Part of the reason Deon was in a hurry to hit the road last night was we knew that today might be our last sunny day for our stay in Maine and he wanted to make the best of it. 

Our first stop was in Prospect at the Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory and Fort Knox.

The bridge, originally from 1931, was rebuilt in 2003 to include an observation deck on one of the towers. It is a fast elevator ride up 420′ for some fantastic views. 

Right at the base of the bridge is Fort Knox, dating back to 1844. This was a little used Fort, seeing no combat and few troops stationed here, only during the civil war and Spanish American war. It is in fantastic repair though. Some interesting features were the mammoth 15″ cannons, which shot 500lb balls, and the hot shot furnaces used to heat those balls up to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, so that when they hit their wooden ship targets, they would light them on fire. We almost had the fort to ourselves, which made a great playground. Deon and I stopped for a lunch date to try some Maine lobster. We weren’t that impressed with the lobster (apparently we don’t prefer lobster-no surprise), but the clam chowder was to die for. 

We hurried over to Rockport Harbor Breakwater Lighthouse. I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to walk the breakwater because it was high tide, but it must have been a low high tide. 

The breakwater is a pathway about 10′ wide if quarried granite rocks that extends almost a mile out to the lighthouse. If you look very carefully you can see the itty bitty white speck-that is the lighthouse. It was a bit chilly and a bit of a worry with my non swimming children, but the tide didn’t threaten and we all made it back just fine.