It is surprising to me, given the thousands of miles of coastline in Maine, that there are so few sand beaches here.  There is, of course, Old Orchard Beach along the southern coast, and a handful of beaches in the Portland area (Ferry Beach, Crescent Beach, Thomas Point Beach, etc.); there are two beaches in the Bath/Georgetown area (Popham and Reid), and there is Sand Beach at Acadia National Park.  And that’s about it.

Today we traveled by scooter to Reid State Park in Georgetown to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary, and I took advantage of the opportunity to try posting to this blog with the iPad alone (since that will be the only means by which I can post during our upcoming long trips).  So, all the photos you see in this post were taken with the iPad, which means that the excellent Zoner imaging software I use for camera photos is not available to me.  I find it interesting to look at these photos and speculate about what more I could do with them, if only….

But, given that it was a 90-degree scorcher today, there was a big crowd at Reid, such that we had to wait almost half an hour in line to go the last quarter mile into the park.  We were actually concerned that we would be turned away, arriving as we did around noontime, but we were admitted and proceeded to Todd Point.

Reid, like most Maine beaches, is a “pocket beach”, in which the sand collects between two (or here, three) points of land which extend out into the ocean.  This creates some interesting geological features, as the ocean over time both deposits and removes sand — so the beach changes size and shape from year to year.

Reid is one of our favorite spots for scootering, both because of the park itself and because of the excellent motorbike roads which approach the park — ME 197 through Litchfield, and then ME 128 and 127 down the peninsula to the park itself.  So, both the ride and the destination are outstanding.

The park affords visitors the opportunity to climb some small “cliffs” overlooking the beaches and the outer islands, giving excellent views.  Moreover, there are a number of lagoons which fill at the high tide and then warm (slightly!) as they drain to low tide, making excellent shallow swim/play areas for small children.

One such lagoon extends behind the beach for several hundred yards, such that if you arrive as the tide is changing, you can jump into the lagoon at the back end of the beach and then ride down the “river” of exiting tide out into the ocean.  Keep in mind, of course, that even in August the ocean temperature in Maine rarely exceeds 60 degrees F; but the lagoons get slightly warmer as they are shallower.  On a good day in August you might be able to walk in the water without your feet aching!

Here’s a photo of the scooters, waiting patiently to take us home after a day at the beach.  It is necessary to cover the dashboards of the bikes in the sun, to prevent the heat from reflecting down from the windshield and damaging the consoles.

We spent a couple of hours walking the beach and then decided to explore further down the peninsula south from the park.  This brought us to a lovely community named “Five Islands”, for the five islands visible from the point of land at the end of the peninsula.  There is a lobster pound there with a wide variety of seafood meal options, although we opted only to take a few photos and then head home.

All in all, a lovely trip — highly recommended — making a lovely anniversary outing at Reid State Park!