Day 67: Bradbury Mountain State Park, ME

Alea had a mixed bag today.  Small stretches of narrow roads with broken pavement and truck traffic, then stretches of smooth road with adequate shoulders and low traffic speeds.  

At one point our map warned about a rough railroad crossing at the bottom of a long, steep hill.  So Alea duly approached it with caution, only to find that the crossing had been fixed and was located at the base of an even steeper hill on the other side.  Needless to say, Alea had no momentum to help her up that hill, so she ended up walking up it.  From that point until reaching the coast the climbs were steeper than we have thus far experienced in Maine.  She rode a total of 30 miles for the day.

"Any day I get to play ball is a good day!"

We drove into Freeport for the obligatory stop at L. L. Bean.  We didn't need much, but were hoping they might have some velcro strapping.  They didn't, but they had some Nite Ize Better Bands, so we gave them a try.  We needed a means of securing one end of our beach umbrellas to our camp chairs, and these 5"rubber bands seem to do the trick, plus they are easy to use and can be stored attached to the chairs.

The Summit Trail up Bradbury Mountain.

We are camped at Bradbury Mountain State Park ($27.25 for non-residents for primitive camping, with showers).  The campground is fairly well occupied, despite it being mid-week.  It seems the hiking and biking trails here are the big attractions, as we regularly see people mountain biking behind our campsite.

Trying out one of our new beach umbrellas.