... with the weather radar displaying what appeared to be a afternoon-long gap in the thunderstorm activity that has been giving maine a good washing this past week, roger and i decided to take the day and share a bit of two-wheelin' across the state ... an all-time-great back highway, we had winding route 139 pretty much to ourselves the entire route to winterport ... after a ride across the visually stunning (translation: wicked expensive) penobscot narrows bridge, and a stop for a light lunch just down the road from colonel buck's cursed tomb, in relatively light traffic we crossed the causeway and circled around mount desert island so that we could enter the park from its less congested side ... twisting and turning through the forest, we eventually left the tree line behind us and ascended to the top of cadillac mountain ...
... north of the yucatan in mexico, at over 1,500 feet cadillac is the highest point on the coast of north america ... contrary to popular belief, it is only from early-october through early-march that the top of the mountain is the first place in the united states that witnesses the rising sun ... formed hundreds of millions ago, samuel de champlain's "ile des monts deserts" (island of the bare mountains) looks as it does now because just 20,000 or so years ago a sheet of ice over five times the height of the mountain ground the dozens of peaks on the island down to their present smooth, rounded forms ...
... mostly, what i like about cadillac mountain is that it is a purely democratic place ... standing at the summit you can hear accents from all regions of the united states, and languages from seeming every corner of the globe ... hikers, bikers, walkers, motorcyclists, drivers, every now and then even a no-bump-of-rock-is-going-to-stop-me wheelchair operator, all congregate to share this timeless juncture of land and sea and sky ...
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... i like to try to pick out the flatlanders, they for whom this feels the very top of the world ... i see mainers remembering their first visit to this summit, now, all grown up, finding it is now they facing the struggle of having to relax their grasps of the tiny hands of their own little children ... i watch young couples, who seem to never stray far from one another, and old couples, who seem to never stray far from one another ... only a few yards removed from the parking lot, where voices can be loud and the cacophony of car doors slamming a discordant intrusion, here there is a hush to the crowd, as if each person suddenly understands that the more noise they make the smaller they will become ... for sure, there are the indifferent and uninspired, but, even for them, i spy the moments when their faces relax, betraying the thought they feel so compelled to hide, "if only my air could always be this clear, this clean, this pure ... if ... if i can't stay forever, if only i could stay just a tiny bit longer" ...
... i like best the children ... adults seem to flock to the top of the mountain and huddle together admiring the view, but it is children who walk right up to earth's edge, and, looking down, with no fear leave all behind and soar away into a world in which they possess wings ...
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