We started the day at Pemaquid beach—I enjoyed one last stroll here while Tony took some work meetings.

Then we were off to the Portland Lighthouse. We paid five dollars to park, then ten dollars for some small but delicious cups of gelato. Portland Head Light was built from 1787 to 1791. It began with $750 from the Massachusetts legislature and was finished by the US Congress for another $1500. There is a smaller one called Ram Island Ledge Light Station that was built first, in 1883.

The Goddard Mansion was built in 1861 by an army colonel who must have had some money. It was very grand in it’s day. Mansion’s insides were in a controlled burn in the 1980’s and are now fenced off for safety.

Battery Keys was most interesting to me as I had no idea that this harbor (and others) were mined during wars, starting with the Spanish-American War and ending with WWII. No enemy ships ever entered the harbor but a German sub was sighted in Casco Bay right outside of the harbor in 1942. Battery Keys was the “alert” battery that was fully armed and manned during WWII.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited Portland lighthouse frequently, being friends with the keepers in his day, and it served as his inspiration for his poem, “The Lighthouse”.

We are spending three nights in the town of Old Orchard Beach at the Sun Outdoors Old Orchard Beach Downtown (Hid’n Pines before the new owner) and there are sidewalks here! The trolley is no longer working, closed down after Labor Day weekend, but we can definitely enjoy a mile walk to get to the beach on a safe sidewalk. This is a resort town that sees a lot of Canadian tourists. Some places like the amusement park and Dairy Queen and some motels are closed for the season, but others are still open. Our campground has closed some bathhouses for the season and closes altogether on October 14.

The Pier is currently 500 feet long with shops and restaurants and an arcade. It is the third pier and has been in place since 1980. The original, built in 1898, was 1800 feet long and made of steel. It had a huge ballroom and casino at the end of it. But a storm “shortened” it and the second one was only 800 feet long and was ravaged by storms and a blizzard finally did it in in 1978.