Ogre (Mike). We would be meeting up with MEM up in Bar Harbor as she was flying back from a Phoenix vacation on Friday..
After a few parking lot adult beverages (a regular NERDS tradition to be upheld at all costs) we stumbled on down the street 'en masse to a nice pub & restaurant, the Lion's Pride Pub, which happens to has an awesome tap selection and reasonably good pub grub. Highly recommended if you are in the area, and a definite addition to the NERDS RTE list! :thumbsup:
The weather forecast for Saturday was pretty awful and, unfortunately, this is the one time that those forecasters got it right. :glare: So it was to be a rather dreary and drizzly slog up the Maine coastline for our intrepid eaters on Saturday. I doubt there are too many photos of that day from anyone. After an early rise we made it the 5-6 miles to Mae's Cafe in Bath for breakfast just as they opened up at 8AM. Mae's always does a great breakfast and has been a regular stop on the Maine Chowder rides in the past.
After our hearty breakfasts we wandered out through the Boothbay Harbor area and then out on the Pemaquid peninsula to the lighthouse at Pemaquid point. This is one of the more famously photographed and painted lighthouses in Maine, but in the gloomy mist it wasn't too spectacular this day. So what to do when the riding sucks? Go find another place to eat, of course!!
We rolled into the famous Moody's Diner on Rte 1 in Waldoboro for a little lunch. Now, I've lived for a while in Maine when I was younger, and my whole immediate family are a bunch of Mainiacs. Mainers don't actually eat lunch. No, they eat "dinner" at noon time, then at night they have their "supper". The idea is that a hard working man (or woman) should eat their biggest meal mid day. But, riding around on motorcycles, even in the rain, we were not hardworking men and women. So most of us just sampled some chowder or some of the most excellent pie a la mode.
After lunch it was decided to just Bee-line to to Bar Harbor as everyone had already had enough liquid sunshine for one day. So we took a direct line route north, rather than sticking along the coast, and rolled into the Aurora Inn and Motel right around 4PM, only to see Mary Ellen walking back after making a run to the IGA. The Bar Harbor IGA sells all the important necessities for a parking lot social. Beer, wine, bourbon, scotch and all kinds of munchies. Oh yeah... being a Grocery store, they do sell groceries too, but we wouldn't be needing any of those.
We had rooms reserved in the Aurora's Motel section, which is just twelve rooms in a n old fashioned motel format, and it is right in the middle of the village, so everything is right in walking distance. And since the weather was so pukey, the few other patrons that had booked rooms in the little motel had already gone home in their cars to New Jersey or Pennsylvania, or wherever they came from, so we had the whole place to ourselves. Weekend party on, round two!! After we "braced ourselves" with a few libations, we headed out for the walk across town to find some of the target food-stuff creatures, preferably after they had been bathed in boiling water or dunked in very hot oil. MEM had got a tip from someone (forget who?) before we arrived to try a bigger place down on the waterfront, so that was where we headed. Some of us had the big red sea spiders, some had the fried mollusks, but all of us had a pretty good time of it. Well, that is, at least until the bills arrived.
We were definitely paying the tourist season prices there, but hey... it was all good. Can't be Yankee frugal all of the time. After dinner, Jack insisted that we go by Ben and Bills for ice cream, then back to the motel parking lot to finish the party we had started earlier.The really good news was that the weather was due to break for Sunday's ride around Acadia!!
[/photo deficient Ride Report]
(to be continued)
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