Welcome to Maine!
A big shout out to my partner in crime for 16 years now, Miss Kristin Pappas, for helping me to come, see and conquer the coast of Maine. Above you can see the Pemequid Point lighthouse. We stayed just down the road in the beautiful Bradley Inn in New Harbor (as seen below)

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Kristin, or KP as she will be referred to from here on out, arrived in Portland on Wednesday and I followed her lead and arrived at the 11-gate airport on Thursday. We met up at the Hilton Garden Inn in Portland. Portland is a lovely city which we both really enjoyed. We ate dinner at a floating restaurant and took a boat cruise out to see a couple of lighthouses and islands that surround Portland. Below you can see some pictures from that first evening.

We woke up Friday morning nervous, but excited about the weekend. Our tour guides picked us up at the hotel and whisked us off to the Pemequid pennisula. We checked in to that lovely inn you've already seen and went to lunch out near that lighthouse up top. As lunch finished up, the other "victims" of the weekend arrived at the inn. We were joined by a couple from Indiana and a man from California. It was at this point that we learned that all of the others on our trip were at least "weekend cyclers" and we started to wonder whether or not we were in trouble. Our tour guides rounded us up, gave out maps, directions, and bike helmets and we were off on our first "short" ride. The "short" ride we soon learned was about 12 miles long. It was also at this point that KP and I learned something VERY important about the coast of Maine. It is NOTHING like the coast of NC. NC's coast is quite flat and would make for an easy and relaxing bike ride. Maine, on the other hand, consists of uphill and downhill and nothing else. I repeat, there is NO flat land. We made our way (huffing and puffing) to Fort William Henry.
Here, you are looking through a second floor window of the fort. We also traipsed down a trail to a lovely harbor, as you can see below.
We finished our ride back at the Pemequid Point lighthouse for a wine and cheese reception. Ah, something where our skills from home would shine. :-) It was there we discovered that Maine is home to the friendliest chipmunks in the world. One of them decided to make friends with our group, coming close enough to sniff the tip of my sneaker and hang out between KP's feet for awhile. If you look closely in this picture you can see our friend under KP's leg.
It should be said that the view from our wine and cheese reception was gorgeous. Check it out for yourself.
Saturday was a day of fun and torture, torture and fun. We biked about 20 miles (and if you're saying to yourself, oh that's doable, then please close this blog immediately, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore.) and made it to a "nearby" town. Thank goodness for padded biking shorts. KP and I then gave up the battle and decided to hang out in town for a little while before allowing the van to take us back to our Inn. You would have stayed too, just look at it!
We were thrilled just to get our poor bottoms off of those bike seats.
That night, as promised, we feasted on lobster and went on a quite unsuccessful boat cruise to see puffins.
Sunday began the same way as Saturday, with the promise of a very long, very hilly bike ride. Unfortunately, our muscles had had quite enough of this bike riding business and so instead of Saturday's agenda (remember, torture and fun) we mostly just had the torture without the fun. After 12ish miles we had quite enough and hopped in the van. Here we are somewhere after our 266th hill of the weekend. You can clearly tell we are no longer thrilled with our choice of "vacation."
And then it was time for the torture to end. We hopped in the van with our luggage and were transported back to Portland. I had an amazing time with one of my nearest and dearest friends, but needless to say (though maybe its hard to tell from the beautiful pictures) we will not be repeating this particular adventure. We will always be able to look back on the weekend though and say that we biked nearly 45 miles and lived to tell the tale. I'm so proud!