We try to get out and do either a hike, or a bike ride on at least one of our days off work, and Tuesday TLE decided we should ride the 'Witch Hole Pond' ride on the Carriage Roads. Most of the rides begin and end at the Eagle Lake Trailhead. There are many other trailheads, but Eagle Lake is right smack dab in the middle of the carriage road complex, and we are always able to find parking quickly.
Before we went anywhere, though, there was the 16th stage of the Tour de France to watch. The televised coverage usually begins at 8 am eastern time, and we are usually up sometime after 8 am on Tuesdays, so watching it wire to wire really fits our schedule perfectly. It was finished by 12:30 pm, and we were on our way over to Eagle Lake in the VW a little after that.
We found a parking spot immediately, removed our Cannondale bikes from the Küat Sherpa bike rack, and were off in a cloud of dust riding toward the Visitor Center and Witch Hole Pond. About 1/2 mile into the ride we came to a pond, but I'm pretty sure it was not of the Witch Hole variety..........
......TLE is always in her happy spot when we are taking a bike ride involving lots of shade, and very few hills to climb......
.....all the Carriage Roads ultimately are interconnected, and you come to numerous intersections on your way to your particular destination. These intersections are very clearly marked, and often you can go either way to get to your destination as many of the roads are big loops......
.......we figured we would cover 5-6 miles, but ended up higher than that. We had never been to the Acadia National Park Visitors Center, so we decided to do the 1 mile (roundtrip) steep descent to the parking lot and then ride back out. There are sections that probably exceed 8% gradient on the way down, so you know before you turn around that it will be a 'granny gear' ride back up, and that it was! Nevertheless, neither TLE nor myself had to get off our bikes and push......and we both made it to the top without stopping one time.....
Now to ride back up the road!
.......once back to the main road we turned left and continued the loop. At the highest point you can see Bar Harbor in the distance.....it was quite foggy along the coast on this day, and the humidity was in the high 80 percentile, but there was a gentle breeze blowing, and we were either in the shade of trees, or under cloud cover most of the time......
.......we stopped often to take in the views arriving back at the car a little after 2 pm having covered almost exactly 7.5 miles with 56 minutes of moving time, and 523 caloric units vanquished. We gained a total of 304 feet in elevation......most of it coming back up the hill from the visitors center........
.......our next destination was the Atlantic Brewing store in lovely Village of Townhill, just off the road to Ellsworth. We were there before 2:30 pm ordering a couple of Ellen's Coffee Stouts, and browsing the menu for the restaurant attached to the brewery.....Mainely Meats, which specialize in BBQ.......we ended up ordering their 'Sampler' which had all their sides, and BBQ offerings......delicious!
They have a lovely outdoor patio area for alfresco dining
The 'Sampler' plate was a lot of food, which I managed to eat, but TLE ended up bringing home about half her plate. The BBQ wasn't the best I have ever had, but it was very good. The brews were perfect! After about an hour we headed for home arriving just after 3:30 pm.
Around 5:15 pm TLE suggested we have a fire, so I went about getting out some wood, and lighting the fire. We enjoyed the fire for about 90 minutes before heading inside for the evening.......
......thank for stopping by.....really....thank you!
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Must we send a private investigator up to Maine to find out about that the night time telephone call? Still waiting with bated breath!
ReplyDeleteNow that we are no longer there I will finish the story with all the details of what happened. Thank you for reminding me!
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