John Clark sharing a road trip Beth and I took a few weeks ago. If you remember my last post, I talked about some of the roads in Maine where photo opportunities abounded. My eye tends to catch the smaller and more unusual things when we travel. These were the ten best of the day.

Perfect sky, bright piece of farm equipment in Exeter.

We started from Waterville, following I-95 to Newport where we began following Rt. 11 north to Corinna, then through some of those places that are sometimes smaller than their names on the map. These included Morse Corners, Bonds Corner, Exeter Center, Exeter Corners, East Corinth and Rollins Mills (where we accidentally took Route 11A). Our first serious photo stop was in Exeter where some very beautiful farmland can be found.

This irrigation system stretched a quarter mile and pivoted on one end. Note the house framed in the center crosspieces.

This Japanese beetle was waving at me, so I took his/her picture.

A vegetation buffer in a recently harvested potato field.

Then it was on to Charleston, North Bradford and into Milo, before stopping at a tiny town park in Brownville by the river. The walkway there hadn’t been trimmed in ages and, after Beth slid down a very muddy bank, we decided to turn around and eat our picnic lunch.

Insects tend to catch my eye.

When we hit Prairie, we turned west on a dirt road and seven miles later, we stopped to admire Katahdin Iron Works. Two buildings remain and are quite impressive. If we had gotten there earlier, we probably would have paid the toll and continued on to Gulf Hagas, but we’ll save that for another trip.

Iron smelted with Maine charcoal a hundred plus years ago.

The next stretch is pretty much through uninhabited territory, save for an abundance of seasonal camps and mysterious roads leading into the woods. It would make for a very interesting expedition some other time. We did stop by the causeway between Millinocket and East Millinocket where we’ve canoed in the past.

Which will last longer, the graffiti or the romance?

Fireweed loves water, but is nearly impossible to transplant.

I almost missed this as it wasn’t eye-catching until I knelt down to take the picture.

The final leg took us from Medway through Grindstone Hay Brook, Stacyville, Siberia (no lie!), Sherman Station and Patten. It was getting toward dusk, so we left Rt. 11 at Knowles Corner (with another 70+ miles left before it terminates), looping back to I-95 for the return trip. It came to 380 miles round trip.

The juxtaposition of the poles stretching down the hill with the oncoming cars was too tempting to ignore.