Route 1 to Bar Harbor, Maine. September 1, 2009

Gregg, the General Manager, at Bentley’s gave us directions to Big Moose Harley Davidson in Portland. The service department at Big Moose installed a new rear tire while we ate breakfast that Monday morning. They even washed three days of rainy road grime off Bill’s bike. While at Big Moose’s we pulled out our paper maps and had some fellow customers help plot our course north on highway 1 and 3 toward Acadia National Park at Bar Harbor.

Along the way to Bar Harbor we learned about the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. The bridge behind us in the picture was taken at a point on the trail where American Colonist fought a disastrous battle against the British during the Revolution. The failure caused the Colonist to sink or burn over 40 ships to keep the British from taking using them.

Along highway 1 and 3 there were many roadside signs advertising fresh wild blueberries. This area had wild blueberry everything including blueberry soda and beer! Our favorite roadside business was the Lobster Pounds. The lobster pounds were common along our route to Bar Harbor. These pounds had tanks of live lobsters waiting to be ordered and cooked. We stopped at one near Bar Harbor for lunch. We ate a fresh lobster dinner, some shrimp and Brad ate 2 pounds of clams. It was a bit pricy compared to the lobsters at Bentley’s. We experienced the fresh Maine lobster, clams and shrimp. The lobster was pretty good. The clams were ok and we discovered than Maine shrimp was very small like popcorn shrimp.

Rhode Island to Maine (Bentley’s) August 30, 2009

Bentley’s Saloon http://www.bentleyssaloon.com was really easy to find off highway 1. We arrived long before lunch and were the first customers there on this Sunday morning. One of Brad’s goals for this trip was to eat some Maine Lobster. Luckily for us Bentley’s was having a lobster cook! We got two large lobsters with side dishes for only $15! There was a crane/claw machine where you could try to catch your own lobster. Since the people were friendly, food was tasty, drinks priced well and Bentley’s had a few hotel rooms onsite we decided to park the bikes for the day and stay. Brad was still telling stories after last call! Great People! Great time!
Oh, we have to thank the bartender once again for being patient with us…we opened and closed our tab many times and I think she was getting a little bewildered as to why. We were trying to keep track of our spending and the pay as you go works best. Of course if we ran out of money I am sure we’d figure out some way to work off out tab – we’ll give Brad an open microphone for entertainment!

There were a few organized motorcycle rides from New Hampshire and Massachusetts that stopped Bentley’s on August 30th. A custom bike builder had a booth set up and was raffling off a custom motorcycle. There was literally hundreds of motorcyclist there. Brad and I were telling stories of our rides and people wanted to see what kind of motorcycles we were riding. So we’d walk them out to the bikes and let them see our Illinois and Utah license plates. After the fourth trip to the parking lot we thought we’d better stop before someone thought we were selling something illegal from our saddle bags. All we were doing was handing out our business cards for this blog site—honest! I had to write this for the policeman and dispatcher who made sure we did not drink and ride that night!

Here is a picture of the unique grill with handle bars at Bentley’s and the “No Burn Out” signs on the parking lot. Notice the tread on Bill’s rear tire. I failed to mention why riding through the Catskill Mountains with those switch back turns was so exiting. It was exciting because it was pouring rain and Bill’s rear tire was BALD!!!