“Begin at the Congregational Church parking lot. 43° 51’ 24” N 69° 37’ 27’ W Set your odometer to 0.0 and you will be ready to go!” This was the beginning of the adventure for the 75 teams participating in The Great Boothbay Region Road Rally – including me!

The Road Rally was the brainchild of Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor member Marion Coleman, a self-professed “trivia nut.”

A group of members were called together in late spring by Interim Pastor Peter Ilgenfritz to come up with ideas to help the community after COVID-19 hit.

“I kept thinking about all of these families who haven’t been able to leave their house and go anywhere, who were going crazy, but they had no money to go anywhere,” Coleman said. Those thoughts led her to a college memory of a fraternity’s road rally race. Could we turn a race into a trivia scavenger hunt for the community?

All they needed to do was pay for gas. Why not? Coleman pitched the idea to the church group and Lee Corbin signed on immediately.

“We were a perfect match; me this trivia nut and Lee a former cartographer who knew how to use a compass,” said Coleman, laughing. “The whole time we did this over six days for about five hours each day, we kept doing this, we said this is really special. People will get so excited!”

Between them, Corbin and Coleman knew of several points of interest to include in The Great Boothbay Region Road Rally. And they discovered places while driving neither one had noticed before.

For example, the first route of the Rally sent participants to Southport Island. As they drove along Route 27, Coleman spotted a house on the left with all the cool animal carvings and statuary. “Lee said she had driven that road more times than she could count and never noticed Mike Bean’s house.”

They knew the coordinates, directions and mileage had to be correct. Coleman asked friends Ted and Betty Repa, who participate in Downeast Magazine’s Great Maine Scavenger Hunt every year, to weigh in on the Road Rally directions. The Repas gave it two thumbs up. Coleman asked her neighbors to follow the route directions and they reported it went great, and Corbin drove it three times to ensure the mileage was spot on. As Coleman said, “We had to do this to make sure we didn’t drive someone off a pier!”

The Hospitality Committee of the Congregational Church produced 100 packets that contained a green Rally pencil, bumper sticker, and the 14-page directional booklet. The packets were picked up outside the Church office entrance. Each team filled out the sign-out sheet – name, email, packet number, etc. and away they went!

Families and friends became teams going to 19 locations in Southport, Boothbay, East Boothbay and downtown Boothbay Harbor. Some of these were Dogfish Head Beach and Hendricks Head Light (from a distance); Southport Island Town Landing, the Rachel Carson memorial (thanks to Scott Larsen of Newagen Seaside Inn – it’s on his property); the “critter count” on Route 27 (thanks to homeowner name); Boothbay Region Land Trust’s Oak Point; Trevett Country Store, Ocean Point, the Mushroom House; in Boothbay Harbor: the Ernestina-Morrissey (from a short distance – Ross Branch removed the plastic sheeting so it could be seen); store owners at Eventide and Orne’s Candy Store gave team members a sweet treat. The Road Rally ended at the Footbridge.

And check this out: If you couldn’t do the whole trip in one day, the best places to stop for two to three-day trips were noted in the direction packet.

Another cool aspect was the history or background of each of the 19 points along the way. Coleman had a grand time fact finding. For those who went on this journey, it was a perfect blending of scenic rides, learning and team work – and taking selfies. And there were three trivia questions, which put a team in the running for one of three raffle prizes.

“What was hysterical, is we were working with a moving target!” shared Coleman. “The beautiful owl sculpture at Oak Point Farm was a focal point, but it was moved shortly after the Rally began. Lee and I had to open all of the packets and cross out the photo of the owl … under it we wrote ‘he flew away!’ The week before it ended (July 31) we had to reprint the Southport directions that had people taking Cross Road across the island because the bridge had reopened!”

And, once you did the rally, once you had the packet, you could do this trip again and again. Coleman is thinking about creating a generic doc that can be done anytime, just print out the 14 pages.

“I’d love to turn this into a tiny book to have available for $1. Do we do another edition next summer – maybe go out to Edgecomb …,” said Coleman, her voice trailing off, mind racing (you could just tell). “We should think about trying to get/raise some money to print off the booklets.”

As a participant, I have to tell you The Great Boothbay Region Road Rally was a great way to get to know the region – no matter how long you’ve lived here. It was, in short, a blast! For me, the Rachel Carson memorial was a first. Standing there, taking in the view Carson saw every day … the two Adirondack chairs placed where Carson and her friend Dorothy sat together the summer of 1962 before the author-environmentalist lost her battle with cancer … very moving. Thanks to Marion Coleman for adding information such as this. I spent a good 15 minutes just sitting there.

If you feel like you’ve missed out (and you have), and think having the road rally available all year is a good idea, email Marion at mariontcoleman@gmail.com or Heather Lorrain at the Congo Church at admin@congochurchbbh.org