I’ve been spending a bit of time in Maine in recent weeks, and have occupied the occasional dull day by going lighthouse and covered bridge hunting.  There are so many of both in Maine, and in New England in general, that what I’ll post here can hardly even be called a sample!  But I spent some pleasant days and got some nice pictures, so I thought I would share them.

Maine has a few nice beaches, but for the most part it has a rocky shoreline.  Consequently, shipwrecks have been common, and lighthouses a necessity.

The Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse below is nicely visible from the adjacent rocky coast, seen in the picture above, but now seems to be a private home, not open to the public.

Portland Head Lighthouse (or Portland Headlight House, as I like to think of it) is a beautiful spot, with a lovely park surrounding it.

The coastline visible from the lighthouse is beautiful, but not what you would call serene, with waves crashing onto the rocks below.

I can certainly see how the site could be exciting and inspirational, and apparently it had that effect on Longfellow too.

The light itself is maintained by the US Coast Guard, while the remainder of the property is maintained by the town of Cape Elizabeth.  No, the light wasn’t on during the day, I was just having fun with the sun…

Out in the distance, Ram Island Ledge Light Station can be seen.  It originally warned ships away from a series of rock ledges in the area.  It’s now privately owned, having been put up for auction in 2010, and sold to a local surgeon.  The light was converted to solar power in 2001, having previously used a Fresnel lens.

Further up the coast, I found Bug Light, a small but adorable lighthouse near the peninsula of Portland.  It used to be on a breakwater that extended into Casco Bay, but the area within the breakwater has since been built up, and the light is now accessible down a short causeway.  You can see downtown Portland to the left in the picture below, and the many boats on the bay.

What a beautiful day to be hunting lighthouses!

Across the park from Bug Light was a monument to the shipping industry in Portland, particularly during World War II.  I learned a lot from reading the interpretive signs there, but almost nothing of the shipyards remain visible today.

There are many many more lighthouses along the Maine coast, and I expect I’ll be exploring more of them in the future.  When I left the coast, I headed inland to work at the New England Forest Rally, and took a spare morning to investigate two covered bridges in the area.  The first was Lovejoy Covered Bridge, in Andover, built in 1867.

I love this picture of the bridge reflected in the water below.  I wish I had gotten the whole reflection in, but I feel lucky to have gotten this good a photo… the mosquitos there were the size of pterodactyls and I was wearing shorts, so I had to keep moving!

The bridge is still in use, and seems quite sturdy, with a 10 ton weight limit.  The structure in front of it warns that there is also a height limit, of course.

It was beautifully built and felt rock solid when I drove though it.  But after all, it’s only 150 years old…

I also visited Sunday River Covered Bridge, near the Sunday River Ski Resort.

The bridge was built in 1872, but is no longer used for vehicle traffic.

A random gentleman saw me taking pictures and offered to take one of me, so here I am!  But you can see the beautiful construction, and it’s much wider than the Lovejoy bridge, perhaps even intended for two-way traffic.

While I was getting the outside perspective, I took a peak underneath at the construction.  I couldn’t see that there was any steal reinforcement anywhere.  In the background, you can see where the road is now routed over a modern bridge.

Just for the record, there is a lot of space in Maine, and many dirt roads running through that space.  On several occasions now, my “GPS of questionable skill” has sent me on long excursions down dead end roads, and instructed me to follow roads that were, in fact… nonexistent, just more trees.  But getting lost in Maine is a nice, dreamy kind of lost, just toodling along, expecting a moose to step out of the forest at any moment.  I can cope with that, and I can always backtrack if needed.  And who knows, maybe I’ll discover an old covered bridge along a hidden stream somewhere…?