When Aroostook NWR was a Secret Air Base

Saturday morning, I took an early bike ride along the auto tour and found the tour ended up at the secret Air Base for Surface to Air Missiles. While the base is not part of the refuge, the nuclear storage facility is and the gates are open one one can go in and explore.  Some of the doors are off the missile silos, so I even checked inside.

Map of Loring Air Force Base as it is today

Map of the nucular storage area

One of the bunkered buildings

A long view on the Nuclear Storage Facility

Now the area is for meadow dwelling birds, including upland sandpipers
 - but this here is a song sparrow

The road not taken - THEN I found it went to moose and eagle observing area 

Another building

Some of the bomb bunkers

The spider webs were glowing in the early light

Bomb bunkers

Loved the bluebird house on the front

I've never seen this type of light- they lined the bunkers

Another closed-up building

Then I took some roads off the loop road that is part of the driving tour, and eventually ran out of roads. So my bike and I tried to cut another road or trail, rather unsuccessfully. I was stubborn enough to drag my bike through brush, some of it chest high, for over a quarter of a mile.  Finally I had to go back the way I'd come. I ended up doing almost fourteen miles, about two of it on foot pushing the bike. But it was a beautiful trip.

After I ate a late breakfast I went to visit the nature center and chat with a local volunteer who was managing it. She told me that Lake Loring was just down the road I did not travel.  And it is prime moose country.  I hoped to visit it before I leave here by mid Sunday morning, to head to Baxter State Park, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

Sunday was dark and rainy, so I abandoned plans to explore more and just hung out and got my stuff into the car between showers. Something told me to check to be sure I had my tent.  Sure enough, I had my winter clothes bag instead of my tent bag. So Sunday consisted of driving seven hours to retrieve it, before going to Baxter.  Currently I'm recuperating from yesterday's. hike.  

A Visit to Aroostook NWR

One of the refuges managed with Moosehorn NWR is almost three  hours of driving away in northern Maine, in Aroostook County. I was under the control of my milkweed and was forced to stay in Moosehorn instead of getting to spend four days at Aroostook NWR earlier this summer.

So, after my marathon planting of milkweed was over,  my boss let me come up and stay in a volunteer trailer. I came up Friday in a fog most of the way, which finally turned into beautiful clouds as I reached Aroostook county.  I think most of its economics is based on forestry and potatoes. There were potato stands along the road - and the road was full of logging trucks - as well as potato fields waiting to be harvested and fields full of workers packing the potatoes into boxes for shipment.

I never found the name of this river, but it made for a view I had to stop for

Loved the pop of these building against the still dark clouds

Not sure what this shrub was - but it smelled terrific and the honey bees
and bumblebees were going crazy over it

The light was making fantastic paintings as the southeastern skies cleared

The light and the textures were amazing - the dark green from the lower left is a potato field

Sunflowers added happy notes

More beautiful lands and sky

This is part of why the three hour trip lasted five hours

Another light painting of a fabulous landscape

By the time I had moved my food and other items from the car to the trailer, it felt like hammock time.  So I strung my hammock and read and dozed until the day turned to late afternoon.  Then I went on a hike.

The trail at Aroostook starts off like this before dividing into three trails

I found one shrub already turning red

I loved the reflection of the clouds on one of the ponds

This was one of the beautiful view through the woods - had to use my low- light setting to capture it

Shelf mushrooms that caught in a beam of light

Sky loveliness doubled

The most beautiful mushroom I found

 On the way back to the Nature Center, I noticed a huge field with what looked like a spectacular sunset in the making. I walked towards the sun and soon found myself on a huge runway.  I had found Loring Air Force Base, formerly very important to the cold war. It apparently was huge, in its time and had civilians and military living on it. It also had a secret nuclear storage area.

I took this picture early and late - this is the late version

The sky just stayed fantastic while it continuously changed

Some of the Loring Air Force buildings against the sky

 Before I got much past the runways and parking lots, I was tired enough to head back to the trailer.  I enjoyed a lovely meal of my own hubbard squash, sliced and sauteed to a golden brown, and sliced heirloom tomatoes before falling into bed.  I've had another exciting experience since then - it will have to wait for my next post. 

Now I need to buy a shower curtain so I can get one bath in before heading to Baxter State Park, which doesn't have any water unless you swim in it.