Old Town Maine

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We definitely could have found more things to do in Medway Maine, even if it was to just go back to Baxter State Park a few more times. We also don’t have any campgrounds reserved for 4 weeks until we expect to be down in Richmond Virginia so there was no real urgency to starting our journey south. Even the weather is holding out, but when we roughed out our travel plans from Maine to Florida, we had come up with lots of places we wanted to visit and things to do at each stop and by spending more time in northern Maine, we would need to cut out some planned stops or at least reduce the number of days we stay in a given location. So we start our slow journey south in the middle of September.

We don’t plan on traveling very far. We wanted to explore a bit around Bangor Maine for several days. We have two Elks Lodges to choose from. The one in Bangor does not have any RV services but does have a decent sized parking lot to dry camp in. The downside to staying there is the lodge is less than a quarter mile from both the airport and Interstate 95. While I-95 is rather quiet up near Medway, we had driven by the Bangor Lodge on our way up and commented that it would likely be rather noisy there. Our other option was the lodge in Old Town. This lodge looked to be in a quiet residential area just across the street from a park along the Penobscot River. They also supposedly have a 50 amp outlet for a traveling Elk to use

Our plan is to drive the 52 miles to Old Town and if that didn’t work out for some reason, we would drive the extra 15 miles to the lodge in Bangor. We pulled in to the lodge at Old Town and found the outlet on the side of the building as expected. We got situated and when the bar opened, we headed in to let the members know that we wanted to spend 5 nights checking out their area. The members were very welcoming and some gave us pointers on places to visit. The only possible downside to the parking location is that the windows for the bar area are right next to our motorhome and just slightly above us so someone sitting at the tables by the windows can easily see right into our rig. We have shades so it isn’t a big issue.

If the name Old Town sounds familiar, you may be thinking of the popular canoe brand that originated here - way back in 1898. We were really hoping that the factory was still in town and offered tours or a museum, but it turns out that is no longer the case.

Parked Outside Old Town Elks Lodge

The next day we drive into downtown Bangor. They have a farmer’s market so we thought we would start there to see what they had to offer. It is located right across the street from the public library. There were only about a dozen or so vendors but the place was amazingly busy. In fact, it was just opening when we arrived and several of the vendors had long lines of people waiting.

Bangor Library

Long Lines at Farmers Market

From here, the plan is to take the pedestrian bridge across the Kenduskeag Stream and work our way to the Whitney Park Historic District of Bangor.

Pedestrian Bridge

Kenduskeag Stream

What is special about this part of town? It is supposed to have some very beautiful homes built between 1850 and 1910 and the best way to see them is to just walk around the neighborhood. Given our starting location, we guess it will be around a mile walk to the neighborhood and then another mile or two walking around and returning to our car.

Beautiful Brick Building

One of the stops along the way was at the Thomas Hill Standpipe. This water tower was erected in 1897 and holds 1.75 million gallons of water. The metal tower is actually surrounded by a wooden structure with lots of details. I especially like the eyebrow details above the windows that I suspect follow a staircase on the interior. They do offer tours of the place on certain days although none were taking place the few days we are to be in the area.

Thomas Hill Standpipe

Eyebrow Windows

We eventually start to see lots of old buildings mostly with Victorian architecture. There was one very specific home we were searching for. Stephen King used to own a home here and he had made some unusual modifications to match his persona. While he no longer owns the house, the current owners deal with the constant flow of people wandering around the fence surrounding the home. The wrought iron railing had some dragon and bat theme details that definitely told us we were at the correct place. In the front yard is an old tree that has been carved into a work of art. This was not your typical chainsaw carving you might see elsewhere. This thing was cats, birds, squirrels and books that were obviously carved by a skilled craftsman.

Triple Headed Dragon

Stephen King House

Ornate Tree Carving at King House

We had a few Adventure Labs to act as tour guides, but the stops for each of them worked well for a walking tour at times but would then require us to drive to a different section of town to complete them. We headed back into the heart of downtown via a different route and saw lots of interesting old buildings mostly in town.

Old Church

County Courthouse

Very Tall Steeple

The other thing we discovered about downtown Bangor is there are lots of murals. Many of them are quite detailed and colorful. There was even one stretch where the asphalt on the street was painted with all sorts of artwork.

Asphalt Art

Dragonfly

Colorful Turtle

My Favorite Mural in Bangor

Our walk around town was just over 3 miles. Bangor seems to be a rather active town and quite pretty. The waterways that run through town add to the beauty. One thing we haven’t done in Maine yet this trip is having lobster. We have learned that a good lobster roll is preferable to a whole lobster. We check the reviews and find a highly rated place on the south side of town - McLaughlin’s Seafood. It was near another spot we still wanted to visit so we drove to the Cross Center - a large arena in Bangor. There was no event taking place so it was pretty quiet and that allowed us to find parking and visit with Paul Bunyan - a 31 foot statue celebrating the town’s rich history in the lumber industry. We got the lobster roll to go and really enjoyed it!

Canal in Bangor

Paul Bunyan Mural

Paul Bunyan

The next day we wanted to see another nearby attraction that members at the Elks Lodge had recommended. The Roland Perry City Forest is about halfway between Bangor and Old Town. It consists of nearly 650 acres and 10 miles of trails. The other draw for this park is the mile long boardwalk into the Orono Bog. When we had visited Maine 6 years ago, we had found bogs to rather interesting and being mid September, we expected the colors to be starting to get fairly vibrant. One other attraction for us at least is the fact that there are about 20 geocaches hidden in the park. We pull into the parking lot and find that we were not the only ones looking to enjoy the trail here on a Monday morning. We head for the bog first. There is a short walk along trails in the woods before reaching the boardwalk.

Orono Bog Boardwalk

Autumn Colors Starting

The boardwalk loop is about one mile long. The first third mile is in the woods coming out to the bog area. We had picture perfect weather for our walk and had guessed correctly that the colors would be good.

Heading Into the Bog

Pitcher Plants

More Fall Colors

Besides the pitcher plants that were a vibrant red, there were lots of plants with white, puffy seed heads. If we were much further south I would assume I was looking at cotton but I think it may be called tawny cotton grass. There were interpretive signs along the boardwalk describing various aspects of a bog.

Not Cotton ...

.. But Tawny Cotton Grass

The boardwalk loops around the bog before heading back into the wooded area. We decide to grab our lunch from the car and pick a picnic table in the shade to eat before we head out for a real walk in other parts of the park.

Back to the Woods

It turns out there were way more trails and geocaches than we had time for. We likely got in an additional 4 miles of walking in the woods. There was one puzzle cache that had the solution for the final in one of 36 places. We attempted to eliminate potential coordinates as best we could and then worked our journey to try to get to the coordinates for all the remaining possible spots. We likely should have just skipped looking for this cache altogether. It got us into some pretty thick wooded areas and we came out from our hike with cuts and scrapes but without finding it. We should have stuck with easier caches and would have had a better impression of this park. If you stick to the trails, this park is pretty nice.

Nice Trail in Woods

On the Bobcat Trail

The following day we decide to switch gears (literally) and go for a long bike ride. We had seen a rail trail that goes between Ellsworth Maine to nearly the Canadian border 89 miles to the east - the Down East Sunrise Trail. It is nearly a 40 mile drive from Old Town to the trailhead and it would have been much closer to our camping spot when we were near Bar Harbor for a month back in 2018 but there were so many other things to see and do in the area that we never had this trail on our radar. There is a large parking lot at the trailhead that is next to the Downeast Scenic Railroad.

Start of Down East Sunrise Trail

Like many of these trails in Maine, they are predominantly used by ATVs in the warmer months and snowmobiles in the winter. Since it wasn’t a weekend day, we were hoping that there wouldn’t be too many others out on the trail. The trail starts out following the tracks that are still part of the scenic railroad but they only last about a half mile. This tells us that the train ride must head towards the west.

Trail Starts Next to Tracks

It didn’t take long before we were in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We weren’t seeing homes, cabins or other buildings. In fact there were only a couple of road crossings to even give us an indication that there was civilization nearby. There were several stream or creek crossing that got us to stop and take in the views.

Kilkenny Stream North of Trail

And South of Trail

Around 5 miles into the ride, we crossed over another creek. In the distance we could see what looked like a beaver lodge and we thought we could see something swimming near it but we couldn’t make out for sure what it was.

Likely Beaver Lodge

We had not really planned on how far we would go before turning around. We didn’t have all that many geocaches hidden along the trail so we didn’t have that as a driving force. We did see an impressive blueberry processing plant right on the trail near the town of Franklin. It would have been nice if they had a self serve stand for trail riders.

Blueberry Processing Plant

One of the maps we had showed a picnic area at roughly the 15 mile mark from where we started so we pushed on. Most of the trail so far has been mainly going through wooded areas but the trail opened up into an area that looked like some sort of bog. We could also see a couple of mountains just to the north of the trail. One of the peaks is called Schoodic Mountain and while there is supposedly a hiking trail from the rail trail and even a geocache hidden near the top, we decide that being 15 miles into a bike ride and needing to retrace our route, it may not be wise to go for a  hike up a mountain.

Bog Area

Mountains Ahead

We did find a picnic table at a large opening with some other ATV trails branching out from it. This worked for a lunch stop although it was in full sun and a rather warm afternoon by this point. There was one guy on an ATV parked nearby by he didn’t stay long before heading out.

Schoodic Mountain

Turtle Crosses Trail

Lunch Stop with a View

We knew it was going to be a tiring ride back to the car. This trail didn’t have a consistent grade up or down, but we knew there would be some decent hills to pedal back up having coasted down them on the way out. We saw a sign and side trail for the Franklin Trading Post. It would only add a quarter mile to the trip and we were hopeful we could find some ice cream to motivate us for the rest of the ride. After our treat we pushed on and when we got to the same location where we had seen the beaver lodge, we stopped to check it out and discovered one of the beavers was actually working. It was swimming our direction with a small branch in its mouth. It turns out the dam it was working on is right at the culvert that goes underneath the rail trail. It didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that we were only 15 feet away as it wedged the new stick in the dam.

Beaver at Work

Beaver Places Stick in Dam

We were both rather tired and sore by the time we made it back to the car. Both halves of the ride took just under 3 hours. There were a few more cars and people at the trailhead likely out for an after work walk. This turned out to be an excellent bike ride with decent trail and some good scenery and not at all crowded. If we were in the area for longer, we might be inclined to check out some of the trails as it continues to the east - maybe next time?

We took it easy the next day to let the bodies recuperate. The Old Town Elks Lodge worked out well as a home base for checking out Bangor and this part of Maine. Five nights allowed us to get in a fair amount of sightseeing before we head on to the next stop - Augusta Maine.