Sharp's Travels

Today we took a 150 motorcycle ride to see the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, Observatory and Historic Fort Knox. We arrived at the bridge around 11:00 am. A one-minute ride on the fastest elevator in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont took us to the top of the tallest public bridge-observatory in the world. The others are in China, Slovakia and Thailand. The observatory opened in May 2007 and has proved to be a very popular attraction. The beauty of the Penobscot River and surrounding countryside is immediately apparent as the elevator door slides open to a dizzying view from 420 feet up. Ascend two more levels up to find 360 degrees views, complete with identification panels showing you how to locate nearby mountains, lakes and towns. Then we headed over to Fort Knox, Maine's largest historic fort, features stunning military architecture and master granite craftsmanship. Constructed between 1844 and 1864 by master craftsmen and never fully completed, this is an unaltered example of a large mid-19th century granite coastal fortification. It is also New England's finest unmodified specimen of military architecture of the period. The fort was strategically located on the narrows of the Penobscot River to protect the river valley from naval attack. Although it never saw combat, Fort Knox was garrisoned during the Civil and Spanish American Wars. Fort Knox bears the distinction of being Maine's first granite fort. About 500 troops from Connecticut were stationed here during the Spanish-American War. They lived outside the main fort structure in large tents. On the way back we stopped for a late lunch. Cheri had a bowl of clam chowder and I had a bowl of lobster stew. We had to wait while they prepared it. It was ok but not great. To me soup has to be made and set for a while to get the flavor throughout the soup. Cheri wanted to stop at a quilt shop on the way home. I really didn’t want to stop as it looked like rain, but we stopped any way. When we came out of the shop it had just started to sprinkle. We were going to wait it out and then thought we better get going as we still had 40 miles to go before we would be home and no rain suits. We had sprinkles most of the way home and drove through places where it had rained hard with water standing along the road. So as it turned out if we hadn’t stopped at the quilt shop we would have gotten soaked, instead on a little damp. So the right thing to do was listening to my wife. (Can’t believe I said that) We arrived home around 5:30 pm. Most of what I have written here came off the Internet.
I have uploaded pictures for the day see album Fort Knox & Penobscot Narrows Bridge.