Your Weekly Guide to Life in Midcoast Maine

BY KELLY MICHAUD, EDITOR

How often have you taken the road “less traveled?” How many times have you headed out on the town without a specific destination in mind just to see where you’d end up? How about taking a road you keep passing just to discover what was at the end of it?

For many of us (especially me), it just doesn’t happen so I decided to break out of my semi-anal retentive planning mold and take off and see where I ended up.

Originally, I was planning to drive to Warren and then Union to see what I could find there. But as I drove through Thomaston I decided to take a left onto Route 131, which took me past Tenant’s Harbor and into Port Clyde.

Port Clyde is the type of New England village that one sees in a film — a quaint area set next to the beautiful, sparkling ocean. I took in as much as I could.

Once I found a parking space I walked around the area. The immediate “downtown” is small but welcoming. I couldn’t help but observe the people who were enjoying this beautiful day. A man struggling with two tackle boxes walked past me, followed by a little boy with a shoe untied carrying his fishing pole. Men whistled as they worked shoveling ice from a truck. People sat on picnic tables on the docks behind the general store devouring lobster dinners as the sun beat down on them and the tide rolled in.

These sights reminded me of something a friend had said when he visited me in Rockland recently — “You live in a postcard.”

Port Clyde, with its Village Ice Cream parlor, post office, general store and picture-perfect setting is one of these postcard gems situated on Maine’s Midcoast.

I hopped back in my car and did some more exploring. A little further away from the main village is the Marshall Point Lighthouse which is an easy find by following signs on Route 131 and connecting roads. The lighthouse was built in 1832 and made of Rubblestone. The land for the lighthouse was acquired in 1831 from John Marshall who sold the four acres to the government for $120. Imagine what that parcel of land would sell for these days!

Both the tower and the lightkeeper’s house at the present site are not the original structures — both were destroyed and rebuilt later in the 1800s.

Movie fans might recognize the lighthouse because it gained some notoriety from Hollywood in 1993. A scene from the movie “Forrest Gump” starring Tom Hanks was filmed there — it’s the scene when Forrest is running around the nation after Jenny leaves him. The museum at the lighthouse, which is in the keeper’s house, displays a photo of Tom Hanks during the time the scene was filmed.

The museum displays historic information from the Town of St. George and its lighthouses and is open June through October.

So, I gave being impulsive a shot and I ended up somewhere beautiful.

Try going somewhere without planning — block out the telephone company saying “You should have called,” and just see where the road takes you.