Bicycling New England, the
Erie Canal, & around Lake Ontario 2005
Rest Day in Augusta ME

June 13, 2005

Our motel is located next to the Augusta ME Civic Center. When we made the reservations, everyone assumed that the civic center was downtown near the State Capitol buildings. But we were wrong, downtown Augusta ME is 4 miles from our motel, all down hill. Getting there via the bicycle would not be bad but getting back would have been really hard, so we went downtown via taxi.

Our first stop was at the State Capital building were we sat in the balcony of the Maine House of Representatives as they went through a bunch of speeches from various members on the merits of a school that was 100 years old this year, praising teachers visiting in the gallery, etc. They had 15 or more items like this on their agenda and each one took 5 or more minutes of speeches to clear the agenda. It was interesting to watch 150 men and women listening to a bunch of speeches but not doing legislative work.

After leaving the state capital we stopped at a library where we bought some paper back books that were for sale at 50 cents each. We walked to a restaurant were we had a great lunch. Then we walked to an historical site called Fort Western.

This fort was built in 1754 as a supply depot for another fort called Fort Halifax which was 18 miles further up river. This fort was built in Augusta because it is the last place on the Kennebec River where ocean size ships can navigate the river. The fort later became a store and home, and then a poor rent district for new immigrants. We spent an hour touring the fort before we called the taxi and returned to our motel. Giving us time to catch up on computer work, read books and decide on our route for tomorrow.