The wilds of Somerset County

Today I traveled to the town of Bingham in central Somerset County. As I'm prone to do, I took the back way.

Out of Hartland, Route 151 takes you to a wide spot in the road known to locals as the town of Athens. A store that sells groceries and hardware, a couple churches, many farms and a factory that makes wood pellets for heating are the main attractions. Instead of heading west toward Solon, which would have brought me to busy Route 201 and quickly to Bingham, I stayed on Route 151 north through Brighton Plantation.

For a good ten miles, there is almost nothing, not even telephone poles. The first part of the journey brings you steadily uphill, the second back the valley that contains the mighty Kennebec River. Picturesque views peep through the forest on both sides of the road, but they were quickly forgotten when I crested the hill. Suddenly, an expansive blue landscape stretched out in three directions. Lakes and small ponds could be seen looking down, but the eye is tugged toward the horizon, where a series of snow-capped mountain peaks loom toward the sky. These are the White Mountains.

The sudden beauty, as cliche as it sounds, took my breath away. My tires hit gravel on the shoulder of the road until I regained composure and jerked the car back to tar. If I wasn't trying to stay on schedule for my interview, I would've stopped and took it in for a while. I might have even taken some photos. For me, there's something in common between distant mountain ranges, empty oceans and crackling campfires: I could stare at them for hours.

When my family made the move last fall from beautiful coastal Bath, some people wondered why we'd trade that pristine environment for ultra-rural central Maine. If they could see a view like the one that startled me today on an barren road through out-of-the-way towns, they'd have their answer.