The Bridge, The Fort and The Museum

On Monday morning, after breakfast at the Sea Breeze Diner in Bucksport, we headed down the road, and were shortly startled by the appearance of what seemed to us a most unusual bridge. Now I'm neither a connoisseur nor an aficionado of suspension bridges, but I have never before seen a suspension bridge with only a single column, rather than a pair of columns. As you can see from the photo, it makes for a very dramatic appearance. In the AAA Tour Book, which tells when the new bridge will open and even gives it a name – the Penobscot Narrows Bridge – and even dutifully notes that it replaces the Waldo-Hancock Bridge built in 1930, it never once hints that it is a very unusual bridge!

Fort Knox, right at the bridge, is unusual in several respects: 1) it is named after the very same "Knox" for whom the revered Fort Knox of the gold deposits in, where is it, Kentucky is named, and 2) it was built to protect our country from "foreign invaders" – you know, those English folks from Canada, and 3) it is the first to show the new improved casemate design. In case you have no idea what a "casemate" is, as neither of us did, it is the chamber housing one of the cannons lining the walls of the fort. The new design insulated the interior walls from the exterior, rendering it undamaged even if the exterior was damaged (though probably not totally destroyed.)

Also right at the bridge are some "walls" of the granite for which this part of Maine is well known.

Down the road in Rockland, there is the Lighthouse Museum with detailed exhibits telling the history and design theory of Fresnel lenses which are used in lighthouses, as well as many other things. Maine, with its extensive coast line, has some 68 lighthouses, some still in operation today, and various depictions of them – from models and pictures to quilts – were on display.

We stopped for the night at Saltwater Farm Campground. According to them, a Saltwater Farm is "A home that nestles on the shores of a saltwater estuary." The river in the background is the St. George River, and at this point it is close enough to the Atlantic to be mostly saltwater. But what's most interesting about the campground is the people we met there. The folks in the rig seen just under Clara's arm come from Seattle, less than 2 ½ miles from our home – we're on 105th, they're on 116th! They emigrated from Norway in the early '60's and have been in Seattle ever since! Then the folks in the rig parked right next to us, although now from Three Forks, MT, originally hail from Wenatchee, WA and Norfolk, NE, husband and wife, respectively. It was an interesting evening happy hour!