Stop and smell the roses

Park Loop Road

Last night, I stopped to talk to a man (in Bar Harbor) who was smelling the roses. Funny, I know that roses have a wonderful scent, but I never translated that from roses in a garden to wild roses. The wild roses have a beautiful scent too, and they gave Denise another excuse to stop as we rode Park Loop Road.

First things first though... breakfast! Good food & good conversations were a great start to the day. We had what Evin called a spicy apple pie - an egg base covered with spiced apples. That sounded a little odd, but it was really good. And we had lemon pancakes too. Yum! (Didn't we have this conversation before? Yes, I like people food, and Denise always shares.) It was a good breakfast, good fuel for riding.

Today's destination? Park Loop Road. Once around by bike, and then around again to walk, to absorb the scenery, and to capture images. I've been traveling with Denise for quite a few years now, so I am quite used to her stop and go form of travel. And she kept stopping today. We'd ride a bit, then she'd see something she wanted to capture with her camera. We'd stop. Camera out, images captured. And we'd talk with people stopped in the same places. We even had a chance to share the fragrance of the wild roses with some of them. And hey - I spent some time smelling the roses too!

Park Loop Road is a nicely rolling circuit. A good chunk of the road is one-way which makes it really nice for the people wandering in their cars and for us too. Ride, stop, take pictures, ride, stop, and repeat. The loop starts down the east side of Mt. Desert Island so we were able to watch the ocean as we rode. It was very quiet today, no waves, no crashing sounds from Thunder Hole. For our second circle, it was very close to low tide. But low tide doesn't mean that there are no waves. So where were the waves? And while I'm asking questions, where were the sea gulls? It was a very quiet bird day. We would occasionally see a gull soaring above, and there were two gulls staking out granite blocks at the edge of the road, but the gulls who are usually prancing on the rocks along the coast? I don't know where they were hiding today. I guess that means we're going to need to spend more time on Park Loop Road ths week.

It was a cool day for riding, cool enough that Denise wore her knee warmers for the entire ride. She warmed up enough by the end of the first loop to get down to a single layer of clothing (for riding), but the layers came back for our walking tour. We jumped out of the car at Thunder Hole. We started walking. We walked on the trail, and then we wandered over the rocks. We looked down slots in the rock that gave us a view of the water far below. We saw bits of green grass emerging from cracks between blocks of granite. And we saw the occasional purple iris rising from the rock. We walked, and walked, and then we turned around and walked back. Water started falling from the sky just before we got back to the car. What luck!

I thought we'd head back to the B&B then, but Denise decided to see if the top of Cadillac Mountain was above the clouds. It wasn't. Instead it was encased in them. We drove up the mountain, following the curves of the road. Rain drops were falling, it was cloudy, but the road was still visible. And then... just below the summit, the clouds covered the top of the mountain. We could see the road just in front of the car, but no further. We were in the clouds. We headed back down, and the clouds stayed on the top of the mountain. The road surface was decorated with wisps of fog, and the rain drops continued. Denise's camera jumped out a couple of times - which meant that Denise had to jump out of the car too. It will be interesting to see if any of those very gray pictures show the emerging beauty.

The rain stopped just before we headed out for food. Dinner tonight was at Siam Orchid, tasty Thai food. Denise chose a dish called Drunken Noodle. I wonder if she chose it because of the name? Oh, you want to know what a Drunken Noodle is? Here's the description from the menu: 'Thai rice noodles with fresh basil, peauts, egg, vegetables and pineapple in a tangy spicy sauce'. Add some tofu for a well-balanced meal. It was definitely a good eating day today.

And then... we walked along the shore for a while. No visible colored sunset, but as we walked the gray sky changed to a deeper gray. The ocean was still quiet.