Bar Harbor area to Calais or where is that submarine when you could really use it?

I woke up this morning with little sleep and many options. The lack of sleep was a combination of my state of mind after publishing my blog last night and my neighbors departing on their Harley at 7 a.m. Mix in a number of loud, repetitive noises (refrigerator compressor and what sounded like a whole line-up of cars kicking off rush hour by spinning their tires on gravel - yeh, I know, weird, but I'm just the messenger) and you get the afore mentioned short night.

The options were:

1) back track slightly to the local airstrip to get details on their offering of riding in a glider

2) back track to the tourism information building just across the bridge and see if they have information on the ferry service that Ron had mentioned from Bar Harbor to Nova Scotia

3) Ride into Bar Harbor to see if I could get information about ferry times and cost directly from the source

4) Forget about all of that and head northeast on Highway 1

When I stepped outside and saw a thick fog hanging heavy over the island I immediately crossed #1 off the list and felt that # 3 was not going to work as well as #2. If the ferry was not running or delayed because of fog (or faag) I was flushing an hour down the drain. I figured I was better off riding back a short distance to get the information I wanted, so I opted for #2. But the fog in the air, combined with the early morning fog in my mind, allowed me to ride right past the information building and not realize it until I rode past the airport. Oh well, they probably weren't open yet anyway.

So #4 took me a few miles back on highway 3 to connect to highway 1 where I turned right and set my sights on Edmunds, Me. 

The terrain has changed drastically. the Evergreens have been replaced with Maple and Birch

 the flat acres on each side have turned to rock walls

and the sandy beaches have transformed to muddy low-tide bogs.

I thought I would have my choice of morning eateries but did not find one until I pulled into Milbridge. Across the street from the Milbridge House sat this place

Even Ron could find this place on the map!

I gave my order to Jessica and while I waited I thought again about something that has been formulating in my mind since I hit Mississippi, or before. One of the things that has always endured the south and New England to me is the accents. Each state, and often counties or even smaller geographic entities has had its own special flavor, except Florida - the melting pot of the south. I have not been in New England since 1987 for any length of time. Before that it was 1970 - 1972, when I was in the Navy and travelled to race my motorcycle in various regions.

This trip has been different in that, with very few exceptions, I have heard few, or very limited, accents. I had hoped to hear it laid on heavy in Mississippi, Alabama, perhaps the Carolinas, definitely New York, New Jersey, and my favorite, Maine.

So I asked Jessica, who was born and raised in Milbridge and, with the exception of a few words, had no discernible accent, if she thought that the Maine accent was being diluted and lost because of the mobility of the populace. She said she thought she still had her accent after having gone away to college for four years, but had not noticed in others that there was less of an accent. She'd say it was an interesting point. Then a couple a few tables away chimed in. They were from Tennessee, and had noticed the same thing. They thought it was due to the influences of TV and the movies over the younger people.

In talking to this couple I was touched by the fact that they were able to do what Betty and I had hoped to do. They were full-timers, as they say in the RV world, and had visited all of the states in the lower 48 except North Dakota. She was quick to add that you can't count it unless you do or visit something in the state (our family had ruled that you had to leave the airport to count as an official visit). He said they noticed that, if they got away from whatever the major highway in the area was (in this case either I-95 or highway 1), the accents are still alive and well. This would lead me to believe that tourism and those who move to an area and work with tourist are the main "culprit". He encouraged me to take highway 187 into Jonesport, go into a hardware store as if buying a hammer, and listen to the locals.

As I rolled east on highway 1, I thought maybe I had verbalized something that the experts had not yet investigated - is the distinctive accent of specific areas being diluted and, if so, why? Who might have noticed this phenomenon more than someone who deals with the ebb and flow of the populace, a realtor? 

It just so happened that the first business I found upon entering Jonesport was a reality office and inside I found Julie Farris, broker extraordinaire. She sat and discussed this with me for 20-30 minutes, what a sweetheart. She agreed that there is dilution but added that if I talked to her for 10 minutes I would no longer think so (she was wrong). A delightful lady, she added that the dilution was due to education. She gave as an example the local high school. Their graduating class this year was approximately 18 (she didn't know if Jimmy brought his math grade up high enough to graduate). Of those, she estimated that 85% went on to college (that's 15.3, looks like Jimmy is taking summer classes), all outside their area. Even if they come back in 4-8 years they will have changed their speech patterns. She said she gets questioned on vacation in New Brunswick, Canada about being from Boston (Baastun). Really?

So I think I've hit on something here that should qualify for a Federal Grant to investigate. Who's with me?

After my investigative work in Jonesport was done I headed to another town that the gentleman in Milbridge had suggested, Lubec, the eastern-most town in the U.S. 

If you ever get "down east" do yourself a favor and visit Lubec, right on the Canadian border across from Eastport. In addition to the aforementioned claim to fame they were at one time the sardine capital of the world. A tour of the local museum and a couple hours spent with the ever-enlightening Barbara is a must for such a visit.

The small town was founded in 1798 as part of a group known as Eastport, but filed for their own charter in 1811. Hopley Yeaton was the first officer commissioned by George Washington to stop smuggling of goods in the area by the British to keep from paying taxes to support the new government (how does taxation without representation feel on the other foot King George?). He is widely credited as the Father of the U.S. Coast Guard and it was here that he carried out his orders. The town went on to house 26 companies that canned sardines and smoked herring. (Trivia time - the only difference between herring and sardines is size! The smaller ones that can't be sold as sardines get smoked and become known as herring, makes no difference to me, I ain't eating them!). During WWII the government issued a contract for all the canned sardines they could produce to feed the troops in the field where refrigeration was not available. After the war, the contract dried up and they discovered that their old customers had gone to other sources. The town never recovered completely. In the '70 s the government told the factories that they could not throw the unused parts of the fish back in the water as they had done for generations. When the waste was disposed of instead, that eliminated this food source for the sardines which then no longer migrated to these waters, thus killing the entire industry. Today there is no sardine or herring processing in town whatsoever, and not a lot of love is lost for government regulations.

But there was one other industry that brought investors to town to seek there riches

I purchased a book about this, which Barbara said was a precursor to Bernie Madoff's investment scheme. I'll let you read it when I'm done (but be forewarned, it took me 3.5 years to read H.D. Thoreau's "Walden Pond")!

The whole museum was incredible, the town was exactly the type I had hoped to discover on this trip, rich with history and intrigue.

I ate lunch in Lubec after going to the post office to mail my book to myself (the post mistress had family roots tracing back to 1744 when the area was still unchartered). Had an interesting discussion with a couple from South Carolina that I met at the restaurant. He was a (Honda) Goldwing rider and had a friend who had ridden the "four corners" (as many cyclist call my route) twice!

When I returned to my bike the fog had started to drip. I put on my rain pants and leather jacket (which I had already fitted with the arm gussets in the interest of warmth). By the time I made it back out to highway 1 (5 miles) it had rained hard enough to get me soaked, then quit. I pulled into a gas station to put the rain coat under the leather coat and the pavement was dry. Every town I've ever lived in is proud to claim as their own the old adage " if you don't like our weather, wait five minutes and it will change". Maine has modified that. If you don't like our weather drive five miles and it will be different!

I questioned whether or not I was doing the right thing by putting the rain gear on, but by the time I rode the requisite five miles it was pouring. And it continued to rain all afternoon. Rain suit or not I got soaked, just like back in the Florida Keys and southern New Jersey's Cape May, but this time the road drained better so I only hit one sizable puddle. I did however continue to ride for another 30 miles or so before calling it quits. By that time I had traffic backed up behind me and could no longer see where I was going. 

I rolled into Calais, Me and got a room at the first motel I could find. But it is a nice one. They have an in-house restaurant with cloth napkins (a good thing when your hands are soaked) and an Olympic sized pool, or so I thought. The sign on the front clearly said they had one but the front desk said they are remodeling. They haven't got the pool in yet, only the sign.

Next up is a trip through north central Maine which will be difficult without The Girls, who by the way showed up this morning and got me all the way to Lubec before taking the afternoon off. There is no one non-Interstate highway that traverses the state. It will take a number of highways strung together at the right points to get to New Hampshire (or is Vermont next? Girls???).