Today we headed south toward the Boston area, potentially our last east-coast stopover before turning our Jamboree's nose westward and beginning the long trek back to Nevada. Once again the good weather seemed to be holding, though there seemed to be plenty of dark clouds waiting in the wings.
We actually hated to leave our camp at Boothbay, as we'd already grown quite attached to the camp's personnel, as well as to folks we'd met in town. Along that line, when I checked with Concetta this morning after getting all my various chores done, she told me she wanted to do an extra good cleaning of the bathroom before we pulled out. That was fine with me, I had an "errand" I wanted to run if I could steal at least twenty minutes from the morning's routine. As we had traveled back and forth to Boothbay by shuttle the last two days, I had caught sight of a small rail yard just a couple of doors down from the camp. Since Concetta wouldn't miss me for at least twenty minutes, I made a dash for the street, walked the 100 yards down to the rail facility, and slipped onto the property, evidently unnoticed.
I knew I didn't have enough time to cover everything on the property, so I concentrated on whatever was being illuminated by the morning sunlight. There was a wonderful old station house with a diesel-like locomotive and a string of cars sitting outside, There was a few static displays of old rail cars on the far side of the station, and there was a train shed that I knew I shouldn't venture near, let alone go inside. But what the heck, I did both.
Since the facility didn't appear to be open, I kept looking around to catch sight of whomever was going to emerge from one of the nearby buildings and demand that I get lost -- immediately. But no one appeared, so I just went about my photographic business unhampered by the need to either buy a ticket, or ask permission.
This evening, when I had time to look up the rail line, I found that that it was called the Boothbay Railway Village. I didn't find a Wiki article on the place, but maybe the line's PR department blurb might help:
"Nowhere else in New England can you ride the rails behind an authentic steam locomotive surrounded by historic Maine buildings preserved in a recreated village, and view a collection of 60 antique autos."
"All guests experience a coal-fired, narrow gauge steam train ride and an exceptional antique automobile exhibit of over sixty vehicles, including Model T Fords, Stanley Steamers and a Roll Royce."
"The Boothbay Railway Village loves GROUPS! Our Executive Director was the group tour sales person for the Maine Office of Tourism before joining our team, and she understands what tour operators and representatives need to be successful. Our well-priced basic group visit (just $8 per adult in 2016) includes a step-on welcome, a ride on our narrow gauge steam train, a self-guided tour of our historic buildings and exhibits, along with the 60+ antique cars in our auto museum."
"Reservations are not required for the basic visit, however calling ahead allows us to be sure the train cars are configured to accommodate a full motor coach, and that we have a senior staff member on site to step-on. We are happy to accommodate you on rainy and foggy days when your boat tours might be cancelled. A menu of experiential programming specifically designed for groups is available for an additional fee."
"The Boothbay Railway Village is located a little more than one hour north of Portland, and just minutes from Boothbay Harbor and coastal attractions. We have plenty of restrooms and a parking lot perfectly proportioned for coaches. We offer complimentary admission for your driver and your escort. We appreciate prepayment for basic group visits and require 14 days prepayment for specialty programs."
"For more information or to book your group, call or email Margaret Hoffman at 207-633-4727 or margaret@railwayvillage.org."
The place looked absolutely charming, and I'm just sorry that it wasn't convenient for us to get back to our camp early enough in the day to ride, well, if they were planning to be open. As we passed by in the shuttle the last couple of days, I must admit that I never once saw anyone moving around on the property, though there were plenty of vehicles present.
Our main goal for the morning was the Marine Museum in Bath, a town just to the south of our camp in Boothbay. One of the major reasons I had been excited about coming to Maine was the potential to see boat-building in action. From the time that I spent over a year of my life aboard a wooden sailing vessel, I have been just obsessed with learning more about boat building. I hoped that the Marine Museum might afford me the opportunity to see a team of people actually building a boat. Unfortunately, a demonstration of boat building didn't turn out to be possible
But let me just say that we found the Bath Marine Museum to be an incredible gem among gems. Their nautical history displays are exceptional and superbly displayed. And their tour of the one-time Percy and Small shipyard was so darn interesting that I just hung on our guide's every word as he led us around the property. For more information I found the following:
"The Maine Maritime Museum, formerly the Bath Marine Museum, offers exhibits about Maine's maritime heritage, culture and the role Maine has played in regional and global maritime activities. The Maine Maritime Museum has a large and quirky collection, made up of more than 20,000 documents, artifacts and pieces of artwork and includes an extensive research library."
"The museum is set on a scenic active waterfront on the banks of the Kennebec River and includes the historic Percy and Small Shipyard with five original 19th-century buildings, a Victorian-era shipyard owner's home, and New England's largest sculpture – a full size representation of the largest wooden sailing vessel ever built, the six-masted schooner Wyoming (photo lower right)."
"The museum's location includes the Percy & Small Shipyard, preserving the nation's only surviving wooden shipbuilding site. Winton Scott Architects designed the current Maine Maritime Museum gallery building. In 1987, Elizabeth B. Noyce donated $3.5 million towards the construction of the museum's building. The building was completed in 1989 to a size of 30,000 square feet."
"The museum’s campus is dominated by a sculpture, designed to reflect the Wyoming (photo below right), which was the largest wooden vessel ever built in the United States. The Wyoming sank in 1924, but in an effort to connect Maine visitors with the seafaring past and raise the profile of the museum, a full-scale sculptural installation was erected in 2001 (photo left) to celebrate the ship. The sculpture is almost 600 feet of empty space -- which encourages viewer’s imagination to fill in the rest -- and is made of white steel replicas of the Wyoming’s bow and stern. The sculpture resides upon the area where the Wyoming was built, and amounts to one of the largest pieces of New England public art. In 2001 the museum raised $4 million through donations from the public and spent $300,000 from those funds on the sculpture."
Because nearly all of the Percy & Small shipyard buildings survived into this century, docents offer tours throughout the grounds. Most of the boat-building equipment is still in place, almost as if the workers only left for the weekend and would be back in a day or two to pick up their tools. Everything from the saw mill that could handle whole trees, to the tiniest drafting equipment was there to be enjoyed. I was just awestruck by the magnitude of different types of equipment that was needed to build wooden boats.
Unfortunately, we were not able to remain at the Maritime Museum as long as we would have liked. This wonderful museum would really require an entire day to do it justice. Many of the workshops have two and three stories of exhibits, where everything from sail making and carpentry, to blacksmithing and painting are artfully displayed. It was just awesome. But all too soon we just had to get on the road if we wanted to get a few miles before we slept.
Tonight we're camped on the edge of the bay in Salem Massachusetts. We're so close that the Class A coaches on both sides of us elected to park front-on to the bay so they could sit in their captains chairs and watch the boats go by. The park that Concetta found is called Winter Island, and she picked it because it has a trolley shuttle that can take us into Salem tomorrow so we can leave the rig sit right here. We rented the space for two nights, which means we won't have to come rushing back at noon, but will be able to spend the entire day seeing the sights.
We were pretty lucky we got here when we did. There were almost no sites left when we arrived, and only two that would allow us to stay two days. Actually, we almost gave up trying to find the place thanks to our crafty GPS, Miss Jezebel. Once again she performed perfectly all the way from Boothbay, but when the chips were down, she led us down the garden path -- almost literally. We had only one more turn to make as we approached Winter Island when she demanded that we turn left and proceed down this tiny lane just big enough for a fully-loaded Mini Cooper.
When we got to the end of the lane, and found that there was a house to the left of us, one to the right of us, and another right in front of us, we realized we'd been had yet again. Carefully I had to back the rig into a tiny side street, after first moving a unfortunately-located trash can, and avoiding everyone's landscaping on all sides. This I succeeded in doing -- almost. Just before I stopped, I knocked over yet another, heretofore unseen can full of pine needles and other garden refuse. Thank goodness the can was made out of rubber. I just got out and stood the can upright, scooped most of the refuse back inside, and had to unfortunately leave some on the ground.
Once we got turned around, we were able to retreat to the main road, hang a left, and within a minute or two we had arrived at the proper destination. Thankfully there was still a couple of spaces left so we didn't have to start over. The temperature here by the ocean is quite cool, but the views are to die for. We took a hike up on the bluffs where historic Fort Pickering once stood, and enjoyed a view of the bay that came complete with a small lighthouse.
So, that's about all for tonight. We're not at all sure what we'll end up doing tomorrow, though we plan to buy tickets for the trolley that allows you to hop on and hop off at your leisure. So until tomorrow, we wish you Happy Travels!
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