Auburn, Maine



There are six ferries a day to Vinalhaven, fifteen miles out in West Penobscot Bay, where the lone Carnegie Library on an island resides.  If I didn’t make the third ferry of the day at 10:30 I’d have to take the noon ferry and return on the 3:15 pm ferry, the last of the day, arriving back in Rockland after sunset.  I was so intent on making that 10:30 ferry I set my alarm for 5:45.  

I was camped thirty-three miles away with lots of climbing ahead of me. I had hoped to get to within thirty miles, but I had my first flat since the beginning of these travels over two thousand miles ago half an hour before dark.  I hurriedly replaced the tube, deflated by a patch gone bad at a most inopportune time, and continued riding until it was too dark to continue.

There were more hills than I would have liked on my morning push to make the ferry, arriving with just five minutes to spare.  Twelve cars boarded before me, as many as the ferry could accommodate.  Bikes are charged $17.50 for a round trip, and the passenger goes free.  I, of course, was the lone cyclist.  About halfway there when we reached open water the ferry began swaying dramatically.  I had to lay down and curl up to ward off the motion-sickness I am prone to.  I nearly fell asleep I was so depleted from the effort I’d sustained to start the day.  After twenty minutes or so when the ferry came within the embrace of Vinalhaven I could arise and appreciate our picturesque entry to the ferry dock.

I had an hour and forty-five minutes to check out the library and explore the island a bit before the 1:30 ferry back.  The library was less than a mile away past a harbor full of boats.  There were stacks and stacks of traps for lobsters, the primary source of income for the island’s 1,400 residents, which doubles in the summer months.  The Prairie-style library, the lone such in Maine, was constructed of granite quarried on the island back when that rivaled lobsters for the island’s chief income.   The high-quality granite lives on in many prominent buildings including Chicago’s Board of Trade, the State Department building in the nation’s capital and the Washington Monument there, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The library had an addition behind it from funds raised by the locals in 2007.  The librarian expected a busy winter, as she said it had been a poor lobster season, meaning it would be a long, lean winter for many of the fisherman who would take advantage of the library more than usual. As I meandered around the island, the prime feature was neatly stacked piles of lobster traps in front of the small white-painted wooden homes.

When I began the day I had hoped I might arrive in Rockland well enough before the 10:30 ferry so I could visit its Carnegie enabling to be directly on my way out of town when I returned from Vinalhaven to pile up the miles in the ninety minutes before dark.  But since I arrived in Rockland with no time to spare I had to visit its library after Vinalhaven, cutting into that valuable riding time.

The castle of a building looked out on a large expanse of grass.  Behind it was an expansive addition.  It guarded its Wi-Fi with a password of love2read.  I wanted to check to see if there had been a change in the forecast of rain starting at nine the next morning.  It had been pushed back to ten, just what I needed to reach the next Carnegie In Gardiner forty miles away before I started getting wet.  I was glad I hadn’t rushed to see it before the ferry, as I might not have been able to appreciate its palatial domed entry overseen by the Carnegie portrait.

If I didn’t need to get down the road as far as possible, I would have stopped at the Walmart for a half gallon of chocolate milk and other supplies, but I didn't wish to spare the time.  As it was, I closed to within thirty miles of Gardiner before camping and got another early start.  The precipitation came a little early at 9:30 and with it just above freezing it was some light flurries, not a nuisance at all.  

I was surprised to see a year of 1881 above the entry to the library, two years before Carnegie's first funding of a library in his Scottish hometown of Dumferline.  I asked the librarian if Carnegie had funded the library.  She said no.  Wikipedia wrong again.  She didn’t leave it at that and checked the mainememory.net website for more information. It stated that Carnegie supplemented the Gardiner in construction in 1887 with a grant of $2,500, his smallest in Maine and perhaps anywhere, and acknowledged that many don’t consider Gardiner a Carnegie, including the librarian who was helping me.  She said she had previously worked at the Lithgow library in Augusta, six miles north, and Carnegie  had contributed $7,500 to it.  Wikipedia didn’t include that among the twenty Carnegies in Maine, nor did the Maine Memory website, though it qualified more than the Gardiner library.

I had been disappointed that Augusta hadn’t been listed as having a Carnegie, as I would have liked to visit the state capital.  Now I could.  It was a pleasant ride on a bike path sandwiched between railroad tracks and the Kennebec River, though a periodic semi-blanket of wet leaves restrained my speed.  It was a steep climb up from the river to the granite fortress of a  library, which had a whole block to itself, a good portion of which was a grassy field.  

The librarian there wasn’t sure of the Carnegie connection, but a newspaper article she dug out from 1990 tracing the history of the library acknowledged that Carnegie had made the largest contribution for its construction, supplementing the  $20,000 that Llewelyn Lithgow, a local businessman, had left in his will for a library to bear his name. The librarian said that there are those who believe Llewelyn pays visits to the library, not the first haunted library I’ve come upon.

A mile a way on State Street past a roundabout stood the domed capital building, the second of these travels. Vermont’s in Montpelier is topped by a little more striking golden dome.

The thirty-one miles from Augusta to Lewiston was on a busy road.  The snow flurries were into their third hour by now and though they weren’t collecting there were snow plows out spreading salt driving along at a slightly slower speed than the traffic.  Each was tailed by a long line of cars. It made it a little treacherous when this long procession came up from behind me, led by the monster truck with the extension of its plow encroaching upon the space between us.

I arrived in Lewiston over an hour later than I expected having to make a detour up to Augusta. Dark was closing in.  The library was just off a narrow street that was a virtual pedestrian walkway lined with shops and cafes.  The substantial granite building was overwhelmed by a huge multi-story addition to serve the city’s 37,000 residents, second most in the state.  

I was damp, and with the temperature never getting much above freezing all day I was in a need of a motel.  Travel Advisor listed an Econo Lodge with breakfast six miles south by the airport in the direction I was headed.  But first was the Carnegie Library in Auburn, sister city of Lewiston, just across the Androscoggin River. With a substantial population of 24,000 it’s library too had had a large, but less obtrusive addition.  It had a tower and entry of arches virtually identical to the Carnegie in Waterville.   I was surprised there was enough light to capture a photo of it.

I was lucky there was a wide shoulder on the road to the Econo Lodge, and also that I had brought along a reflective vest, which I have gotten a lot more use of than I ever expected. With it dark by 4:30 and less than ten hours of light a day, I very much need it.  I was passing through a forest that called out to be camped in, but I didn’t dare.  And no worries of the Econo Lodge being full, as it was a huge two-story complex with only a few cars and large trucks from the nearby Maine Turnpike parked down the two long flanks of rooms.  There is no precipitation in the forecast for the next week, so hopefully this is my last indoor sleeping until I stop in on Laura and Ken in Williamstown in five days.