T Stands for 2 Road Trip Surprises

 Hi everyone.  It's already time for T again so Happy T day to you.

Last week I had something going on every day, and when I was home, I was trying to get some yard work started now that the snow has finally melted in my backyard. I'm hoping this week I can get a lot accomplished outside too, especially since I don't have anything on my schedule. They are saying we  have chances for some rain, which is what we had today, so I will have to wait and see how much I can actually accomplish.

Last week my husband called me during the day on Tuesday and said he had to go to the  mid-coast area of Maine for a business meeting on Friday.  Would I want to come along?  I didn't have to think twice about saying yes, and so we left early Friday morning and didn't come home until Saturday evening. We  brought the dogs with us and found a dog friendly hotel for the night. 

My husband's client's representative owns his own little  4 seater Cessna plane, and he asked if we wanted to go for a flight. I didn't have to think twice about that either. After business was wrapped up for the day, we climbed into his plane, and he took us out for some sightseeing from the air.

Here I am in the backseat. We had to wear headphones to talk because since it's a small plane, the engine noises are rather loud. And the next photo  is  where our pilot/host sat. I actually find all the gauges really interesting.

And then we were airborne.

The coast of Maine is not only one of my most favorite places on the planet, but it is also really geologically and physically interesting. We took off from Belfast and flew out along the coast, heading northeast, although the compass said south. Our pilot says that fact still  confuses him since we are flying in the direction of Canada, which is definitely north. 

In this next photo we are looking down on Bucksport, Maine.  You can see the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. This is one of only 4 bridges in the world that has an observation deck on top, and the only one in the US. It is 42 stories tall, which makes it not only the tallest observatory in Maine, but also the tallest bridge observatory in the world.

 Just in front of the bridge is Fort Knox. No, not the fort where the US money is stored. This Fort Knox was built in the mid-1800's (although never 100% completed) and used during the Civil and Spanish American Wars. It never did see any military action and is now a state park.

 

Here's another view of the bridge and the fort. (Yes, I know, you're a few thousand feet up so they aren't the most obvious.)

And here you have my husband's shoulder as I snap a photo out of the front window.

This part of the Maine coast is jagged and filled with islands. Out of the 50 states, Maine ranks 39th in size but 4th for states with most actual miles of coastline if you include all the islands and bends and curves. (Granted not all of the states actually have coastlines.) It's really obvious from this airborne view why. 

And even though in most of these photos you can't see out onto the open Atlantic, this is all coastline. The tide was even partially out as you can tell from the exposure along the shore.

In this next photo you can see more open ocean out beyond the islands.

I loved watching the shadow of our plane as we were heading in to land.

And that was just our first pleasant surprise of the day.  After we landed and were back in the car driving, my husband's sister called. We knew she was on a weekend get away with her husband, but we thought she was further south along the coast. When she called she asked us where in Belfast we were. We said we were just heading into town because even though it was after 3 in the afternoon, we hadn't had lunch yet.

She informed us that she and her husband had to come to Belfast to try out a brewery, so off we headed to meet them. They were literally about 5 minutes away. Who thought we'd meet them on this trip?

Here's the brewery sign.

You can see in the next photo that the brewery was built right on the wharf and closed in for the winter still.

It was even a dog friendly place, so the pups came in and joined us. They also managed to get a lot of attention too.

I couldn't decide what to drink so I ordered a flight. This is my link to Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog    for T this week.

Here are my 4 beer choices. My favorite was the Seance Saison which had a bit pumpkin in it.

And even though I forgot to photograph it, I had a cheese flatbread pizza with it. The pizza was good, but the beer was far better.

We had a great couple of days away. I have some other photos I can share another time, but this post is long enough. Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great T day and week ahead.