It was a grey morning when we woke. By the time we had breakfast it was drizzling with rain. By the time we were ready to leave, it was raining lightly, so it was into the wet weather gear again.
We are still hugging the far north east corner of the USA, going in and out of the inlets. There is some influence from French Canada, across the border, as you occasionally realise you are not listening to English.  The food is a little more delicate in flavour, and some of the fishing villages have French architecture. 

We rode south through Trenton Bridge across to Mt Desert Island/Acadia National Park. We were here in 2006 and drove around the eastern loop road, so this time we chose the western loop. Since we were last here the Seal Cove Auto Museum has opened, and this is on the western loop - another reason to go that way.

By the time we arrived at Somesville it had stopped raining. We continued south through Southwest Harbor and Seawall  and took a short detour to visit the Bass Harbour Head Lighthouse.

More wild flowers below. There is an invasive and very prickly rose bush along this shore.

On to Bass Harbor, then Seal Cove, about 5 miles further on. We found the auto museum. This was a private collection for many years, but when its owner, Richard Paine, died two years ago some of the collection was sold off to create an endowment and establish the museum. It is a collection of mainly "brass era" cars and motorcycles - ie from the late 1800's to 1917. For more information see: http://www.sealcoveautomuseum.org/index.html

Roberto Rodriges was able to expand on the individual histories of the cars. The old money till was still in use.

Star of the collection is a 1913 Peugeot that was once owned by the famous tenor James Melton. It took out second prize at the Pebble Beach Concours d' Elegance in 2005.

At the northern end of Mt Desert Island we turned east and rode up Cadillac Mountain. About halfway up we encountered cloud. There was absolutely nothing to be seen from the top, but who cares? - the road is a great motorcycle ride.

We agreed to head into Bar Harbor for lunch. This is a very glamorous town that exixts entirely for the tourist trade. Plenty of lobster here, even the wooden kind.

We drove around the eastern loop on the island in 2006, so rather than repeat this, we headed back to the mainland. I remembered that there was a place in Trenton that made and sold weathervanes - the flying pigs were my favourite. We stopped there again to check their range. Nothing really grabbed our eyeballs, which is just as well because the sales lady confirmed it would cost more to ship one to Australia than to buy it.

From Ellsworth (where we started earlier today) we took 175 south through Surry and Blue Hill to Sargentville where we rode across to Deer Isle for a loop down to Stonington at the very southern tip. The route took us past homes, farms, lakes, bays, inlets and through fishing ports and quiet towns. Every where we turned there were vistas of mountains, sea,  tidal mud flats and forest. Maine has something like 3,500 miles of coast, which allows for a lot of waterfront properties.

Returning north through Stonington we took 175 north through Penobscot where we stopped for coffee. Briefly turning south we discovered the town of Castine - so beautiful and definitely out of the way of mainstream tourism.

Our day finished in Bucksport, where we found a motel and set off to get a bottle of wine and Chinese take-out for dinner. A lady at the supermarket told us there was a festival in town this weekend, and that there would be fireworks tonight. After dinner we rode into town and watched the fireworks while our laundry was washing.