(upbeat music) - When US Route 1 was officially designated in 1926, it became much more than just a line on a map.

Stretching from Key West, Florida to Fort Kent, Maine, it was conceived as the Great Atlantic Highway, an unbroken thread tying together the communities of the Eastern seaboard.

For Maine, the impact of the new highway was especially profound.

Millions of dollars of infrastructure improvement poured into a state where, until then, automobile travel was hindered by dirt, roads, ferries, and winter weather.

Route 1 offered a lifeline, a modern roadway that promised easier access for commerce, tourists, and residents alike.

So join me as I head north and drive the length of Route 1 in Maine.

From Kittery to Fort Kent.

Not so much to chase a mythical past, but to discover continuity.

Those stubborn and authentic places, traditions, and people that have largely resisted the bland conformity of modern life and interstate travel.

And have kept Route 1 more of a vital artery than just a line on a map.

(upbeat music) What better way to start a road trip in Maine than with a visit to a lighthouse?

A lighthouse whose reputation for beauty is literally out of this world, as I'll explain in a bit.

(upbeat music) There's nothing more symbolic of Maine than a lighthouse, and you're gonna come across several of them as you travel up Route 1 throughout the state.

Now one of the southernmost ones is this one, Cape Neddick.

And since so many people seem interested in getting great pictures of lighthouses, (shutter clicking) I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with a friend of mine, photographer Ben Williamson.

Ben is a former staff photographer of Down East Magazine, the magazine of Maine, and is one of the finest landscape photographers working today.

He's gonna give us some tips on how to make the most of our lighthouse photography as we travel up Route 1.

Nubble Light' status as the archetypal main lighthouse was sealed in 1977 when the Voyager craft was launched into space with a cache of images depicting life on earth.

So photos of the Nubble, along with places like the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal are now floating somewhere out there in the universe, should any curious aliens wanna know what a real lighthouse looks like.

- So if you walk down to the shore here at Nubble, there's some gray rocks with lines and crevices in the rocks at point right to the lighthouse.

I always like to come when there's big waves, so having a large wave in the foreground really tells the story of why the lighthouse is there in the first place.

To keep sailors off the rocks.

Yeah, I love targeting the ends of the days, the golden hours, morning and evening, and even when the weather's bad and we have a storm coming in, that can be some of the most dramatic conditions to make a photograph in.

So here at Nubble, the light comes in two varieties.

Very strong backlight, or what we have now, which is a very strong front light.

Keep in mind what the weather's doing.

Do you have a departing storm?

A lot of times with departing storms, you can get some really nice sunset light.

With an incoming storm, it's the opposite.

You can get a really nice sunrise with the sun coming up in the east and rising underneath those clouds.

It's always important to think that the photograph's taking a three dimensional world, squashing it into two dimensions.

So there's two ways of looking at that.

One is that that actually accentuates the two dimensional quality of an image is the graphical approach.

So one way I photographed this lighthouse in the past is zooming right in on it, and creating just a nice arrangement of the buildings which are picturesque, kind of 1, 2, 3 across the frame.

This oil house, the keeper's house, and the lighthouse makes a really nice arrangement when you're zoomed in.

And another, I need to somehow convey the depth that I see in the scene into that two dimensional service.

At wider angles, I'll often look, like we've talked about for a wave for my foreground.

I've also found a really nice puddle that makes a wonderful reflection that we'll probably look at tonight.

And I've gone to this puddle again and again at sunrise and its sunset, and gotten some really nice images.

I'm almost in the puddle itself, so that I can see the lighthouse in the reflection.

Just a little bit up, and I'm not seeing the lighthouse at all in the reflection.

I have been known to do this.

Not ashamed to get right down, right down on the ground in the puddle and the make the shot.

Here's the shot.

You know, if I'm just up a little bit, it's not there.

But by getting down in the water, basically.

Get the shot.

- [Bob] People seem to instinctually realize that Ben really knows what he's doing.

And so he's often recruited when there's a really important family picture to be taken here.

- And the final kind of killer shot at Nubble Lighthouse here in York is to actually go up down to Long Sands Beach during the full moon, and zooming in over a mile away with the moon coming up behind the lighthouse has become an absolutely iconic New England photo opportunity.

And I did it first back in 2015, and the next year I think there were about 30 people here with me.

And then the next year there were about 200.

So it's become quite the draw, and it's easy to see why.

It's a really neat opportunity and beautiful way to see the moon rise captured here with Nubble lighthouse.

(gentle music) So as you go up the coast on Route 1, you can visit some of my favorite lighthouses just a short distance away.

Probably number one next to Nubble here is Portland Headlight in Cape Elizabeth.

Little bit off of Route 1, but totally worth the visit.

One of the most dramatic settings in Maine to see a lighthouse.

Going further out the coast, you can see the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, which is actually a nice little outing.

There's a mile out on this breakwater to this, more of a keeper's house than a lighthouse.

The light's a pretty small feature of that lighthouse, but it's a really neat place to check out.

And then let's go ahead and go all the way up the coast to Lubec, kind of at the end of Route 1, tucked down a little bit.

And West Quoddy Lighthouse is actually the easternmost point in the continental US and has a really distinctive red and white stripe design that makes for great photographs.

And they're painting it right now.

I happen to know.

So it's gonna look nice and spiffy, hopefully, when you visit.

So one thing we see a lot out here, and I always have to remind people, is wait until the sun has gone down and below the horizon.

Sometimes the best light is actually after sunset.

You know, that's when it has time to light up the clouds, which we had this evening.

Beautiful, magical evening, nice blue hour, twilight starting now, but always stay after the sunset.

(upbeat music) - Well, Mother Nature isn't the only one who produces spectacular shows along the coast of Maine like we've seen at Nubble Light.

For nearly a hundred years, the Ogunquit Playhouse has brought Broadway quality shows to this barn-like theater right on Route 1 in this small, Maine resort town.

- The Ogunquit Playhouse was founded in 1933, initially.

The original playhouse was built down on what we call Shore Road in the middle of Ogunquit, the village.

And then in 1937, the building that's become so iconic, synonymous with the state of Maine and Route 1, the present day Ogunquit Playhouse opened in 1937.

Soon after Route 1 was formed, the automobiles became very, very commonplace, and a lot of the families had them.

And I think that was certainly in the minds of our predecessors.

- [Bob] It certainly might have been, because as automobiles became more affordable, and there were widespread road improvements, suddenly, you didn't need to live in downtown Boston or New York City to catch a show because now first class theater was coming to the provinces.

The Ogunquit Playhouse was built for an audience that arrived by car.

Families, couples, vacationers, who might catch a show after a day in the surf.

And while many of the new summer stock and straw hat theaters popping up in resort locations were renovated barns and meeting halls, the new Ogunquit Playhouse was purpose built as a theater from the ground up.

- The Ogunquit Playhouse is one of the largest self-producing, not-for-profit regional theaters in all of America.

So what that means, those two worlds self-producing, all of these shows are bespoke.

We are not a touring house, we don't have a traveling show.

These shows haven't come from anywhere.

They're not heading onto anywhere else.

Broadway set designers are brought in.

Right now, we have Titanic on stage.

The very famous Adam Koch, who designed recent Broadway shows, comes to Ogunquit with the theatrical technicians here at the Playhouse.

Scenery is painted, wigs are stitched, hand stitched hair by hair by New York wig designers.

It will look like you're almost on Star Trek with large electronic panels with Broadway lighting designers, Broadway projection designers, fabricators.

Every show is bespoke and purposeful built just for this stage.

So it's what we used to think of in the old days as real regional theater, - [Bob] But not just any regional theater.

The list of stars who have performed at Ogunquit over nearly 100 years is a who's who of the greats of American stage and screen.

- This, the Ogunquit Playhouse was the only one built to be a big, world class, regional theater.

Way back in the 1930s, they could see a century ahead.

- [Bob] One thing they most likely did not anticipate was the development of television, the internet, and the explosion of in-home streaming options.

What is it that keeps live theater relevant in the age of Netflix?

- What's important today that hasn't really escaped any human is the sense to be able to gather, because people wanna be together.

That is a sense of community, a shared awareness of a journey.

If we're doing our jobs well, we are extraordinary storytellers telling all types of stories.

And the fact that you can sit next to someone, meet them, have a social moment, share a cocktail or a beverage or some kind of a refreshment, come back in after meeting that person and regather as a new community is wonderful.

Only really families and your best friends get to do it.

But going into a live theater venue gives you that ability to just be part of a community once again.

- [Bob] I'm always astonished at the quality of the productions at the Ogunquit.

But being a logistics nerd, I'm equally fascinated by how they move hundreds of cars in and out of there so quickly and efficiently.

- We are parking in pastoral fields basically around the playhouse.

And so the mechanics in the logistics of that are managed by a large front of house team, but hundreds of volunteers, many seniors actually, who form lifelong friendships.

We are very focused on people being able to get outta their homes and form new bonds.

And so a huge squad numbering in the hundreds operate this facility from May all the way into the month of November to keep people moving in a safe way.

We are on the middle of Route 1, and when people are coming in and out of our building and our facility, we could stop the traffic literally if we had to, 'cause 700 people are pouring onto Route 1.

So we will monitor and manage people going north in certain parking lots, people going south in certain kind of parking lots.

And if we're doing our job right, a hundred years later, I think we've almost figured it out.

How to keep people safe and get them in and on their way quickly.

- Okay.

- And as we are sitting here talking in 2025, the Ogunquit Playhouse is heading towards its next century as well.

So expect very soon, coming up in the next couple of years, I we're talking to the public about it now, the next century of the Ogunquit Playhouse will launch, with a full Broadway size theatrical stage house in the back there.

It is something that we used to have that was lost to the Ogunquit Playhouse in 1950.

A big hurricane came through, and it's time to restore her back to what she was, and get her back so her stories can be shared with the whole country.

So it's an exciting, new century is about to dawn here at the Ogunquit Playhouse.

- [Bob] There are dozens of used car dealerships along the length of Route 1, but this one is a little different.

Some of these cars look a little, well, vintage, shall we say.

Well, that makes sense because that's what they specialize in here at Motorland.

But it's not only a dealership, it's an amazing museum as well.

And it's the creation of a father and son team.

- And when we first opened the museum, my wife, who's not a car person at all, walked in and said, this is beautiful.

- What makes these cars so beautiful is really, the balance between the paint job, the chrome, the wheels, you know, the spindles on the wheels and just the way the windshield, the windshields are, and how they're cut.

- Part of it, Bob, is the design.

I mean these really are works of art.

And in those in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and even into the 50s, the designers were very important.

And then they had, you know, new body styles almost every year.

Today's cars, you can't tell them, they all look the same.

And maybe under the hood, they're a little bit more advanced.

But I, mean, you look at some of these cars and they're really extraordinary.

- And the big distinguishing feature between classic and modern cars, carburetor versus fuel injection system.

So no cars today are built with carburetors.

Carburetors were used almost exclusively for cars from the 1920s up until the 70s - [Bob] In a collection full of gorgeous, classic cars, including unusual entries like this Messerschmitt and this go-go mobile.

Two mini cars from Germany.

One car stands out.

This is a Tucker.

It was built in 1948, and it was light years ahead of the competition in terms of design, safety, and performance.

Only 50 were built.

This is number 48.

Because the company went bankrupt.

Some saved by nefarious means, enabled by the big three automakers of the era.

It has inspired a cult-like following and was the subject of a Francis Ford Coppola film with Jeff Bridges.

(upbeat music) - This car had an interesting provenance.

It was one of the seven cars that he took to the Indy 500 to be road tested.

- [Announcer] It is a big car, 130 inch wheel base, 1066 horsepower rear engine.

- And if you look inside, he made it so it would be safe.

Look, there's very little that can hit anybody.

And this car averaged 70 miles an hour rear engine for three days.

But one of the cars was going around and had a blowout.

He was going 90 miles an hour.

- [Announcer] Take a look this Tucker.

It doing over 95 miles an hour when it was turned over three times.

Yet they jacked it up, put on a new tire, and drove it away.

- Rolled over three times, and the driver walked out with no seat belts, with just a skinned elbow.

- [Announcer] Oh, by the way, the driver got only a scratch on his arm.

- He was gonna make the safest car.

- Yeah.

- Made 50.

He was sued, you know, he beat the big companies, he won the suit.

But it put him in bankruptcy.

You know, it's actually, it's an attractive car.

It's a very heavy car, Bob.

- And what makes this a very big draw to our museum is, as Miles mentioned earlier, the history.

But it is such a unique piece of engineering.

It was so innovative and stylish.

So it combines luxury with safety and performance as well.

And one of the most distinguishing features to this car is the middle headlamp right here.

And the middle headlamp goes in unison with the other two in terms of when it goes on and off.

But what the middle headlamp does is it turns with the wheel.

So if you're making a left, it arcs out to the left and that makes this vehicle very safe.

- [Bob] But there are countless challenges in maintaining a collection of this vintage and quality.

- [Miles] It's tough to find mechanics, and you know, one of our mechanics is 70, and another one is 65.

- [Gene] And we do have a gentleman also who's about my age, which we're very fortunate about.

So it is a challenge.

- [Miles] Yeah.

- But the more we do to keep this brand alive, the more it's gonna attract interest and learning how to work on these cars.

My real passion was the idea of keeping younger generations interested in an antique product and it's, you know, it's not really sustainable if everybody's gonna be over the age of 65, because then what happens?

So what I really like about our staff is that they would range in age from 15 to 70.

So Max over there was only 15 years old when he started.

This is something that we want to keep showing for years and years to come.

This is not gonna be, you know, just something that we temporarily open to the public, and then what happens to them, you don't know.

This is something that I really wanna see last through the ages, - [Bob] I couldn't help but think how much fun it would be to do the rest of my road trip in one of these babies.

And sure enough, it was like Miles was reading my mind because he did make me, well, kind of an offer.

- This is our 1913 Model T Ford, all original, and it still runs.

And it's possible that it could have been driving on Route 1 when Route 1 was first built.

But it certainly, it's had quite a history.

It's all original, Bob, and as I said, it still runs.

(Miles chuckling) - Now, that was an offer.

It was easy to refuse.

I mean, I am making the trip in a Ford, but mine is 107 years younger.

And as much as I hate to admit it, there are times when youth does indeed triumph over experience, especially that much experience.

In 1926, when Route 1 was officially designated a US Highway, a very enthusiastic reporter wrote a travel story that had a line that went something like this.

"Drive Route 1 and see the world."

Well, what may have been hyperbole a hundred years ago today is literally true.

That thing behind me is Eartha.

It's the largest rotating globe in the world, and it sits right here on Route 1 in Yarmouth.

Now Eartha looks great, all lit up in the evenings, but if you want to go inside, you're going to have to come back during business hours.

The giant globe was the brainchild of main mapmaker, David Delorme, whose company was beloved for their super detailed road atlases of the US.

When Delorme moved his company to their new headquarters in Yarmouth in the late 90s, he wanted to make a bold statement.

And that statement was Eartha.

Eartha was completed in 1998, and is a wonder of map making accuracy.

The scale is one to 1 million where one inch equals 16 miles.

At this scale, the Iberian Peninsula is just over three feet tall.

But it wasn't enough just to be big.

It had to be functional, and painstakingly accurate, too.

And tilt and rotate just like the real thing does.

Now I've sped up both actions using time-lapse photography to accentuate the movement.

But in real time, it takes 18 minutes for Eartha to simulate a full day's rotation and a yearly revolution around the sun.

Eartha is tilted at 23 and a half degrees just like our planet.

And the movements are powered by a pair of motors on a cantilever mound.

(upbeat music) But none of this occurs naturally.

It takes a lot of behind the scenes work to keep this world spinning.

- My name's Scott Dyer, and I am the facilities manager here at 2 Delorme Drive, which is the Garmin building.

And we have Eartha the globe behind me.

And one of my major jobs is to take care of, take care of the globe.

792 panels that make up the globe itself.

And it's attached to an aluminum frame.

Weighs close to 5,600 pounds, operated remotely with the computer.

I control it with an iPad.

We have it set automatically to run eight hours a day during the day.

(upbeat music) - There are three levels from which you can view Eartha.

On the ground floor, you get a good look at the southern hemisphere.

Here on the first floor, you get all the equatorial regions, and on the second floor, you get a good look at the northern hemisphere.

Scott invited me to Antarctica to get a look at the workings of Eartha.

- Come around this backside, Bob.

You can see the actual motor functioning, see.

See, this is the the drive for the globe itself.

And if you come over here, this is the motor that does the base.

See, we have 20 bolts surrounding the shaft of the globe.

These bolts are changed every six months, 'cause they worry about stress and having them snap.

I actually have a timer on the iPad here.

When this hits 180 days, the globe automatically stops, telling me, oh, it's time.

We need to change the bolts so it won't get lost in confusion.

So since we've changed them, we have the through bolts.

It takes an hour and a half to change all 20 bolts.

This is the upper drive.

The upper drive.

And this just controls the globe itself.

And you've got another drive like this down below for the base.

- [Bob] A couple of years ago, Garmin decided to give Eartha and the surrounding space a complete facelift.

- So two years ago, they replaced all the panels with a foam board, which should last over 20 years, if not more.

Had staging set up inside the pit.

Staging up to here.

So they're able to install just about half of the globe on staging.

And then they brought in a 40 foot lift in order to do the top half.

Each panel has longitudinal and latitude on the back.

We had an actual map in order to put the panels together.

Did the southern hemisphere first, and then the northern hemisphere after.

So just completely went around, and like you said, check your longitude and latitude and have at it.

- [Bob] The lobbies and displays were also freshened up.

and they added a cafe for visitors.

- But it went smoothly.

We projected eight weeks, we did it in six, from the removal of the panels to the addition of the new.

- Now, if it were only that simple to fix the real thing.

(upbeat music) Now you don't have to drive long on Route 1 before you come across what I call the three Ls of Maine.

There's lighthouses, and there's more than a few of those right along Route 1 up and down the coastal part of the state.

There's lobsters, and they come in all sizes and shapes.

And there's LL Bean.

Well, that's four Ls, but you get the drift.

Now this venerable retailer has been in business over a hundred years, and their flagship store on Main Street, Route 1 in Freeport is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

But they have a lot of other ways to remind you of their presence as you drive up and down Route 1.

Check it out.

The Boot Mobile joined the pantheon of rolling American brand mascots in 2012 as part of being's 100 year anniversary.

It is modeled after the retailer's signature product, the Maine hunting shoe, which was developed in 1912, and is probably the store's most recognizable product, and one which to this day is still made in a factory on Route 1 in Brunswick, Maine.

The Boot Mobile was an immediate hit, and another one was added the next year.

Today there are four Boot Mobiles built on a variety of chassis from Ford, Chevy and others.

The vehicle is about 13 feet tall, 20 feet long, and 7 feet wide.

And a real LL Bean boot of those proportions, would be a size 708.

Don't ask me whose job it is to figure things like that out.

They're used primarily at special events, store openings, and other promotional activities, and have traveled as far as Florida and Japan in their roles as goodwill ambassadors.

(bright music) (shutter clicking) It's the rare person who can see one without stopping to snap a picture or a selfie when a Boot Mobile is parked nearby.

(bright music) And they're a fairly common site as they travel up and down the state, and pass some other Route 1 icons.

(upbeat music) Now no road trip is complete without at least one meal in a nice little diner, and there are plenty to choose from along Route 1 here in Maine.

And I'm a born and bred Jersey boy, so I'm pretty fussy about my diners.

Now probably the most famous one is Moody's up in Waldoboro.

They're renowned for those giant pieces of pie that they serve, but my favorite is a little red building tucked off Route 1 in Brunswick, the Brunswick Diner.

Inside, they've got some great neon.

(upbeat music) They've got jukeboxes in every booth.

They've got friendly wait staff.

And most importantly, they've got some great diner food.

You won't be disappointed.

(upbeat music) When most people drive across the Damariscotta River on the bridge on Route 1, they don't realize that they're right at the epicenter of one of Maine's great seafood industries.

And that's because when you think seafood and Maine, you naturally think lobsters, and there's nothing wrong with that.

They're the mainstay of our seafood industry.

But coming up hard and fast on the inside lane are oysters.

Well, actually oysters have been around for a while, too.

In fact, there's evidence that ancestors of today's Wabanaki native people feasted on oysters along the banks of the Damariscotta River thousands of years ago.

The shell piles that they left, called middens, once lined the river, and proved to be archeological treasure troves.

Wild oysters nearly died out here during the early 20th century, when brick factories and logging mills lined the shores.

But as the factories closed and the river returned to a more natural state, conditions became more favorable for the oysters.

To help me understand why the Damariscotta River produces 80% of the state's entire oyster harvest, I turn to veteran oyster farmer Smokey McKeen, who has been operating here since the late 80s.

(shells clacking) - One of the interesting things about the Damariscotta River is that it's a large body of water that goes from the ocean, 12 miles up land, without losing any tide.

And it goes all the way to the village of Damariscotta.

So there's a lot of current, there's a lot of water coming in from the ocean, and not a lot of water draining from the land.

It gets very warm in the summertime, it gets up to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes the oysters grow fast.

That's I think, why there are so many oyster farms now.

There's 10 commercial farms in the river.

There were two or three when we started.

We all started about the same time, the first few farms.

We grow the seed in floating nursery cages, and in the middle of the summer we might have 1500 or more nursery bags out on the river in strings.

We have to maintain them by keeping 'em clean, so we flip them every couple of weeks.

The wrap is where we do all the nursery work, so we can store cages there, we have a grating machine where we put the seed in through drum grater that separates it for size, and then we decide on the densities in the bags.

So that's kind of our work platform for the summer.

There's several stages to the operations.

Some people asked me one time, how many times do you handle an oyster before it goes to market?

And it's gotta be, no kidding, it's gotta be fifty to a hundred times.

Every oyster gets moved.

- [Bob] You can get a firsthand, and very comfortable look, at all the movement of these oysters by joining one of the many river cruises that leave from the main dock in Damariscotta.

While they all offer views of the river, and an opportunity to taste the river's oysters, the designated oyster and wine tasting trips are my favorites.

Along the way, you get to see some of the action on the oyster farming platforms.

There's Smokey on his Pemaquid Oyster Company platform.

There's plenty of wildlife to be spotted in between courses of oysters and wine.

(upbeat music) An onboard sommelier will let you know exactly what you're drinking and eating.

(upbeat music) If it's an exceptionally hungry group of passengers, farm to boat deliveries of extra oysters can be arranged.

But this isn't the only way to sample the bounties of the Damariscotta River.

If you prefer land-based dining, nearly every town in the area has a couple of places that specialize in oysters, like this One located a half a block off Route 1 in Wiscasset.

Although oysters are the headliners, restaurateurs and oystermen, Ryan Jolie and Andy Rogers feature all locally sourced seafood, as well as meats and vegetables from nearby farms.

They source their oysters from local farms, as well as their own small stash on the Damariscotta, where they took me earlier before they opened.

(upbeat music) And this is where I learned firsthand that Smokey McKeen wasn't exaggerating when he talked about how many times an oyster was handled before it gets to market.

- [Ryan] We start off by putting our seed oysters in the flip bags, and then periodically we have to go out and flip these bags in order to prevent biofouling from happening on the bottoms of the bags.

So when the oysters get a little bit bigger, we'll then transfer them over to these self flipping bags (oysters clanking) That will go up and down with the tide.

And as they do that, the oysters inside will tumble.

Tumbling the oyster makes them become much plumper and a lot more uniform in shape.

(oysters clanking) So after we pull the oysters out of our flip bags, we'll then give 'em a nice little rinse off, and bring the live organisms out to our wet storage rafts, where they'll sit for a few weeks and purge out any sort of grit and sediment that might be in them.

- [Worker] Pull this over there.

(basket clinking) - [Ryan] When we need more stuff to bring up to our shop, grab what we need, and bring it in that day.

We pride ourselves on having some of the freshest oysters possible.

- [Bob] Damariscotta river oysters are renowned for their fresh, briny flavor, the flavor of the sea, and the salt air.

- [Ryan] They definitely get that brine because of that huge amount of ocean water brought in every day.

(machinery whirring) But it's just a very nutrient dense river to begin with.

And there's a 13 foot tide that happens every day.

So you're just constantly getting this changeover of sea water.

(oysters clanking) - [Bob] While Andy was loading the truck with the oysters to bring to the raw bar, I persuaded him to hang back a little, and give us a lesson in how to shuck an oyster.

(metal clanking) - So when you're learning how to shuck, it's important to be safe and use a towel and let the table do your work.

So I'm a hinge shucker.

I go in through this spot, here is the hinge.

If you found the spot, you can usually just pick the oyster up by it.

You go into your towel.

And so this is your protection right here.

So if anything goes wrong, you're going into the towel and not your hand.

Little wiggles.

And then you wanna pop it like that.

Scrape that out, scrape the bottom.

So you can see where that black dot is.

That's where it's connected.

You've got an oyster ready to eat.

- [Bob] You're about ready to go down to the the national shucking competition.

- Yeah, so shucking competitions are a fun, fun thing that I've discovered in the past few years.

And so it's about speed and cleanliness, and you're doing two dozen as fast as you can.

If there's a cut anywhere on the meat, then they'll add three seconds to your time.

So you can't have a cut anywhere on the meat.

And so they might even add three seconds for this little, see where that mantle's torn just slightly.

That's supposed to connect.

So that could be a penalty depending on how strict the judges are feeling.

I can go faster, but they don't look as pretty.

- Yeah, yeah.

In 2025, Andy came in fourth in the national contest.

All right, all right, thank you.

Oh, fantastic.

Now I've been practicing my oyster technique at home and I'm getting pretty good at it, but it's always faster and easier to leave the job to a true professional.

And since we've got a lot of miles still to cover, time is of the essence.

Still.

There are some things in life that shouldn't be rushed.

(upbeat music) ♪ Speeding along the lonely highway ♪ ♪ Singing a song to the rhythm of the road ♪ ♪ The sun's in the sky - [Bob] In the early years of the automobile, traveling along coastal Maine wasn't quite as easy as it is today.

For instance, if you wanted to get from Bucksport to Belfast, you had to take a big swing up river.

Unless, of course, you took the ferry.

It ran from Bucksport to Winterport, and it was 15 cents per pedestrian and a dollar for a car.

But eventually, the amount of traffic overwhelmed the ferry system.

Construction of the Waldo-Hancock Bridge began in 1929.

When it opened in 1931, it was an immediate and time saving success, and tourism along this stretch of coastal Route 1 took off.

- So the old bridge rusted a little too early.

That's salt water right there.

And salt and and metal don't work well together.

And it had vertical ropes where they stuck a needle into it to test it, and it went right through the other side.

So it was rotten to the core on multiple.

And they had to close traffic for the three years.

Two years for design, and another three years to build it.

It used to be side by side for about, I think it's seven years.

And they finally ended up dismantling it.

You couldn't blow it in place, you had to take it apart slowly.

And that was a lot of steel to come down.

Behind me is the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.

And above that is the Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory.

It's the tallest bridge observatory open to the public in the world.

There's an elevator inside.

A lot of people ask me if you can take the stairs.

The elevator takes you up to 400 feet.

Another two flights will take you to 420 feet with 360 degree panoramic views all around midcoast Maine.

It's on the Fort Knox historic site, which was used for the Civil War and in response to the War of 1812.

This though, is a part of Route 1, heading on your way towards Ellsworth and Acadia.

The bridge crosses 2,120 feet.

It was built in 2006 to 2007.

It is the world's tallest bridge observatory open to the public.

It's the tallest elevator in Maine, and the tallest occupied structure.

Seals come up in this, porpoise seals.

We got harbor, porpoise, harbor seals, gray seals, and they're coming in on the tide.

The open water's that way.

For every one gallon of fresh water, a thousand gallons of sea water push backwards, and the river flows backwards for about six hours till we reach high tide, and then it goes out again.

Yep, for twice a day.

You've heard me talk about the seals and the dolphins, the porpoise.

I've seen, I don't know if it's really dolphin.

It is harbor porpoise.

They're black fins.

We've even had a pilot whale make its way up this way before.

And it's coming from open water.

That's Fort Point over there.

And Belfast is just around the corner.

Stone work.

This is Waldo granite.

All of that right there is all granite.

Another cool thing, watch this.

You ready?

What's your favorite sports team?

- Cubs.

- Cubs.

Go Cubs!

Wait.

- [Echoing Voice] Go cubs!

- It takes 1.5 seconds for it to reflect off the back wall.

We're gonna go to the right.

There's nobody here now, so I was kind waiting for it to clear.

(bright music) Beautiful views.

The total tower height is 447.

It's taller than the Statue of Liberty.

- Wow.

- That's where the lightning rod is.

The camera there, I had to put a sign up here because we had people getting very amorous in that 50 seconds.

They didn't know they were on camera the whole time.

Yeah.

And so they were trying to be part of the 400 foot club, is what I used to joke about.

(upbeat music) Why was the Spanish-American War?

Why was America at war with the Spanish?

Well, they put 21 mines in this harbor, because the Spanish were gonna come all the way to Maine because they blew up the USS Maine, they must have it out for things named Maine, right?

And so we have to protect this harbor.

Cuba is way down south.

It was kind of a farce that they would actually mine the harbor.

But that was the last time Fort Knox ever sees battle.

575 soldiers in the first Connecticut put 21 mines out in the harbor to protect against the Spanish coming up this river.

They were never gonna do that.

They weren't gonna come this far.

And so that's the last days of Fort Knox being useful, right around 1900s.

(upbeat music) The fort was named after Revolutionary war hero, major General Henry Knox.

(upbeat music) Today the fort is an active museum, and it hosts historical reenactments and other events.

(bright music) Now, after a long day of sightseeing, I recommend grabbing a bite to eat in Bucksport and coming back to one of the pull offs around sunset.

The bridge is beautifully lit at night, and it makes for a striking site at the end of your day traveling on Route 1.

(upbeat music) - [Bob] As a veteran magazine shooter, I've photographed more than my fair share of road trip stories for a variety of publications.

So I'm usually pretty good at making the instant decisions as to what is worthy of a photo stop, and what to drive by.

Occasionally though, you miss the mark, but that's what brakes and steering wheels were invented for.

Black and white.

(shutter clicking) Color or both.

This place in Searsport was a treasure trove of signage, too.

But these only served to remind me that I had booked a lane in Ellsworth, and my time was coming up.

Candlepin Bowling is a sport born and bred in New England.

It traces its origins to 1880, when Justin "Pop" White introduced the game at his billiards and bowling hall in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The game featured distinctive, tall, narrow pins shaped like candles, and smaller handheld balls without finger holes.

Now unlike 10 pin bowling, players get three rolls per frame, and fallen pins or deadwood remain on the lane as potential obstacles or helpers, making the game far more challenging and strategic.

From its Worcester beginnings, candlepin quickly spread throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and into the Canadian Maritimes.

At its peak, the game thrived in local alleys, social clubs, and on regional television programs, but it never went national.

It's difficulty, high scores are rare, and perfect games are virtually impossible.

And the overwhelming popularity of 10 pin bowling kept candlepin largely a regional tradition.

But if you grew up in a remote area of one of those regions, candlepin was all you knew.

(upbeat music) - This was kind of the place to be growing up.

I didn't come very often, but it was definitely the spot to be for any indoor entertainment, as there was none in the area.

(upbeat music) (pins crashing) (upbeat music) Because to me, candle pin bowling was regular bowling.

I did not know at all that candlepin bowling was a dying sport, and that it was only a New England exclusive sport, either.

I came in as a customer basically five years ago with some friends, and the owner at the time told us that they would be closing down.

So they were looking to actually demolish the entire building.

So at the time I was 17, just about to turn 18 and I totally meant it as a joke, but asked him about, you know, what it would take to really take over the place and keep it running.

He asked me if I could do anything mechanically, and I told him yes, that growing up, I was very mechanical.

(upbeat music) I ran lane nine for his league that night.

(machine whirring) After the night ended, he approached me, and asked if I was serious about being interested in taking over the place.

(pins clacking) He said that he would be willing to do a three month trial period in which he would not charge me a dime, and would actually see if I was able to keep the place running and make a profit.

I started out in March of 2020, which was when COVID-19 hit.

And so I actually went $20,000 in debt the very first month of taking over.

Some of the problems that I faced running the place single-handedly as a teenager were, I mean so many, I had no idea that these pin setters behind me are actually the world's oldest and first ever automatic pin setters.

So they are actually prototypes from 1949.

So they did not make parts for these again.

These were made for testing purposes only, and were supposed to be here for only three months, and then replaced.

(pins clanking) I actually had really bad social anxiety, and I was quite frankly scared of the customers when they came in, not knowing how to explain to them kind of what was going on.

But basically you just go ahead, you do one ball at a time.

After your third ball goes down, it's gonna auto reset for you guys.

So it's gonna come down, reset your pins, and then move on to the next player on the screen.

(upbeat music) (pins clanking) - Got a nine.

- That's it.

- So for people to lean on, I was able to actually find a Facebook group that was candlepin owners and operators.

There, they actually share their own problems that they're facing in their own bowling alleys, or advice to be able to share with others.

(pins clanking) - [Player] That's a little suspect.

- But I had a lot of help from my mom.

She helped me in the background with basically paperwork things.

I did not know how to run a business, so she was an amazing help.

So I actually met my fiance and partner Ryan before I actually took over the bowling alley.

We've been together for seven years now.

And so he actually operates the restaurant portion of this.

We had talked about having a little one for quite a while, for a few years.

And I worked up until the day that I had him.

His name is Jackson, and he is actually now 10 months old.

I did a week with no work, and it drove me nuts.

So I came down, as soon as I stepped out back at the pin setters and the smell kind of hit me and I was like, I can't, I can't do this anymore.

I've gotta get back to work.

And because bedrest is just not my thing.

(pins whooshing) I really have just kind of realized that I probably do have an old soul.

So my whole goal of the place is to actually keep it retro.

First off, it was just about saving this place, because I knew that there was no other indoor entertainment.

Within the first couple months, I quickly learned that candlepin bowling was indeed only a New England sport.

And that, especially after COVID and during COVID, that the places were closing down very fast.

And so from there, the goal moved from, oh, just saving this local, you know, only indoor entertainment place, oh my gosh, I feel the need to try to save this entire sport.

- [Player] Oh, we got them all!

(bright music) - Well, something tells me I'm in just the right spot to learn all about Maine's wild blueberry culture.

Inside, you'll find anything and everything associated with wild blueberries, including drinks, foods, baked goods, merchandise, and a variety of educational displays.

But I was looking for my friends, wild blueberry farmers Marie and Del Emerson.

The founders of the Wild Blueberry Heritage Center.

And since it was the height of the harvesting season, I knew I'd find them just down the road at their farm.

- Well, you know the story behind it.

We have a farm here.

We've had the farm here a long time.

And we always fresh packed our blueberries, sold 'em to the public, and then one day, on the corner, on Route 1 and Route 187 on this little busy quarter it used to be.

So they took our precious farm berries, and started selling 'em up there.

And I said, oh dear, what are we going to do, Del?

And he said, well, just by the corner, put a little fruit stand up.

And I said, let's build a big blueberry.

- [Bob] Marie took her inspiration from a very unusual source.

- As I was always a big fan of Buckminster Filler.

He built the very first geodesic dome in the state of Maine on Bayer Island.

It takes the two wonderful things.

Takes the power of nature of the circle, and it takes the strongest thing of man, a triangle.

So it combines them together, and it makes it a beautiful building.

I think, you know.

(upbeat music) This part of Route 1 is truly down east.

You know, I mean this is the eastern most point of the country.

And you know, this is a special ecosystem.

It's, you know, it's the only one in the United States.

90% of all the wild blueberries in the United States are grown here in Washington County.

- But small, independent, wild blueberry farmers, like Marie and her husband Del, face a series of obstacles - As a blueberry farmer, there's a lot of challenges, right, in today's world, believe me.

'Cause the last, the biggest challenge this summer was the weather and the drought.

But we made it, with about 50% of our normal crop.

But that's farming, you know?

There's always next year, so that's good.

- [Bob] I asked Del what was unique about this crop?

- Well, the wild Maine blueberry is actually wild.

It grows wild.

We don't plant them.

They were planted here by Mother Nature about 12,000 years ago.

And they're still here.

That's the testimony to how tough they are.

- [Bob] That history is well documented inside the dome.

- The blueberry story is inside.

It tells everything from the geology of this wonderful plant, to the Native American story.

To the Civil War.

Dal likes to say because canning started right before the Civil War.

And it had, for the first time they thought about nutrition was in the Civil War, 'cause they had to feed all these troops, these young men, keep them healthy.

And so Del always said, yeah, it was the wild blueberries.

That was the magic bullet that won the war.

- [Bob] And once she dons her docents hat, Marie is only too happy to talk about the health benefits of wild blueberries.

- So I think wild blueberries really got put on the map for the health benefits in the 90s.

And that led to a lot of new products being developed.

And I have these products here to inspire other farmers to be innovative and think about how they can take their wild blueberries and add value.

We have beer, we have wine, we have kombucha, we have salad dressings, and we have jams and jellies, and barbecue sauces and cookies and ice creams, and just so many different variety of things that people can do with wild blueberries.

- [Bob] But what does the future hold for wild blueberries?

And just as importantly, the people who farm them.

- Del's been farming, of course, he started at the university in 1953, but of course, his family goes back 12 generations down east here.

So blueberrying is a part of the culture here.

Every kid, my kids, every kid, their grandparents, all raked blueberries for school clothes, you know, and to get by.

It's part of the what you do, you know?

It's just something everybody did growing up.

I don't think we'll ever retire, Bob.

You know, Del is 90 and this is his purpose.

You know?

His purpose is the farm, and you know, nature keeps you on schedule, you know?

And growing berries is like anything else, like baking a cake.

It's a recipe, and things need to be done on time.

Things need to be mowed.

And that really gives him a purpose to get up and get on the tractor and get out there and get things done.

And I feel the same way.

And I do love people, and I do love talking about what a special crop it is.

And I wanna see people enjoy themselves.

You know?

- [Bob] Shortly after Marie moved to Maine as a newlywed, her dad came from New Jersey for a visit.

- He didn't think Maine was great.

And he said, you know, Marie, I know it's not what I wanted for you, but he said, you go to bed early, you get up early, you have good friends, you have good neighbors, and it is truly the way life should be.

So the day that they unveiled that slogan was Maine, the way life should be.

And I remember thinking to myself, it is true about Maine.

It is the way life should be.

You do work hard, you don't have all the amenities, but they're not far away.

- [Bob] Speaking of amenities, I didn't know how many more of these I'd find on the rest of the trip, so we loaded up with some.

Got a few last drone shots of the blueberry itself.

Posed for the obligatory selfie on the blueberry throne, and hit the road once again.

From here on in, Route 1 leaves the coast, and makes its way north to the Canadian border.

When Route 1 leaves the coast, and the Atlantic slips away behind you, the road starts following old Wabanaki trails, quiet roots that once linked rivers, lakes, and hunting grounds.

The towns are spaced further apart, and the hills get greener.

This place is called the Million Dollar View, a pull off where the land opens up to lakes and low mountains, stretching forever.

It's the kind of place that makes you want to slow down, and take it all in, unless of course you're a local, with some place you just gotta be.

(car whooshing) There's not a lot in the way of roadside attractions to divert you, so you really have to keep your eyes open.

(tires screeching) Okay, what is that?

- So the Maine solar system model is positioned along Route 1, which here is a north-south running road, and the distance from the interstate I-95, the end of I-95, and the University of Maine Presque Isle is 40 miles.

And the distance between the Sun and Pluto is 40 astronomical units, and so that is a scale for this model.

One mile equals one astronomical unit.

So an astronomical unit is the distance from the sun to the earth, which in English, system is 93 million miles.

In metric system, it's a 150 million kilometers.

Hi, I'm Kevin McCartney, I'm coordinator of the main solar system model, which essentially now is 25 years old.

The Sun is at the University of Maine in Presque Isle, a mile away.

South is the Earth.

And then Mercury and Jupiter and Saturn and all the rest of them, all at scale, distances and diameters.

And one of its merits, besides being the largest scale model in the Western Hemisphere, is something that was built by the community of Northern Maine with a budget of zero.

That is 12 different schools participating in the construction of the various components.

All the materials and labor and permissions granted by people in this community.

You cannot drive from Pluto to the Sun without seeing somebody parked with a family of kids, or a class, or something like that at one of the planets.

This is now something that is very a part of Northern Maine.

(upbeat music) The University of Maine at Presque Isle campus has two suns.

The original sun, built 25 years ago, is in Folsom Hall, which is the building back behind this building.

But the problem with that sun is that people couldn't find it.

The most often asked question on the University of Maine campus is where's the sun?

So this past year, in preparation for the eclipse that came through this area, we built this outdoor sun right along Route 1, and everybody can see it.

So the main solar system model, at present, extends for about 90 miles from the Sun at the University of Maine of Presque Isle going south to Eris, which is in Washington County near the coast, 90 miles south.

But we are this very week, working to install two dwarf planets north of the sun, which will extend the total size from Eris to Makemake, the two most distant dwarf planets in our system, to 160 miles.

Northern Maine is one of the most interesting regions in all of the United States.

It's just full of moose and woods, and interesting people doing interesting projects.

(air whooshing) (upbeat music) - [Bob] The next stop is only a few miles, but at least a hundred years down the road.

- When you, you come to Van Buren, and you cut across on Route 1, you're cutting right through the heart of Northern Maine's Acadian country.

The first thing you're gonna come across is the Van Buren's Acadian Village.

And that is a group of buildings that they have preserved to show different stages of Acadian history and Acadian culture.

- We have about 17 buildings, all from different time periods.

Some are replicas, some are original.

So my name is Adriana.

I'm a tour guide here at the Acadian Village.

This is my second year working here.

Honestly, I enjoy it a lot as someone who is very interested in history and likes history.

It's the perfect place.

And as someone who is Acadian, it's just nice to see how, you know, my ancestors lived, and how they made their way through life coming down like, from Quebec, and like starting from nothing.

They just had like farmland.

It's just cool to see where we came from.

- [Bob] When you walk through these buildings, it doesn't feel like a museum.

It feels as if the inhabitants just stepped out for a moment and could be back at any time.

- [Adriana] In the early 1900s, the American government made it so there was no speaking of French in schools.

And it stinks, because I am French, like, my father's side is French, and he wasn't allowed to speak French in school.

It's mostly the older generation that speaks French like, fluently now.

But it is required one year of your high school to take French, but you only take French for one year.

That's not long enough to down a whole language.

So it makes it difficult.

The school room is cool, it's cool to see how, you know, kids were taught back then, and how like the whole like schooling was.

It went up to eighth grade, in one room schoolhouse.

It's just crazy how like, times have changed.

My favorite building, the chapel is very pretty.

It's hard to say, have a favorite, because I like them all.

(upbeat music) - [Ken] If you go a little bit further down, you're going to enter the town of Lille, where you're going to find a church that was closed down in the early 80s, but is being reconstructed by Don Cyr.

who is local to the Lille area.

And this church was built in 1908, 1909.

First mass was at New Year's Day, 1910.

When this parish was formed, it was just after the Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed.

That was 1843.

And so as a result of that, they wanted to separate from the diocese of New Brunswick.

So they petitioned the Pope in order to be able to accomplish that.

The Pope created the Diocese of Portland, Maine, and Manchester, New Hampshire.

- [Bob] But why were so many of these large Catholic churches suddenly closed up?

- What happened is, after the second ecumenical council, when family size was no longer being dictated by the church, it used to be that if you didn't have children fairly often, the priest might get on your case.

The result was that the family size decreased by an incredible amount.

It went from between 10 and 20 children to one or two children.

And so in 20 years, your parish is gone.

(upbeat music) So the building is unique in the state, too.

You know, it has a ancient Roman interior, and a French Baroque exterior.

As far as the restoration goes, we've got most of the outside done.

You know, the main auditorium is good for performances.

The sacristy in the back, which is what we use now for performances, seats a hundred people.

So there's a chance to do a lot of things in the future.

- [Ken] You travel a little bit further down the road, you're going to come to the Acadian Memorial landing site on the grounds of the Tante Blanche Museum, which is operated by the Madawaska Historical Society.

This was a site that was presented to the Historical Society in 1922, so they could mark the landing of the first Acadian settlers who had come to the area in 1785.

Every year, Madawaska celebrates their Arcadian festival, and during the festival, the town comes together to present local crafts, music.

- But we've been making traditional snowshoes now for over 50 years.

So we make something very unique.

We use the outside of the tree as the outside of the snowshoes.

We do all the process, and we have our own weaving patterns, and we even have a book on how to make 'em.

(upbeat music) - And they also take part in what is called a Tintamarre.

It's something that most Acadians around the world will do on that day.

They are presenting out to the world that even though the British American colonies during the (speaking in foreign language) had tried to erase us, we're still here, and we're still making noise, and we're not gonna go away.

- Hello, we did it.

- From Madawaska to Fort Kent, Route 1 tracks the St.

John River like a seam.

Through a broad agricultural valley dominated by farms, small towns, and factories.

And a history written in hay, potatoes, and timber.

When we hit Fort Kent, the end of the road was in sight.

I wasn't quite ready to wrap up my adventure just yet.

And since we were spending the night here, and there wouldn't be any more driving today, we decided to celebrate with an appropriate beverage before we got to mile post zero.

Well, here we are in Fort Kent, Maine.

The official beginning of us Route 1, America's first mile.

Well, that depends on how you make the trip.

I started in the south of Maine, and traveled Route 1 all through the state.

And the people I met, and the history I learned, made it one of the most fascinating road trips I've ever taken.

And as you can tell by looking at me, I've got some miles on me.

Now, since 1926, it's been possible to travel from Fort Kent, Maine, all the way to Key West, Florida, without ever leaving us Route 1, the Mother Road of the East Coast.

Now that would be a heck of a road trip.

I'm Bob Krist.

Thanks for joining me.

(bright music)