–Image from Skypic.com
After a day of outside projects, went for a bike ride (instead of paddling for once) in the late afternoon light. Rode down to the waterfront and through our several waterfront parks, then crossed both bridges and worked my way back through neighborhoods and woods before returning home.
Belfast, Maine is a good place to live in the wintertime — but I sometimes wonder — in spring, summer, or fall — why anyone would want to live anywhere else.
Belfast has a combination of natural beauty, genuineness, progressiveness, friendliness, and outdoor opportunities that is hard to beat. Where else can you mountain bike down a logging road through a beautiful pine forest less than half a mile from downtown? (It’s not an official trail yet, just a place you can ride). We’ve got a colorful an active waterfront complete with tugboats, a real old fashioned main street that includes the oldest shoe store in America, a new $4 million dollar footbridge you can stroll across (or fish for mackerel from), some great restaurants, an active art scene, a healthy mix of natives and people from away, great hiking, skiing, paddling opportunities all around, and the best pear-almond muffin I have found.
For paddling enthusiasts, we are within day trip distance of Acadia National Park, Deer Isle, Isle au Haut, Camden-Rockport, the Muscle Ridge Islands, and Muscongus Bay. Or you can paddle from the Belfast waterfront, either up the Passy River or north along the coast to Moose Point State Park. Y’all come visit this summer. You won’t regret it. And, as Marion Betancourt says in her article by that title, this town may make you “fall in love with America all over again.”