A cold wind from the Northwest, makes me happy this area has trees. Today I made a very easy Sunday ride to Brunswick including stopping in at the LL Bean in Freeport.

The fire engine and fire station looked all decked out as I left Portland on local streets. Last night the Inn at St John’s was a very nice place to stay. I lingered a little in the morning including having breakfast before bringing my luggage down two flights of stairs and packing the bike.

For a while, it looked like there was a “put your stuff to the curb for pickup”. I saw quite a bit of old furniture, some car seats and in this case a gas grill. Cars would stop and occasionally pick over the remains if they could use them before going to the junkyard.

Coming into Freeport, I met with Matt and Grace who are walking the East Coast Greenway, having started in Calais about 25 days ago. Their web site: https://theggoldenroad.com/ and associated Facebook pages and Instagram channel give you a lot more details about their journey and pointers to previous journeys.

This large stylized Indian gives you an idea of the sometimes touristy and sometimes kitsch nature of the Maine coast. A little more common to find lobster traps and other touristy fare but there is a bit of everything.

This hotel declared itself to be 44 North. I checked my GPS and they are perhaps 1/6th of degree further south.

A few miles later, I made it to Freeport and the large complex of LL Bean stores. LL Bean is an outdoor retailer that I thought of as similar to REI but with more of an emphasis on clothing and fashion. However, looking around the complex, I was happy to see a large bike area (shown above) with repair shop, many bicycles and accessories. I also saw a larger camping area carrying tents, sleeping bags and other accessories. These shops seemed to dominate the center of Freeport, though there were other stores in similar vein such as Patagonia. The place serving lobster rolls wasn’t yet open until later in May. I stopped for a bit and browsed.

From here it was another 10 miles to make it into Brunswick. The last few miles became busy as the turnpike seemed to empty a lot of traffic onto US 1. I made my way into center of town to another nice hotel. I have booked for two nights here. The plan is to make a day ride here tomorrow to visit the capitol of Augusta and leave behind my extra gear. After that, I am close to the Amtrak station and will take a train south a ways before cycling across to Concord.

Stava told me it was a short day, with 26.57 miles in 3:00:45 for average speed of 8.8 miles/hour and 1263 feet climbed. It wasn’t flat but a bunch of rolling hills to climb over.

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