Bar Harbor
Thursday, May 02, 2013
I rest tonight at Bar Harbor ME. It's a tourist hot spot in its off-season; a good time to be here in such mild Spring weather. Maine is mine right now, to all intents and purposes. Give me a few more days of acculturation, and I will say that's "awesome". Right now, I still wonder how Americans will react when they meet something truly awe-inspiring!
Today's journey was a real pleasure. I gassed up in Providence (a full tank for 60 bucks) before hitting the I-95 again. The views from the interstate were attractive enough, but once I moved onto the local routes to Bar Harbor they were even better. I stopped only for yet more gas and arrived in time for a chat with my hosts, a phone call and a leisurely stroll with my camera. It was just the right time of day, with reddish, fading sunlight playing on the scenery.
My hosts are charming and helpful. The lady is from Leeds, originally, but has no trace of her accent after years in New England. Not, mind you, that she sounds like a local. The two accents have somehow blended to make her seem (if there were such a thing) mildly Australian.
I assumed that, since Ferrari sells so many of its machines to the USA that Speranza would go unremarked. Her American sisters are widely scattered however and many Americans I have met en route seem to be encountering their first example of the marque. Someone actually asked me, extrapolating from his only sample to reach an unsound conclustion, why Ferraris had their steering wheels on the right.
It's slightly un-nerving to be papped with phone cameras non stop, but the photographers are at least kind enough to shout compliments or give thumbs-up signs. Driving her is rather like being some famous beauty's bodyguard. I am happily invisible in the glare of her, ahem, awesomeness.
She is on song too. Not to tempt fate, but she is running beautifully. Driving through Maine to Bar Harbor with her roof down in the Spring sunshine today was as close to heaven as this sinner is likely to come.
The only problem was when a local in an enormous pick-up truck reversed out of his parking space oblivious to our presence behind (and well below) him. I guess all was clear in his rear view mirror, elevated as it was above my roof-line. Before I could sound the horn to alert him, he stopped - all unaware - two inches from me and drove away still blissfully ignorant.
My motoring mentor in NJ warned me to allow more space than I would in Europe between myself and other vehicles. Country Americans, he told me, are accustomed to lots of room to move about and therefore tend to imprecision in maneuvering. [He was a bit ruder than that, but it's his country and he's entitled as I am not]. I begin to see his point and will not willingly come to a halt behind any more over-sized vehicles.
Speranza and I planned to ascend Mt Washington tomorrow, but the auto route is not opening this year until May 4th. I shall have to go up on the railway instead.Then it's on towards Burlington VT to catch the car ferry to NY State across Lake Champlain. I have always liked to go boating with my cars. Vittoria often travelled with CalMac in Scotland. It should make for some interesting photos if nothing else.