Pineo Ridge
Each month, Down East editors select our favorite response to “Where in Maine?” Here is our favorite letter from August’s photo.
Pineo Ridge! That we can name this venerable survey feature is the height of irony. We have covered the Maine coast comprehensively, but only by water: we have been cruising the coast of Maine for the past 15 years. We’d never even been east of Rockport by car until that day we found ourselves on Route 1 in Machias, having just had lunch at Helen’s and returning to the airport after several weeks on the boat. Driving west, we saw a sign for the Pleasant River Fish and Game Club and made a quick decision to have a look at this Pleasant River. We never did find it. Instead, we found ourselves hopelessly lost, driving a forlorn ridge on a rutted dirt road in mud season. The feeling of driving along this spine of a road fascinated us, so we kept on, ignoring every warning sign along the way: the increasingly rutted road, bigger and bigger potholes, the ever-muddier terrain. Were it not for the good samaritan who helped us, we would still be stuck in the mud on Pineo Ridge, midway between the towns of Cherryfield and Columbia Falls. The thought of that good samaritan never fails to bring a smile to our faces.
— John, Silvana, and Liam Jacobsen, Starboard, Maine
