Although Maine was not a colony during the RevWar (it was then part of Massachusetts) it did play an outsized part in the conflict by not only supplying significant manpower to the Continental Army but also hosting several battles.

The first naval contest took place as The Battle of Machias on June 11, 1775. About 35 fanatical Sons-of-Liberty patriots from communities surrounding Machias Bay, having reached the end of their rope with the British, saw an opportunity when the Margaretta, a single, poorly armed British schooner sat alone in the bay. They commandeered the sloop Unity and whatever weapons they could find, including a pitchfork, to pursue and capture the ship in what was recognized as the first naval victory for the colonies. The schooner was armed with 4 cannons and 6 swivel guns on deck; the patriot ship was smaller and totally unarmed (the patriots had no firearms either). Nevertheless, a pursuit and Errol-Flynn-like boarding took place, and the motley patriot crew overcame the Britons, capturing their prize in the process.

A much less favorable battle was the Burning of Falmouth on October 18, 1775. British warships, commanded by Captain Henry Mowat, sailed into town and opened fire with a bombardment that lasted most of the day. Toward the end, British sailors landed and burned whatever was left, leaving 1,000 colonials homeless and stoking anger against the crown.

The blush was really off the rose of the American Navy at the Penobscot Expedition in July and August of 1779. American forces attempted to drive the British out of the fort at Castine on Penobscot Bay, laying siege from both land and sea on the enemy, but failed after several weeks in what was, until Pearl Harbor in 1941, the largest naval defeat in American history.

Battles were few in the harsh countryside and forests of Maine, where the summer fighting season is short and the winters are brutal, but the Mainers proved tough soldiers and determined patriots. Their contribution to the effort, even with a couple of notable defeats, is regarded as heroic and great.

We settled into our campsite at Bar Harbor Campground, the nearest RV resort to the actual town. For RVers reading this, we highly recommend this place. It is very much like a state park setting, but with high-end amenities, including a pool heated to 85F!

There is also some pretty awesome Lobstah and Ice Cream just across the street at the Bar Harbor Lobster Pound and the Ice Cream Boat. This is the land of blueberries, and the signature combo of a heated piece of blueberry pie with blueberry ice cream ala mode, is killer.

We were here 2 full days and spent the first one, which was beautiful, sunny and warm, taking advantage of Acadia National Park. After hauling our kayaks all the way north and not really finding any good water to paddle in, we finally got to put them in at Eagle Lake, the largest lake in Acadia and purported to be the best for wildlife viewing. They were right about being beautiful, but not so much on the wildlife, which was mostly bicyclists behaving wildly. The “No Ebikes” sign wasn’t being obeyed, and the speed limit was meaningless.

We also made a run around the Loop Road and stopped at Sand Beach. Not much different from any other beach, we thought it a little too crowded.

We enjoyed a couple of barbequed Costco tenderloins for dinner, warned that there was a chance of showers the next day. The “showers” started about midnight and got quite heavy, continuing through the morning and right up to lunchtime. We were comfy in the trailer, but we couldn’t help but think of the tent campers sprinkled throughout the park. Rugged folk!

This marks 23 days on the road, with 10 to go. At this point we have touched grass in all 13 colonies. We will sign off with our Mystery Pic. Put your best guess of what this is in the comments section. If you guess correctly, we’ll force Tippy’s lawyer to drink a gallon of Vermont Maple Syrup and then abandon him at a Waffle House.

Flashback note from New Hampshire (thank you to Heidi and the notes she gave us): Ezra Carter was the first physician to settle in the Concord area. He kept his own botanical garden to compound many of his medications. He died in 1768 at the age of 48, and one of his last acts was to look over his accounts and write out a paid in full receipt for all of the poor people who owed him money, then instructed his executors to deliver those receipts immediately after his death.

Flashback #2. Wendy discovered from Heidi’s notes that Rumford is actually the prior name of Concord. Now I know where the hell the it is. In fact, originally founded as Pennycook, the town name was changed to Rumford in 1734, and finally renamed Concord in 1765. Our good Countess, Sarah, was a native gal who married into royalty and got her title on the cheap. I’m still hoping you find this much more fascinating than I do. I have instituted a ChatGPT check on Wendy’s bloodline to check for any nascent royalty, but as a backup I could just give myself a cool new title, Duke of Palm Coast, if it didn’t sound so much like I had changed my name and become a bookie.

Financial Flashback from the Hartford blog: We have SunPass for toll roads in Florida and it participates in the EZPass system common throughout the East coast. With automatic account funding, the little dings on my mobile phone remind me that tolls are ubiquitous all throughout New England, even on Interstates (this is unheard of in the Free State of Florida). I expect to get tolled crossing over any bridge or going through any major tunnels, and many of the highways just scan you as you pass under an overhead structure set across all the lanes. Imagine my shock when my phone starts dinging like a slot machine a day after arriving in Bar Harbor as the automatic toll system in New York finally figures out that the scan it made as we crossed the George Washington Bridge was a pickup truck with 2 axles and a trailer with 2 axles. It had already clocked the truck on the scan and charged us for those 2 axles ($24 bucks apiece), but then the automatic review of the camera photo revealed that we also had a 2 axle trailer, and bing-bing, racked up another $48 for that. Total fare to cross the bridge: $96. Nowhere was there a sign of this, and nowhere does Google maps or my RVLife GPS app tell me this, or I would have planned a route around it. When your replenishment amount is set to $20 and the auto-replenish level is $10,  it gets exciting when the computers finally figure out what to charge you, then your toll balance goes negative, then it replenishes, then the computers charge it again, and you rinse-and-repeat until the whole $96 is in Mayor Mamdani’s pocket. Sheesh!

Next up, Land of Maple Syrup, Vermont

Onward!

Tippy is healing nicely and has a word about planning and weather.