My son and his family live in Bangor, Maine, so my wife and I are there quite often during the summer while in Maine. Not too far from Bangor, south on Route 1A is the town of Ellsworth. If traveling south on 1A, just as you enter the town, you’ll find a sharp left turn that takes you onto Route 179 or the North Rd. If you follow this route for approximately 3 or 4 miles, you’ll find this lovely little structure on the right side of the road.

Tom Remington photo

I first spied this charming potential bed and breakfast (not) about three years ago while I was working with a friend on Mt. Desert Island. We stayed at a cottage on Molasses Pond. We took a different route each day from Molasses Pond onto Mt. Desert but when we left to come home, we took this route and that’s when I spied it the first time. I vowed someday I’d get back to take a picture.

It’s a small world as they say and the next year my wife’s twin brother and wife bought a lot of land on Graham Lake. Guess what? The turn off Route 179 to get to their lot is not too far from this shack. Not only did I get this picture but I got several more.

Moving back north into the Bangor area, one beautiful summer day, my son and I, along with four of the grandchildren, headed to Orono to visit the Orono Bog. The Orono Bog is a great place to go for a short outing and an easy hike for kids. As you can see from the photo, the grandkids ranged in age from 7 down to 3.

Tom Remington photo

The walk leads down a dirt path for a ways until the start of the boardwalk that will lead strollers out into the bog. Along the way out, I discovered that my grandchildren had not had the experience of eating wild Maine raspberries. The photo below shows all the kids looking for berries. At first their noses wrinkled a bit until they say grandpa eating them. Once they got a taste, it was hard to get their minds back on walking the bog trail.

Tom Remington photo

To the passive walker at the Orono Bog, one might miss out on some of Nature’s beauty. Some of my wife’s favorite wild flowers are Queen Anne’s Lace.

Tom Remington photo

Humans aren’t the only ones that appreciate a bit of Queen Anne’s lace. For a much different reason, these visitors also find the flower quite enjoyable.

Tom Remington photo

The boardwalk that leads through the dense, swampy undergrowth, eventually opens up into the peat bog itself. By spending some time and looking closely, you can see some much beauty in the plant growth that completely yet inconspicuously envelopes the entire floor of the bog. Information that I read about the bog said that in places the peat may be as much as 30 – 50 feet deep.

Tom Remington photo

If you’re in the area, I encourage you to take about an hour minimum to make the trip around the loop through the bog. You can spend as much time as you like but you can do it in a short period of time.

Make sure you check out all the other parts of Maine – The Way Life Is
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V