Thursday, August 7, 2008
Update on Bicyclists
Hey all. We received an e-mail today from Jon and Luc, the cross-continental cyclists we met in Quebec. They reached their destination. Final stats: 6,250 kilometers (3,883 miles) in 57 days.
Monday, July 21, 2008
T's Final Thoughts
I had 2 games to occupy my attention while riding on the back - the license tag game and a scavenger hunt.
For anyone keeping tally...
I saw 41 US States, 3 Mexican States, and 5 Canadian Provinces.
I found 10 of 14 items on my scavenger hunt.
-I did see a hot air balloon but did not get a picture.
-All well known logos are in English even in a foreign country.
-I bought a local little league shirt on sale ($2) during Midnight Madness, but the intent was to get a souvenior from a local baseball game.
-As for the Donkey Tattoo -- if you know the whole story about that, then you know that we could not take care of that item without Swish.
Of course, what is the fun in a scavenger hunt if you actually do "find" everything.
For anyone keeping tally...
I saw 41 US States, 3 Mexican States, and 5 Canadian Provinces.
I found 10 of 14 items on my scavenger hunt.
-I did see a hot air balloon but did not get a picture.
-All well known logos are in English even in a foreign country.
-I bought a local little league shirt on sale ($2) during Midnight Madness, but the intent was to get a souvenior from a local baseball game.
-As for the Donkey Tattoo -- if you know the whole story about that, then you know that we could not take care of that item without Swish.
Of course, what is the fun in a scavenger hunt if you actually do "find" everything.
Cooperstown and the Highway
Waking in Bennington on Friday we both wanted to stay in bed. After finally adjusting to the early sunrises, we were both starting to enjoy sleeping in a little bit. Still…we had a long day ahead of us and it needed to get going. After repacking our gear (something we had become quite efficient at by this point in our trip) we headed back to the Blue Benn diner to enjoy another hearty breakfast before hitting the road.
While getting the bike loaded up to check out of the hotel we began talking to an older couple staying at the same place. They were from Columbia, South Carolina and were also departing this day. Interestingly, this couple represented the only Southerners we encountered during the entire trip. When we arrived at the Blue Benn, we again sat at the counter. We had barely gotten our coffee when the seats beside us were filled by…yep…this same nice couple from South Carolina. They had been on the road for two weeks and us a week and half. We swapped some stories from the road. This was our second consecutive Friday morning breakfast at the Blue Benn so T confidently shared the ins and outs with them (for instance there was a menu, but probably twice as many offerings posted on the back wall in hand-lettered signs on notebook paper).
After breakfast we hit the road to Cooperstown, NY, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooperstown was not very far out of our way home and who knew if we would ever be in this vicinity again with as much freedom over our schedule, so we decided to stop by. We had printed up directions the previous day from Mapquest about taking back roads to Cooperstown. This eventually led us to take our only serious wrong turn of the entire trip. The expressways around Albany, NY are confusingly designed with the sole intent being to get an extra 60 cents of toll out of each vehicle rather than being easy to understand. We missed our exit and had to backtrack a little bit, but probably didn’t lose any time.
Just outside of Albany we left the interstates and rode about 60 miles of rural New York roads to Cooperstown. I’ve never been in upstate New York prior to this trip. It’s actually quite scenic with many small towns, farms, lakes, and hills along the way. As we approached Cooperstown we came to a large lake in a valley. We followed the lake’s shoreline for about 10 miles before reaching the village.
Cooperstown is a very picturesque small town. It takes its name from the father of James Fenimore Cooper, author of the Leatherstocking Tales. Today it is synonymous with baseball. Tradition holds that Abner Doubleday invented the American Pastime in a pasture within the village in 1839. Today, the downtown streets are lined with baseball souvenir shops, with the Hall of Fame located just on the edge of the shops. Being on a motorcycle benefited us again as we were able to find a small parking place downtown rather than having to park a mile or so out and take the bus to the Hall.
We spent a few hours exploring the Hall. I enjoy the game of baseball. I like watching postseason games on TV. I really enjoy going to a live game, at any level, sitting outdoors and watching the pastoral, game. Even more than that I think the history buff in me appreciates baseball’s place in our nation’s pop culture history. I will never know what it’s like to listen to a radio broadcast while Babe Ruth hits a home run, Ty Cobb steals a base, or Don Larsen pitched the World Series’ only perfect game. I can only imagine what that must have been like to young people, be they from the cities or on the farms with more limited horizons than people of my generation enjoy, listening to the exploits of these greater-than-life heroes. One of the things that brought this home to me was overhearing the numerous fathers and sons discussing the records of sports stars that we all share in common. Even when a man has the most outrageous New York City accent, a Southern boy like me can’t help but feel commonality with him as he tells his son with a true sense of wonder in his voice, “Ty Cobb had a .367 lifetime batting average. Son, that’s something we’ll never see again!” Yes…it’s fair to say that I enjoyed the Hall of Fame.
We left the Hall around 2:30. We called a few people back home to find out how many miles it was from Cooperstown to home (680) so that we could set our goal for the rest of the day. Now that we were through visiting sites, we had both decided that we wanted to be home Saturday night. We set a goal of riding another 280 miles that afternoon, feeling that we could do the remaining 400 in one day and arrive home to sleep in our beds and recover for a full day before returning to work.
We hit the road and after hitting a few stretches of road construction we started to hit our stride. We were helped right at the NY – PA border when we hit a long back up of traffic. We turned off an exit and a biker, noticing our baggage, asked us where we were headed. When we told him we were taking I-81 south through Pennsylvania he gave us quick instructions as to how to get around the immense back up. Soon we were around the traffic (probably saving us a half hour) and on our way. After a couple of stops for gas and for dinner we finally made our 280 miles around 9PM that night. We briefly considered riding on for another half hour to an hour but instead got a room at the Super 8 in Carlisle, PA. We quickly researched how long our ride would be the next day (approximately 7 hours of road time) and were quickly asleep.
Saturday we hit the road early with the hope of making it home by late afternoon. In Manchester, NH a few days earlier we had been in the mood for Mexican food. We asked the staff at our hotel where a Mexican place was. Their response was that Chili’s was just down the street. Yes…Chili’s the chain restaurant. Needless to say this was not what we were looking for and we had been in the mood for Mexican food since. Our trip today was going to put us in Harrisonburg, VA around lunchtime. Harrisonburg is the home of James Madison University and we have some friends who when to school there. As we were riding down the interstate, T text-messaged these friends and got a recommendation for a Mexican place. We found it with no problems and gorged ourselves.
After lunch we hit the road. We made a few stops along the way as we had some soreness to overcome that kept us from riding for much longer than an hour for any stretch. About 3 hours after lunch we hit the North Carolina state line. Within 45 minutes of this we were pulling into our driveway our journey complete.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Laughter is good for the soul. I was very interested that the exhibit garnering the most devoted attention at the baseball hall of fame was a video screen playing Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine.
While getting the bike loaded up to check out of the hotel we began talking to an older couple staying at the same place. They were from Columbia, South Carolina and were also departing this day. Interestingly, this couple represented the only Southerners we encountered during the entire trip. When we arrived at the Blue Benn, we again sat at the counter. We had barely gotten our coffee when the seats beside us were filled by…yep…this same nice couple from South Carolina. They had been on the road for two weeks and us a week and half. We swapped some stories from the road. This was our second consecutive Friday morning breakfast at the Blue Benn so T confidently shared the ins and outs with them (for instance there was a menu, but probably twice as many offerings posted on the back wall in hand-lettered signs on notebook paper).
After breakfast we hit the road to Cooperstown, NY, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooperstown was not very far out of our way home and who knew if we would ever be in this vicinity again with as much freedom over our schedule, so we decided to stop by. We had printed up directions the previous day from Mapquest about taking back roads to Cooperstown. This eventually led us to take our only serious wrong turn of the entire trip. The expressways around Albany, NY are confusingly designed with the sole intent being to get an extra 60 cents of toll out of each vehicle rather than being easy to understand. We missed our exit and had to backtrack a little bit, but probably didn’t lose any time.
Just outside of Albany we left the interstates and rode about 60 miles of rural New York roads to Cooperstown. I’ve never been in upstate New York prior to this trip. It’s actually quite scenic with many small towns, farms, lakes, and hills along the way. As we approached Cooperstown we came to a large lake in a valley. We followed the lake’s shoreline for about 10 miles before reaching the village.
Cooperstown is a very picturesque small town. It takes its name from the father of James Fenimore Cooper, author of the Leatherstocking Tales. Today it is synonymous with baseball. Tradition holds that Abner Doubleday invented the American Pastime in a pasture within the village in 1839. Today, the downtown streets are lined with baseball souvenir shops, with the Hall of Fame located just on the edge of the shops. Being on a motorcycle benefited us again as we were able to find a small parking place downtown rather than having to park a mile or so out and take the bus to the Hall.
We spent a few hours exploring the Hall. I enjoy the game of baseball. I like watching postseason games on TV. I really enjoy going to a live game, at any level, sitting outdoors and watching the pastoral, game. Even more than that I think the history buff in me appreciates baseball’s place in our nation’s pop culture history. I will never know what it’s like to listen to a radio broadcast while Babe Ruth hits a home run, Ty Cobb steals a base, or Don Larsen pitched the World Series’ only perfect game. I can only imagine what that must have been like to young people, be they from the cities or on the farms with more limited horizons than people of my generation enjoy, listening to the exploits of these greater-than-life heroes. One of the things that brought this home to me was overhearing the numerous fathers and sons discussing the records of sports stars that we all share in common. Even when a man has the most outrageous New York City accent, a Southern boy like me can’t help but feel commonality with him as he tells his son with a true sense of wonder in his voice, “Ty Cobb had a .367 lifetime batting average. Son, that’s something we’ll never see again!” Yes…it’s fair to say that I enjoyed the Hall of Fame.
We left the Hall around 2:30. We called a few people back home to find out how many miles it was from Cooperstown to home (680) so that we could set our goal for the rest of the day. Now that we were through visiting sites, we had both decided that we wanted to be home Saturday night. We set a goal of riding another 280 miles that afternoon, feeling that we could do the remaining 400 in one day and arrive home to sleep in our beds and recover for a full day before returning to work.
We hit the road and after hitting a few stretches of road construction we started to hit our stride. We were helped right at the NY – PA border when we hit a long back up of traffic. We turned off an exit and a biker, noticing our baggage, asked us where we were headed. When we told him we were taking I-81 south through Pennsylvania he gave us quick instructions as to how to get around the immense back up. Soon we were around the traffic (probably saving us a half hour) and on our way. After a couple of stops for gas and for dinner we finally made our 280 miles around 9PM that night. We briefly considered riding on for another half hour to an hour but instead got a room at the Super 8 in Carlisle, PA. We quickly researched how long our ride would be the next day (approximately 7 hours of road time) and were quickly asleep.
Saturday we hit the road early with the hope of making it home by late afternoon. In Manchester, NH a few days earlier we had been in the mood for Mexican food. We asked the staff at our hotel where a Mexican place was. Their response was that Chili’s was just down the street. Yes…Chili’s the chain restaurant. Needless to say this was not what we were looking for and we had been in the mood for Mexican food since. Our trip today was going to put us in Harrisonburg, VA around lunchtime. Harrisonburg is the home of James Madison University and we have some friends who when to school there. As we were riding down the interstate, T text-messaged these friends and got a recommendation for a Mexican place. We found it with no problems and gorged ourselves.
After lunch we hit the road. We made a few stops along the way as we had some soreness to overcome that kept us from riding for much longer than an hour for any stretch. About 3 hours after lunch we hit the North Carolina state line. Within 45 minutes of this we were pulling into our driveway our journey complete.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Laughter is good for the soul. I was very interested that the exhibit garnering the most devoted attention at the baseball hall of fame was a video screen playing Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine.
Midnight Madness in Bennington
After resting up for a couple of hours we showered up and headed toward Main Street in Bennington to find some dinner and enjoy the annual Midnight Madness being held Thursday evening. We had a quick supper at a pizzeria and then begin walking around window-shopping.
Midnight Madness is an annual event in Bennington where the downtown merchants offer inviting sales and keep their doors open late into the evening. When we had been in Bennington the previous Thursday evening downtown was nearly deserted by 7PM. When we visited the Madison Brewing Company’s pub we were among only a handful of patrons there. By the time we left around 10PM the pub was closing. This evening the downtown streets were filled with people.
It was interesting because there wasn’t any public entertainment or other festival type of attractions to incent people to come out. They were just there because, for this one evening each year, downtown didn’t close at 5PM. In a telling statement about small-town Vermont, while the event was called Midnight Madness, the event only lasted from 7PM to 11PM. Most of the folks that had come out were younger. Some of them told us that they always came out for this, but when we asked they couldn’t really tell us why. I guess it was just a habit at this point.
After browsing awhile, we headed over to Madison to sit for a spell. This evening the bar was nearly full. We grabbed a couple of stools and ordered a beer. Soon a couple in their early 20’s sat next to us and ordered two shots of Jaeger and two drinks. T asked them if that was how you were supposed to drink in Vermont. The young lady, Melissa, had just gotten a new piercing and was trying to dull the pain with a couple of drinks. I asked her if her new piercing was for a special occasion and she said that she always got one during Midnight Madness.
Midnight Madness was an exciting evening for them because it provided nightlife in their town if even for just one evening. We both grew up in small towns, much smaller than Bennington for that matter. However our hometowns are close enough to a larger city, Winston-Salem, that we didn’t feel quite the same isolation that young people growing up and living in Bennington must feel. Bennington, which appeared to be similar in size to Elkin, NC, is the largest town within 45 miles. The nearest city is Albany, NY, but it is 45 miles of 2-lane country roads away. Albany is not a convenient option for big-city amenities for the folks from Bennington. I asked if they ever went into Albany for entertainment. Rick said that he had relatives there, but it wasn’t a “place with nice people” you would go to for fun.
At this point it was nearing 7PM and the start of Midnight Festival. Rick and Melissa headed out. T also went down the street to go in a shop that had interested her, but which didn’t open until 7. While she was gone I started talking with another young man at the bar named Rob. He had relocated to Bennington from New York City last November. He and his wife had a baby girl, which made the offer for Rob to teach theater arts at the small college in Bennington very appealing. Rob had been involved with the production of several off-Broadway shows before leaving and enjoyed helping his students produce their own productions. He had come out to Midnight Madness because he had won the coin toss with his wife over who would get to come out and who would stay behind with the baby. T got back soon after I began talking to Rob. He offered to buy us a drink, but thinking of how Michel had treated us in Quebec we insisted that we buy him a beer instead. We both enjoyed our visit with him. He was very passionate about his family, his work at the college, and his dream of bringing more performing arts entertainment to this small town.
We decided to go and walk around for a bit and see what was happening. The blocked off portion of the street wasn’t very big; probably no more than 3 blocks of main street, representing maybe 300 yards of streetfront. Still, the road was surprisingly packed with an impressive throng of people filling up Main Street. Again, there was no live entertainment, no fair games or rides, nothing really to entice a lot of people to come out and mill about in the street. Bennington is not a very touristy town and I imagine that T and I, if not the only tourists at the event, were among a very small number of out-of-towners there. We enjoyed the festival until it winded down around 11PM and turned in for the evening. We had a long day ahead of us on Friday.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Home is never far away -- I saw a wine bottle from Rag Apple Lassie in the display of a Bennington shop. (Unfortunately, the owners did not know anything about the vineyard -- the bottle came with the wine stoppers that the store was selling.)
Midnight Madness is an annual event in Bennington where the downtown merchants offer inviting sales and keep their doors open late into the evening. When we had been in Bennington the previous Thursday evening downtown was nearly deserted by 7PM. When we visited the Madison Brewing Company’s pub we were among only a handful of patrons there. By the time we left around 10PM the pub was closing. This evening the downtown streets were filled with people.
It was interesting because there wasn’t any public entertainment or other festival type of attractions to incent people to come out. They were just there because, for this one evening each year, downtown didn’t close at 5PM. In a telling statement about small-town Vermont, while the event was called Midnight Madness, the event only lasted from 7PM to 11PM. Most of the folks that had come out were younger. Some of them told us that they always came out for this, but when we asked they couldn’t really tell us why. I guess it was just a habit at this point.
After browsing awhile, we headed over to Madison to sit for a spell. This evening the bar was nearly full. We grabbed a couple of stools and ordered a beer. Soon a couple in their early 20’s sat next to us and ordered two shots of Jaeger and two drinks. T asked them if that was how you were supposed to drink in Vermont. The young lady, Melissa, had just gotten a new piercing and was trying to dull the pain with a couple of drinks. I asked her if her new piercing was for a special occasion and she said that she always got one during Midnight Madness.
Midnight Madness was an exciting evening for them because it provided nightlife in their town if even for just one evening. We both grew up in small towns, much smaller than Bennington for that matter. However our hometowns are close enough to a larger city, Winston-Salem, that we didn’t feel quite the same isolation that young people growing up and living in Bennington must feel. Bennington, which appeared to be similar in size to Elkin, NC, is the largest town within 45 miles. The nearest city is Albany, NY, but it is 45 miles of 2-lane country roads away. Albany is not a convenient option for big-city amenities for the folks from Bennington. I asked if they ever went into Albany for entertainment. Rick said that he had relatives there, but it wasn’t a “place with nice people” you would go to for fun.
At this point it was nearing 7PM and the start of Midnight Festival. Rick and Melissa headed out. T also went down the street to go in a shop that had interested her, but which didn’t open until 7. While she was gone I started talking with another young man at the bar named Rob. He had relocated to Bennington from New York City last November. He and his wife had a baby girl, which made the offer for Rob to teach theater arts at the small college in Bennington very appealing. Rob had been involved with the production of several off-Broadway shows before leaving and enjoyed helping his students produce their own productions. He had come out to Midnight Madness because he had won the coin toss with his wife over who would get to come out and who would stay behind with the baby. T got back soon after I began talking to Rob. He offered to buy us a drink, but thinking of how Michel had treated us in Quebec we insisted that we buy him a beer instead. We both enjoyed our visit with him. He was very passionate about his family, his work at the college, and his dream of bringing more performing arts entertainment to this small town.
We decided to go and walk around for a bit and see what was happening. The blocked off portion of the street wasn’t very big; probably no more than 3 blocks of main street, representing maybe 300 yards of streetfront. Still, the road was surprisingly packed with an impressive throng of people filling up Main Street. Again, there was no live entertainment, no fair games or rides, nothing really to entice a lot of people to come out and mill about in the street. Bennington is not a very touristy town and I imagine that T and I, if not the only tourists at the event, were among a very small number of out-of-towners there. We enjoyed the festival until it winded down around 11PM and turned in for the evening. We had a long day ahead of us on Friday.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Home is never far away -- I saw a wine bottle from Rag Apple Lassie in the display of a Bennington shop. (Unfortunately, the owners did not know anything about the vineyard -- the bottle came with the wine stoppers that the store was selling.)
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Home Safely!
Hello All. We arrived back home today safe and tired. Sometime in the next couple of days we'll fill out a complete entry or two about our last couple of days on the road.
We appreciate your following along with our trip and the thoughts and prayers for our safety along the way.
We appreciate your following along with our trip and the thoughts and prayers for our safety along the way.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Not So Fast, My Friends!
Doing exactly what you want when you want to do it regardless of the future consequences, while maybe not exactly heaven in and of itself, has to be at least part of the package. The last couple of days we’ve earmarked Thursday as a day when we would ride the interstates for the better part of the day and make some serious progress toward being home. As recently as last night we were researching this plan and making preparations for it. This morning, however, we changed our minds, opting to spend one last day riding through some of New England’s hills, valleys and villages.
Originally we mapped out a back roads route to Cooperstown, NY with the intention of being there in the early afternoon, exploring the baseball hall of fame for a little while, and then perhaps even riding on past Cooperstown to ease our route for Friday and Saturday. For the sake of reference, Cooperstown is probably 2 hours closer to home than Bennington, VT which is where we stopped after the 2nd night of travel on this trip.
The route was to take us through southern New Hampshire as well as southern Vermont. There were a couple of noteworthy New England towns along this route which we had not visited; Keene, New Hampshire and Brattleboro, Vermont. So we were able to get excited about another day riding back roads in New England rather than surfing truck wash along the interstates.
Before leaving Manchester, we stopped by a drugstore to replenish a few supplies, namely toiletries and sunscreen. By the time we finished this stop, gassed up, and got going it was 10AM. The roads out of Manchester improved somewhat in the sense that our trip into Manchester the previous day was on heavily trafficked expressways. These roads, while not yet scenic, were at least more lightly traveled 2-lane roads. It was probably 30 minutes outside of the city before the ride became more like the idyllic country ride you hope to find in New England.
We arrived in Keene, NH around 11AM and decided to stop, both because I wanted to get a New Hampshire decal for my bike (this was the last town in NH along the route) and it was time for a stretch break. Downtown Keene is quite picturesque with a tree-lined main street that leads up to a town square complete with a white bandstand gazebo. We took a few pictures and browsed through a couple of shops. We ended up having to ride a few blocks away, however, for the elusive NH decal and to find T a shirt…go figure. By the time we left Keene it was close to noon.
We had decided that we would stop in Brattleboro, VT for lunch to give us an opportunity to visit that town as well. We arrived around 12:30 and rode through and around the downtown area for a little while before finding a local establishment that was open for lunch. We enjoyed a pint of the local ale and had some food while we rested for the journey ahead. It was becoming obvious to both of us that we were falling behind in our pace.
At lunch we picked up a conversation that we had started yesterday about what would make this trip better. Yesterday as we were skirting past Portland, Maine, we both thought it would be great to stop there for the night. My parents had been there a few years back and spoke very highly of it. However, Portland was only about 150 miles from where we had started the day. With time being our most valuable commodity we couldn’t afford to make so little progress in one day. In Brattleboro we began to elaborate on this conversation (yesterday we mentioned it briefly while on the bike). It’s the classic “if we won the lottery, how would we do this differently” talk. We both agreed that what we would change about this trip isn’t the accommodations, or the places we’ve visited, or the restaurants we’ve eaten at. What would be different in the “lottery” scenario is that we would only ride around 100-150 miles on travel days, allowing us to stay fresh and rested as well as spend more time in the towns we chose to stay in. By definition, we would also visit more towns.
By the time we had finished with our lunch it was nearly 1:30 and we had only completed about 85 of the day’s planned 250 miles. In short, we knew we were not making it to Cooperstown without pushing ourselves this afternoon. If we did make it there we were not going to be able to enjoy the Hall of Fame until the morning anyway. T mentioned that our route would be taking us back through Bennington, VT.
A week ago when we spent the evening and morning in Bennington we probably were not prepared to fully appreciate it. Bennington was the first New England stop on our trip and we thought it more of a staging point along the way to towns we were more excited to visit such as Burlington and Quebec City. In the week since, we have come to like it more, even in absence. Of the towns we’ve been to, Bennington, perhaps along with Keene, probably most closely matches up with the Currier and Ives picture of a small, rural New England town.
A plan started to hatch in both of our minds. Bennington was about 45 minutes past where we were eating at. While Saturday might be a longer ride if we stopped there today, we could let Future Brian and Teresa deal with that. What we both would do differently in an ideal trip would be to end a travel day after 100-150 miles of scenic riding and settle into our next destination by early in the afternoon. Here was our opportunity.
While we had already been enjoying the day’s ride, knowing that we were going to end it early in a town that we both liked made the next leg of our journey that much more fun. We zoomed around the windy mountain roads and even stopped a couple of times to take some pictures. During this trip we’ve discovered how much easier it is to take quick pictures from the back of a motorcycle. We don’t take up much room so it is easy for us to pull over onto the road shoulder, come to a stop and let T take a picture and then be on our way.
We arrived in Bennington around 2:30 this afternoon. Right now we’re resting, but we’ve already discovered that the town is having a festival this evening that will close downtown to car traffic by 6PM. We’re a short walk from this so that poses no problems to us. We’re going to be able to take a short stroll up the sidewalk, have a leisurely meal and then probably re-visit the Madison Brewing Company, which we discovered much too late during our first time through here last week.
Last Friday when we left, I’m not sure I would have taken bets on our ever returning to Bennington, VT. A week later, re-visiting this picturesque town nestled in a valley between green mountain ranges seems like a great way to bookend our trip through New England and Quebec. Maybe tomorrow we’ll swing through Cooperstown…if we feel like it.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Today we gave ourselves a wonderful gift - TIME. It would be wise for me to remember this lesson.
Originally we mapped out a back roads route to Cooperstown, NY with the intention of being there in the early afternoon, exploring the baseball hall of fame for a little while, and then perhaps even riding on past Cooperstown to ease our route for Friday and Saturday. For the sake of reference, Cooperstown is probably 2 hours closer to home than Bennington, VT which is where we stopped after the 2nd night of travel on this trip.
The route was to take us through southern New Hampshire as well as southern Vermont. There were a couple of noteworthy New England towns along this route which we had not visited; Keene, New Hampshire and Brattleboro, Vermont. So we were able to get excited about another day riding back roads in New England rather than surfing truck wash along the interstates.
Before leaving Manchester, we stopped by a drugstore to replenish a few supplies, namely toiletries and sunscreen. By the time we finished this stop, gassed up, and got going it was 10AM. The roads out of Manchester improved somewhat in the sense that our trip into Manchester the previous day was on heavily trafficked expressways. These roads, while not yet scenic, were at least more lightly traveled 2-lane roads. It was probably 30 minutes outside of the city before the ride became more like the idyllic country ride you hope to find in New England.
We arrived in Keene, NH around 11AM and decided to stop, both because I wanted to get a New Hampshire decal for my bike (this was the last town in NH along the route) and it was time for a stretch break. Downtown Keene is quite picturesque with a tree-lined main street that leads up to a town square complete with a white bandstand gazebo. We took a few pictures and browsed through a couple of shops. We ended up having to ride a few blocks away, however, for the elusive NH decal and to find T a shirt…go figure. By the time we left Keene it was close to noon.
We had decided that we would stop in Brattleboro, VT for lunch to give us an opportunity to visit that town as well. We arrived around 12:30 and rode through and around the downtown area for a little while before finding a local establishment that was open for lunch. We enjoyed a pint of the local ale and had some food while we rested for the journey ahead. It was becoming obvious to both of us that we were falling behind in our pace.
At lunch we picked up a conversation that we had started yesterday about what would make this trip better. Yesterday as we were skirting past Portland, Maine, we both thought it would be great to stop there for the night. My parents had been there a few years back and spoke very highly of it. However, Portland was only about 150 miles from where we had started the day. With time being our most valuable commodity we couldn’t afford to make so little progress in one day. In Brattleboro we began to elaborate on this conversation (yesterday we mentioned it briefly while on the bike). It’s the classic “if we won the lottery, how would we do this differently” talk. We both agreed that what we would change about this trip isn’t the accommodations, or the places we’ve visited, or the restaurants we’ve eaten at. What would be different in the “lottery” scenario is that we would only ride around 100-150 miles on travel days, allowing us to stay fresh and rested as well as spend more time in the towns we chose to stay in. By definition, we would also visit more towns.
By the time we had finished with our lunch it was nearly 1:30 and we had only completed about 85 of the day’s planned 250 miles. In short, we knew we were not making it to Cooperstown without pushing ourselves this afternoon. If we did make it there we were not going to be able to enjoy the Hall of Fame until the morning anyway. T mentioned that our route would be taking us back through Bennington, VT.
A week ago when we spent the evening and morning in Bennington we probably were not prepared to fully appreciate it. Bennington was the first New England stop on our trip and we thought it more of a staging point along the way to towns we were more excited to visit such as Burlington and Quebec City. In the week since, we have come to like it more, even in absence. Of the towns we’ve been to, Bennington, perhaps along with Keene, probably most closely matches up with the Currier and Ives picture of a small, rural New England town.
A plan started to hatch in both of our minds. Bennington was about 45 minutes past where we were eating at. While Saturday might be a longer ride if we stopped there today, we could let Future Brian and Teresa deal with that. What we both would do differently in an ideal trip would be to end a travel day after 100-150 miles of scenic riding and settle into our next destination by early in the afternoon. Here was our opportunity.
While we had already been enjoying the day’s ride, knowing that we were going to end it early in a town that we both liked made the next leg of our journey that much more fun. We zoomed around the windy mountain roads and even stopped a couple of times to take some pictures. During this trip we’ve discovered how much easier it is to take quick pictures from the back of a motorcycle. We don’t take up much room so it is easy for us to pull over onto the road shoulder, come to a stop and let T take a picture and then be on our way.
We arrived in Bennington around 2:30 this afternoon. Right now we’re resting, but we’ve already discovered that the town is having a festival this evening that will close downtown to car traffic by 6PM. We’re a short walk from this so that poses no problems to us. We’re going to be able to take a short stroll up the sidewalk, have a leisurely meal and then probably re-visit the Madison Brewing Company, which we discovered much too late during our first time through here last week.
Last Friday when we left, I’m not sure I would have taken bets on our ever returning to Bennington, VT. A week later, re-visiting this picturesque town nestled in a valley between green mountain ranges seems like a great way to bookend our trip through New England and Quebec. Maybe tomorrow we’ll swing through Cooperstown…if we feel like it.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Today we gave ourselves a wonderful gift - TIME. It would be wise for me to remember this lesson.
New England's Last Ride
We left Bar Harbor this morning around 9:30, heading for Manchester, New Hampshire. After first stopping by the post office to mail home so more dirty clothes and souvenirs, we headed down the Maine Coastal road for a few more hours of scenic riding. The postman asked us how our “summ-ah” was going. We’ve not mentioned the impressive accents here in eastern Maine. When we were talking to the gentlemen at the rest stop outside of Bangor (pronounced Bang-Or, rather than banger), I asked him where he was originally from thinking he must be from Boston. Bang-Or, born and raised. The best way to describe the accents here is that they sound like a stronger version of the caricatures of Boston accents that we southerners will mimic. Bar Harbor is pronounced “B ah-Hah-Bah”. As far as these folks are concerned, Bang-Or is the only word in the English language containing the letter “r”. Honestly there were a few moments where it took us a little processing to understand people, which probably fed into some folks’ stereotypes of Southerners as being slow. While in New England we’ve been asked several times, “So, where ya from down South?”
The weather was once again beautiful. The weather for our trip has been exceptional. Aside from a couple of showers on our first day, and some overcast weather on the ride to Burlington and the stretch from Quebec to northern Maine, the riding days have been sunny with temperatures in the high 70’s. Today was to be an exception with the high approaching 90.
Our first planned stop was at the L.L. Bean outlet in Ellsworth, which we had passed on our way to the island. The day before T had been asking if we could stop there while we were at the Acadia visitor center. Even though I hadn’t even discouraged making this stop she kept trying to convince me to make this stop. Finally, I said to her, “Look, I’ll gladly take a half hour tomorrow to stop there if you’ll not spend the next hour today trying to convince me.” T happily responded, “Deal!” The only reason I tell this is because a man in front of us overheard this exchange and was visibly tickled by it. We both got a laugh out of his reaction. T imagined it was because he wished he could make similar deals with his wife. So we stopped at the outlet, but unfortunately for T it was a disappointment. There were some good values, but we didn’t exactly have a shopping list, nor did we have a lot of luggage space for just loading up on goodies.
The Coastal road runs along the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay. Maine’s coast along this stretch is still hilly, with no beaches. Riding along the coast here wasn’t like the flat stretches of beachfront faced by hotels that we are used to seeing. The bay has numerous communities at the different inlets on the bay, each with a harbor and charming waterfront. At the recommendation of a couple we ate breakfast with that morning, we stopped in Camden for lunch and a little bit of exploring.
Camden, founded in 1769, is one of the oldest communities along the bay. The downtown was like a mountain town with a waterfront. The streets leading away from the water were steep. This being the heavy tourist season traffic was heavy and there were lots of people milling about on the wharves as well as in their boats anchored in the harbor.
We had lunch at a pub along main street, intentionally avoiding the more pricey joints along the waterfront. In my experience those places are more likely to be tourist traps with food that’s not any better, just more expensive. Besides, we had been eating local Maine seafood for the two days in Bar Harbor so we were in the mood for a hamburger anyway. While we ate we visited with the bartender, Kathy. She was helpful with giving us directions. We only had a Maine road map so we couldn’t really tell what the best way to get to Manchester was. She also asked about our “unique” tan lines. That’s not the first time someone has asked us about them. I, of course, have my standard glove tan lines; white hands save for a brown circular tan spot about three inches in diameter on the backs of them. T also has some pretty wicked tan lines from her sun glasses. We told Kathy about our trip up on the bike. She mentioned that her and her husband were debating having a third child or getting a bike. She went on to describe the type of bike she liked. The more she talked the more I think she wanted the bike and her husband wanted another kid.
The conversation reminded us again about something we’re going to do if we make another trip like this. We’ve encountered several folks along the way that have either expressed interest in our trip or that have been such a part of the trip as to be included in this blog. We want to share this with them so that they can read about our trip or see what we say about them. Should we do this again, we’re going to pre-print some cards or something with the website on them to hand to people like these. Writing it out for folks on napkins is a little bit tougher, besides who knows if they can read our handwriting, or if we remember the website accurately. Hopefully those that really wanted to find our journal have been able to.
Not long after Camden, the Coastal road veered inland a little and headed on a more direct route to Portland and the interstates. Leaving the coastal scenery behind us we began to be occupied by a countdown. Just outside of the town of Newport, ME, the odometer on our bike tripped over 10,000 miles. We pulled over on the road shoulder to take a picture of the odometer reading as well as the overlook that was there. A nice couple on a Harley slowed down as they approached us to make sure we were alright. I signaled them with a big thumbs up, mouthing the word “Thanks”, so they waived and headed on. While we didn’t need the assistance this time it’s nice to know that it was offered.
Shortly after the milestone we hit the expressway. The rest of today’s ride was non-descript expressway riding. Traffic was heavy as it was 4PM in the afternoon and along with traffic from the major towns of southern Maine and New Hampshire, we were only 50 miles from Boston. We arrived in Manchester just after 5PM.
Tonight’s stop was the first where our habit of making reservations and plans the day of, didn’t work out. Our plan for Manchester was to stay in a hotel downtown. The reason for coming to Manchester to begin with rather than a more rural, “only-in-New England” type of village, was for a baseball game. The Manchester Fisher Cats were hosting their A-ball league’s all-star game. The ballpark is located downtown so we had thought it would be an interesting evening to walk down to the ballpark and take in some local color. Unfortunately, the hotels we wanted to stay in downtown were booked up. To top it off the ball game was sold out. Oh well. We actually weren’t that disappointed as we were fairly tired. We checked into a Super 8 by the interstate, had dinner at a dive just a short walk away and turned in early.
Thursday we’re planning to try and make some progress toward home. Hopefully the day’s progress will allow for an enjoyable last couple of days for the trip. We’ve got a few ideas of where we’ll stay tonight, but mostly that depends on our progress.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: 90 degrees is hot anywhere -- even on the back of a bike riding down the interstate. Also, guess what, even if you are wearing a helmet, your face can still get burnt.
The weather was once again beautiful. The weather for our trip has been exceptional. Aside from a couple of showers on our first day, and some overcast weather on the ride to Burlington and the stretch from Quebec to northern Maine, the riding days have been sunny with temperatures in the high 70’s. Today was to be an exception with the high approaching 90.
Our first planned stop was at the L.L. Bean outlet in Ellsworth, which we had passed on our way to the island. The day before T had been asking if we could stop there while we were at the Acadia visitor center. Even though I hadn’t even discouraged making this stop she kept trying to convince me to make this stop. Finally, I said to her, “Look, I’ll gladly take a half hour tomorrow to stop there if you’ll not spend the next hour today trying to convince me.” T happily responded, “Deal!” The only reason I tell this is because a man in front of us overheard this exchange and was visibly tickled by it. We both got a laugh out of his reaction. T imagined it was because he wished he could make similar deals with his wife. So we stopped at the outlet, but unfortunately for T it was a disappointment. There were some good values, but we didn’t exactly have a shopping list, nor did we have a lot of luggage space for just loading up on goodies.
The Coastal road runs along the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay. Maine’s coast along this stretch is still hilly, with no beaches. Riding along the coast here wasn’t like the flat stretches of beachfront faced by hotels that we are used to seeing. The bay has numerous communities at the different inlets on the bay, each with a harbor and charming waterfront. At the recommendation of a couple we ate breakfast with that morning, we stopped in Camden for lunch and a little bit of exploring.
Camden, founded in 1769, is one of the oldest communities along the bay. The downtown was like a mountain town with a waterfront. The streets leading away from the water were steep. This being the heavy tourist season traffic was heavy and there were lots of people milling about on the wharves as well as in their boats anchored in the harbor.
We had lunch at a pub along main street, intentionally avoiding the more pricey joints along the waterfront. In my experience those places are more likely to be tourist traps with food that’s not any better, just more expensive. Besides, we had been eating local Maine seafood for the two days in Bar Harbor so we were in the mood for a hamburger anyway. While we ate we visited with the bartender, Kathy. She was helpful with giving us directions. We only had a Maine road map so we couldn’t really tell what the best way to get to Manchester was. She also asked about our “unique” tan lines. That’s not the first time someone has asked us about them. I, of course, have my standard glove tan lines; white hands save for a brown circular tan spot about three inches in diameter on the backs of them. T also has some pretty wicked tan lines from her sun glasses. We told Kathy about our trip up on the bike. She mentioned that her and her husband were debating having a third child or getting a bike. She went on to describe the type of bike she liked. The more she talked the more I think she wanted the bike and her husband wanted another kid.
The conversation reminded us again about something we’re going to do if we make another trip like this. We’ve encountered several folks along the way that have either expressed interest in our trip or that have been such a part of the trip as to be included in this blog. We want to share this with them so that they can read about our trip or see what we say about them. Should we do this again, we’re going to pre-print some cards or something with the website on them to hand to people like these. Writing it out for folks on napkins is a little bit tougher, besides who knows if they can read our handwriting, or if we remember the website accurately. Hopefully those that really wanted to find our journal have been able to.
Not long after Camden, the Coastal road veered inland a little and headed on a more direct route to Portland and the interstates. Leaving the coastal scenery behind us we began to be occupied by a countdown. Just outside of the town of Newport, ME, the odometer on our bike tripped over 10,000 miles. We pulled over on the road shoulder to take a picture of the odometer reading as well as the overlook that was there. A nice couple on a Harley slowed down as they approached us to make sure we were alright. I signaled them with a big thumbs up, mouthing the word “Thanks”, so they waived and headed on. While we didn’t need the assistance this time it’s nice to know that it was offered.
Shortly after the milestone we hit the expressway. The rest of today’s ride was non-descript expressway riding. Traffic was heavy as it was 4PM in the afternoon and along with traffic from the major towns of southern Maine and New Hampshire, we were only 50 miles from Boston. We arrived in Manchester just after 5PM.
Tonight’s stop was the first where our habit of making reservations and plans the day of, didn’t work out. Our plan for Manchester was to stay in a hotel downtown. The reason for coming to Manchester to begin with rather than a more rural, “only-in-New England” type of village, was for a baseball game. The Manchester Fisher Cats were hosting their A-ball league’s all-star game. The ballpark is located downtown so we had thought it would be an interesting evening to walk down to the ballpark and take in some local color. Unfortunately, the hotels we wanted to stay in downtown were booked up. To top it off the ball game was sold out. Oh well. We actually weren’t that disappointed as we were fairly tired. We checked into a Super 8 by the interstate, had dinner at a dive just a short walk away and turned in early.
Thursday we’re planning to try and make some progress toward home. Hopefully the day’s progress will allow for an enjoyable last couple of days for the trip. We’ve got a few ideas of where we’ll stay tonight, but mostly that depends on our progress.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: 90 degrees is hot anywhere -- even on the back of a bike riding down the interstate. Also, guess what, even if you are wearing a helmet, your face can still get burnt.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Acadia National Park and Mt. Desert Island
We woke sluggishly Tuesday morning. The bed and breakfast we are staying in here doesn’t put out the coffee until 7AM, so I had no choice but to sleep in a little. They’re a little more rigid here about when they offer you things. For instance, breakfast is only served from 8AM until 9AM. Amazingly, I’ve gotten to the point in my life where the 8AM part of that bothers me more than the 9AM.
By the time Teresa woke up the breakfast area was full, so we went back to the room to wait for a table to clear up. After sitting down, we were brought our fruit and muffin plate with lit candles sticking out of the top of each muffin. When I made reservations in Quebec, I was asked if we were celebrating a special occasion so I told them this trip was celebrating our anniversary. When T made the reservation here in Bar Harbor, she told them the same thing. So…we got lit candles in our muffins.
After breakfast we were still a little sluggish and didn’t end up leaving the inn until 11AM. That actually worked out just fine. Acadia National Park is our nation’s smallest and occupies a good bit of this island. We mapped out an itinerary that included the major sites that we wanted to see and placed us in a town on the far side of the island for a late lunch at Thurston’s Lobster Pound. Due to just how compact Mt. Desert (pronounced dessert) Island is this was possible.
We first entered the park and rode to the top of Mt. Cadillac, the highest point on the island at 1,530 feet. That may not seem that high, but when it rises to that from sea level within about 3 miles it affords some pretty nice views.
Next we left Cadillac and rode through the only fjords on the U.S. east coast. I didn’t realize that what defines a fjord is that glaciers carved out a valley below sea level that the sea then filled. Mountains rose around 700 feet straight out of the water, which was 150 feet deep in between them.
Our last stop before lunch was at Bass Harbor Light. The lighthouse was perched on a cliff about 50 feet above the water. It was very small. We started down the trail for the light thinking it was a good ways off since we couldn’t see it. Instead the light-keepers house was obscuring it from view. The view from the lighthouse was of the smaller islands off Mt. Desert’s southern point and it came with a soundtrack. There were numerous bouys in the water and their bells were ringing with the roll of the waves, sounding almost exactly like church bells ringing on a Sunday morning.
After making these stops we arrived at Thurston’s at 2PM. Getting lobster in Maine had been on my checklist for this trip, of course. All over the island there are lobster pounds that have huge steamers outside and a huge tank of live lobsters inside. The outside steamers remind me a little of the metal smokehouses outside barbecue joints in North Carolina. You walk up to the window on your way into the restaurant and order you food. If you’re having lobster you order one small, med, large, or extra large and pay by the pound. A traditional lobster dinner is accompanied by an ear of corn, slaw, a roll, and a blueberry spice cake. They pick out your lobster, put it in the scale in front of you, then you pay.
We were behind a couple of guys from Kentucky who asked for instructions as to eating a whole lobster so we listened in. These guys, who looked like a father and son were finishing up a bicycle trip across the U.S. They had started out on June 4th. I felt lazy.
T and I tried to make lobster once. We bought a live lobster, set up a make-shift steamer based on instructions from a friend of ours. The time it took to set up the steamer and get him cooking was long enough to make T uncomfortable with killing your own food. For some reason she thought this wouldn’t happen in Maine. She was wrong. The lobster that was brought out to her was just a steamed-red version of the wiggly one that was placed on the scales in front of her. I think it’s because it’s a whole lobster, rather than just a tail, or lobster that has already been cracked for you that makes her a little squeamish. So I got to eat both lobsters. For the second time in my life, I ate lobster until I couldn’t eat any more of it.
After lunch we headed back to the room to rest up a little bit and research our route for the next day. We might have something spontaneous and cool in store for today, we’ll see how timing works out. We left the room again around 5 to go and grab some food. Having just stuffed myself with lobster around 3PM, I wasn’t hungry, but T was. We had a light dinner, then strolled down the streets and window-shopped a little. A bakery advertised fresh blueberry treats so we had a slice of blueberry pie. Maine produces 25% of all the world’s Blueberries, so fresh blueberry treats are a tradition here. After our pie, which was delicious, we went by an old theater that had a 7PM showing of W.A.L.L.-e. We were kind of wanting a low-key and early night so we decided to see the movie.
The Criterion theater was unique. It was opened in 1932 and was more like a stage for live performances than a movie theater. There was a balcony that contained separate boxes where the seats had tables. Based on the signs in the upstairs lobby it appears that for live theatre productions and for more adult movies there is an open bar for the balcony dwellers. The bar was closed this night, which was all the same as we weren’t interested in a drink. We watched the movie, which we enjoyed, then were back in the room by 9PM.
We wanted to get another good night’s sleep and hit the road rather early today. We’re not packed up and ready to go. As soon as we have our breakfast we’ll be taking off down the coastal road in Maine. Most likely we’ll be staying somewhere in New Hampshire tonight. We’ll try to post pictures then.
T’s Terrific Thought of the Day: Fresh Maine blueberries are much better than fresh Maine lobster!
By the time Teresa woke up the breakfast area was full, so we went back to the room to wait for a table to clear up. After sitting down, we were brought our fruit and muffin plate with lit candles sticking out of the top of each muffin. When I made reservations in Quebec, I was asked if we were celebrating a special occasion so I told them this trip was celebrating our anniversary. When T made the reservation here in Bar Harbor, she told them the same thing. So…we got lit candles in our muffins.
After breakfast we were still a little sluggish and didn’t end up leaving the inn until 11AM. That actually worked out just fine. Acadia National Park is our nation’s smallest and occupies a good bit of this island. We mapped out an itinerary that included the major sites that we wanted to see and placed us in a town on the far side of the island for a late lunch at Thurston’s Lobster Pound. Due to just how compact Mt. Desert (pronounced dessert) Island is this was possible.
We first entered the park and rode to the top of Mt. Cadillac, the highest point on the island at 1,530 feet. That may not seem that high, but when it rises to that from sea level within about 3 miles it affords some pretty nice views.
Next we left Cadillac and rode through the only fjords on the U.S. east coast. I didn’t realize that what defines a fjord is that glaciers carved out a valley below sea level that the sea then filled. Mountains rose around 700 feet straight out of the water, which was 150 feet deep in between them.
Our last stop before lunch was at Bass Harbor Light. The lighthouse was perched on a cliff about 50 feet above the water. It was very small. We started down the trail for the light thinking it was a good ways off since we couldn’t see it. Instead the light-keepers house was obscuring it from view. The view from the lighthouse was of the smaller islands off Mt. Desert’s southern point and it came with a soundtrack. There were numerous bouys in the water and their bells were ringing with the roll of the waves, sounding almost exactly like church bells ringing on a Sunday morning.
After making these stops we arrived at Thurston’s at 2PM. Getting lobster in Maine had been on my checklist for this trip, of course. All over the island there are lobster pounds that have huge steamers outside and a huge tank of live lobsters inside. The outside steamers remind me a little of the metal smokehouses outside barbecue joints in North Carolina. You walk up to the window on your way into the restaurant and order you food. If you’re having lobster you order one small, med, large, or extra large and pay by the pound. A traditional lobster dinner is accompanied by an ear of corn, slaw, a roll, and a blueberry spice cake. They pick out your lobster, put it in the scale in front of you, then you pay.
We were behind a couple of guys from Kentucky who asked for instructions as to eating a whole lobster so we listened in. These guys, who looked like a father and son were finishing up a bicycle trip across the U.S. They had started out on June 4th. I felt lazy.
T and I tried to make lobster once. We bought a live lobster, set up a make-shift steamer based on instructions from a friend of ours. The time it took to set up the steamer and get him cooking was long enough to make T uncomfortable with killing your own food. For some reason she thought this wouldn’t happen in Maine. She was wrong. The lobster that was brought out to her was just a steamed-red version of the wiggly one that was placed on the scales in front of her. I think it’s because it’s a whole lobster, rather than just a tail, or lobster that has already been cracked for you that makes her a little squeamish. So I got to eat both lobsters. For the second time in my life, I ate lobster until I couldn’t eat any more of it.
After lunch we headed back to the room to rest up a little bit and research our route for the next day. We might have something spontaneous and cool in store for today, we’ll see how timing works out. We left the room again around 5 to go and grab some food. Having just stuffed myself with lobster around 3PM, I wasn’t hungry, but T was. We had a light dinner, then strolled down the streets and window-shopped a little. A bakery advertised fresh blueberry treats so we had a slice of blueberry pie. Maine produces 25% of all the world’s Blueberries, so fresh blueberry treats are a tradition here. After our pie, which was delicious, we went by an old theater that had a 7PM showing of W.A.L.L.-e. We were kind of wanting a low-key and early night so we decided to see the movie.
The Criterion theater was unique. It was opened in 1932 and was more like a stage for live performances than a movie theater. There was a balcony that contained separate boxes where the seats had tables. Based on the signs in the upstairs lobby it appears that for live theatre productions and for more adult movies there is an open bar for the balcony dwellers. The bar was closed this night, which was all the same as we weren’t interested in a drink. We watched the movie, which we enjoyed, then were back in the room by 9PM.
We wanted to get another good night’s sleep and hit the road rather early today. We’re not packed up and ready to go. As soon as we have our breakfast we’ll be taking off down the coastal road in Maine. Most likely we’ll be staying somewhere in New Hampshire tonight. We’ll try to post pictures then.
T’s Terrific Thought of the Day: Fresh Maine blueberries are much better than fresh Maine lobster!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Riding from Quebec to Maine
Frankly, when we set out on this leg of the trip, T and I were both somewhat apprehensive about it. Not only were we a little reluctant to be leaving Quebec, but this was going to be a long day of riding. From Quebec City to Bar Harbor is about 280 miles, maybe a quarter of it expressway, so the ride was going to be approximately 6 hours plus any stops. This was going to be the longest day of riding since the stretch from Maryland to Vermont, which hadn’t really been much fun to tell the truth.
We were both tired before the day even started. I’ve not mentioned the difference in daylight times up here. I assume it’s due to being farther north, but the sun rises about 45 minutes earlier each day than back home. I’m kind of an early riser anyway, so I’m unable to sleep through the ambient light for too long meaning that I’ve been consistently been waking up around 5:30AM. Our nights out on the town in Quebec had been late ones so we were both a little behind in our sleep.
In spite of all this, we sucked it up and got going by around 9:30AM, which was a little later than we had hoped. Again we weren’t really that excited about making this leg. As we drove out of the city, the overcast skies didn’t help our enjoyment of the ride. We made our way south toward Maine on Autoroute 73. The Autoroute ended about 30 minutes outside of the city and we were back to riding desolate, two-lane roads with few towns along the way. The terrain began to get hilly again so the scenery improved somewhat, but the overcast skies blunted our appreciation for it.
We reached the U.S. border around 11:30 near the town of Jackman, ME. Near is a relative term. The first 100 miles we were in Maine we went through 4 “towns”. It wasn’t until after the 4th town that we came to the first stop light and fast food restaurant. We made it through customs easily. My parents had been to Canada a couple of weeks ago and told us that while entering Canada had been quick and easy, coming back into the U.S. was more difficult so we were anxious that we might have to do a fair amount of unpacking and repacking. The border guard kind of poked around at our stuff, asking the typical questions (how long were you in Canada, where are you headed, for how long, what’s the purpose of your trip) and then cleared us to go through.
As we were both getting hungry, we asked the guard how far it was until the next town. He asked if we were low on fuel. Nah, we replied, we just want something to eat. Jackman was about 17 miles away he told us. After riding along through northern Maine, I understand why he made a point to ask about fuel. As I mentioned, this is a desolate patch of real estate.
We had decided that today we were going to have a fast food lunch for the first time on this trip. However, by the time we arrived in Jackman we were ready for whatever the town had to offer. It was a small town, but did have a couple of mom and pop type of diners. The gravel parking lot at the Four Seasons was pretty full so we decided that must be the place. We went inside and saw that there was a long line leading into the back of the restaurant. It turned out that the full parking lot was not an endorsement by the town, but that there was a family reunion going on there. We took a seat and ordered some “safe” diner food. T got a hamburger (which was good) while I ordered the chicken fingers (not so good).
We finished up our food and got back on the road. We were still kind of dragging and not really into the ride. The road we were on once we hit Maine ran through dense forests where the trees were just beside the roads, blocking whatever view might be available. About 20 minutes outside of Jackman, we both started slapping each other and pointing off the road. I slowed the bike down, turned it around and we dismounted to get a closer look at our first moose. We could see that he had antlers starting to form so we knew that he was a bull. I walked down the bank beside the road to within about 30 feet of him. I’m not a moose expert, but I’ve heard that they can be dangerous and charge you. I wasn’t prepared to find out. This wasn’t some white-tailed deer back home, this was like a horse with horns. It was big. I would guess that he was about 6 feet tall at the shoulder. T kept pushing me to get closer for a better picture. She seemed more interested in a quality portrait of Mr. Moose than she was for my safety. Even though I was still armored up with my riding gear and helmet, I stayed a decent bit away from him. He watched me carefully as I approached, but didn’t seem to change what he was doing. I guess he didn’t feel I posed much threat to something of his size, so he just continued grazing.
By the time I had finished shooting some pictures of the moose, there were a few more cars stopping along the shoulder of the road. With our bike drawing their attention to something happening they too saw the moose and stopped to get their own pictures. A family from Massachusetts ran past me down the hill anxious to see the animal. Then a local man walked past T and I poking a little fun at the family; “Heh…You can always tell the first-timers”, he said to us. In spite of his seeming nonchalance and assertions that moose sightings were quite common we noticed that he too climbed down the bank with a camera to see the moose.
Seeing the moose lifted our spirits and made our day. We had kind of ridden through the first half of the day in a daze. This day’s ride had become just about getting somewhere rather than an enjoyable experience in and of itself. We had seen signs for moose crossings since we had been in Vermont, but had seen no moose. While we were hopeful we knew that the odds were not in favor of us seeing one. I think it was a combination of the pleasant surprise and perhaps a touch of feeling a favor from the travel gods, but we were soon enjoying our ride a lot.
The scenery improved shortly after our moose sighting as well. We passed along several lakes, rivers, and many places with some mountain views. Again, these mountains are different from the ones in North Carolina. They are more like the Vermont hills, but instead of green valleys of meadows and pastures, the valleys of Maine are forested and almost absent of people. Even though the highway was 2-laned, the traffic (what little there was of it) zipped along at around 70 miles per hour. It was a fun ride.
About the time we entered the more populated southern part of Maine the sun came out and the temperature warmed. This was the first day that we had used our long-sleeved shirts because it was cool and overcast. With the sun warming things up we decided to ride in our t-shirts for the rest of the day. Tooling along in the warm sun riding through rolling hills toward the coast what we had dreaded being an arduous ride of endurance had instead become the best riding day we have had so far.
We stopped at a rest area just outside of Bangor to ask about accommodations for our stay in Bar Harbor. Most states have one of these as soon as you cross the border, if you’re on the interstate. You can pick up a road map, some brochures, and talk to a travel host. This was the first one we came across in Maine. I guess the day off in Quebec had thrown us from our habit, because we had failed to do any research on accommodations before we left. The nice gentlemen helped by making a few suggestions and also giving us some booklets on Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We had to call about 5 places before we found a room that was available within our budget. About 90 minutes later we were riding into Bar Harbor.
We were both pretty tired, both from the day’s ride and from the consistent late nights and early mornings throughout this trip. We ended our day with a short stroll down to the water front, had a quick dinner at Geddy’s pub and then came back to the room to get a good night’s rest.
Today we’re going to head out into Acadia for some riding. We hope to get some good pictures of the scenery. We’ve been told by several folks that this area is beautiful so we’re excited to be taking another ride that’s not just about getting us somewhere.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Amazing how quickly one acclimates to current culture - It took me a few seconds last night to realize that some of the other tourists in Bar Harbor were speaking French and it did not seem out of place to me.
We were both tired before the day even started. I’ve not mentioned the difference in daylight times up here. I assume it’s due to being farther north, but the sun rises about 45 minutes earlier each day than back home. I’m kind of an early riser anyway, so I’m unable to sleep through the ambient light for too long meaning that I’ve been consistently been waking up around 5:30AM. Our nights out on the town in Quebec had been late ones so we were both a little behind in our sleep.
In spite of all this, we sucked it up and got going by around 9:30AM, which was a little later than we had hoped. Again we weren’t really that excited about making this leg. As we drove out of the city, the overcast skies didn’t help our enjoyment of the ride. We made our way south toward Maine on Autoroute 73. The Autoroute ended about 30 minutes outside of the city and we were back to riding desolate, two-lane roads with few towns along the way. The terrain began to get hilly again so the scenery improved somewhat, but the overcast skies blunted our appreciation for it.
We reached the U.S. border around 11:30 near the town of Jackman, ME. Near is a relative term. The first 100 miles we were in Maine we went through 4 “towns”. It wasn’t until after the 4th town that we came to the first stop light and fast food restaurant. We made it through customs easily. My parents had been to Canada a couple of weeks ago and told us that while entering Canada had been quick and easy, coming back into the U.S. was more difficult so we were anxious that we might have to do a fair amount of unpacking and repacking. The border guard kind of poked around at our stuff, asking the typical questions (how long were you in Canada, where are you headed, for how long, what’s the purpose of your trip) and then cleared us to go through.
As we were both getting hungry, we asked the guard how far it was until the next town. He asked if we were low on fuel. Nah, we replied, we just want something to eat. Jackman was about 17 miles away he told us. After riding along through northern Maine, I understand why he made a point to ask about fuel. As I mentioned, this is a desolate patch of real estate.
We had decided that today we were going to have a fast food lunch for the first time on this trip. However, by the time we arrived in Jackman we were ready for whatever the town had to offer. It was a small town, but did have a couple of mom and pop type of diners. The gravel parking lot at the Four Seasons was pretty full so we decided that must be the place. We went inside and saw that there was a long line leading into the back of the restaurant. It turned out that the full parking lot was not an endorsement by the town, but that there was a family reunion going on there. We took a seat and ordered some “safe” diner food. T got a hamburger (which was good) while I ordered the chicken fingers (not so good).
We finished up our food and got back on the road. We were still kind of dragging and not really into the ride. The road we were on once we hit Maine ran through dense forests where the trees were just beside the roads, blocking whatever view might be available. About 20 minutes outside of Jackman, we both started slapping each other and pointing off the road. I slowed the bike down, turned it around and we dismounted to get a closer look at our first moose. We could see that he had antlers starting to form so we knew that he was a bull. I walked down the bank beside the road to within about 30 feet of him. I’m not a moose expert, but I’ve heard that they can be dangerous and charge you. I wasn’t prepared to find out. This wasn’t some white-tailed deer back home, this was like a horse with horns. It was big. I would guess that he was about 6 feet tall at the shoulder. T kept pushing me to get closer for a better picture. She seemed more interested in a quality portrait of Mr. Moose than she was for my safety. Even though I was still armored up with my riding gear and helmet, I stayed a decent bit away from him. He watched me carefully as I approached, but didn’t seem to change what he was doing. I guess he didn’t feel I posed much threat to something of his size, so he just continued grazing.
By the time I had finished shooting some pictures of the moose, there were a few more cars stopping along the shoulder of the road. With our bike drawing their attention to something happening they too saw the moose and stopped to get their own pictures. A family from Massachusetts ran past me down the hill anxious to see the animal. Then a local man walked past T and I poking a little fun at the family; “Heh…You can always tell the first-timers”, he said to us. In spite of his seeming nonchalance and assertions that moose sightings were quite common we noticed that he too climbed down the bank with a camera to see the moose.
Seeing the moose lifted our spirits and made our day. We had kind of ridden through the first half of the day in a daze. This day’s ride had become just about getting somewhere rather than an enjoyable experience in and of itself. We had seen signs for moose crossings since we had been in Vermont, but had seen no moose. While we were hopeful we knew that the odds were not in favor of us seeing one. I think it was a combination of the pleasant surprise and perhaps a touch of feeling a favor from the travel gods, but we were soon enjoying our ride a lot.
The scenery improved shortly after our moose sighting as well. We passed along several lakes, rivers, and many places with some mountain views. Again, these mountains are different from the ones in North Carolina. They are more like the Vermont hills, but instead of green valleys of meadows and pastures, the valleys of Maine are forested and almost absent of people. Even though the highway was 2-laned, the traffic (what little there was of it) zipped along at around 70 miles per hour. It was a fun ride.
About the time we entered the more populated southern part of Maine the sun came out and the temperature warmed. This was the first day that we had used our long-sleeved shirts because it was cool and overcast. With the sun warming things up we decided to ride in our t-shirts for the rest of the day. Tooling along in the warm sun riding through rolling hills toward the coast what we had dreaded being an arduous ride of endurance had instead become the best riding day we have had so far.
We stopped at a rest area just outside of Bangor to ask about accommodations for our stay in Bar Harbor. Most states have one of these as soon as you cross the border, if you’re on the interstate. You can pick up a road map, some brochures, and talk to a travel host. This was the first one we came across in Maine. I guess the day off in Quebec had thrown us from our habit, because we had failed to do any research on accommodations before we left. The nice gentlemen helped by making a few suggestions and also giving us some booklets on Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We had to call about 5 places before we found a room that was available within our budget. About 90 minutes later we were riding into Bar Harbor.
We were both pretty tired, both from the day’s ride and from the consistent late nights and early mornings throughout this trip. We ended our day with a short stroll down to the water front, had a quick dinner at Geddy’s pub and then came back to the room to get a good night’s rest.
Today we’re going to head out into Acadia for some riding. We hope to get some good pictures of the scenery. We’ve been told by several folks that this area is beautiful so we’re excited to be taking another ride that’s not just about getting us somewhere.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Amazing how quickly one acclimates to current culture - It took me a few seconds last night to realize that some of the other tourists in Bar Harbor were speaking French and it did not seem out of place to me.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Joie de Vivre in Quebec
I used to be the kind of traveler who felt it necessary to plan out every moment of each trip. I didn’t do this because I needed the safety blanket. I always thought that I would not maximize my time in a certain place without having full, detailed plans, so that I could efficiently conquer all that a place has to offer. A trip to London a few years ago with some friends was the first time I traveled without a firm itinerary. Since then, T and I have made a point of taking trips without too heavily planning our various activities or even destinations. You never know what might happen or who you might meet if you leave things open.
Sunday morning the rain was coming down heavily in Quebec. With the forecast calling for rain most of the day it looked like we would not be able to explore much of the city. Around noon, fortune smiled on us and the rain stopped. It was also approaching lunchtime so we grabbed an umbrella and headed out to walk the streets. Our plan was to walk up to the Citadel and take some pictures, find a place to eat and maybe pick up a few souvenirs.
We took some shots from the Citadel, which was the highest point in the city, including the picture of the Frontenac posted here. After an excellent lunch topped off by dessert crepes, we walked around Vieux Quebec looking for souvenirs and a book store. The book store was across the street from a pub, the Pub Saint-Alexandre, that we had been told served over 200 different types of beers. The previous night when we walked by this place people gathered there were overflowing out into the street, so we decided to stop in and check it out.
Not long after we sat down T remembered another souvenir she wanted to get. I was pretty content on my stool, so she headed out and left me at the pub. No sooner had she left than a man sat a few seats down from me and I noticed that he spoke English. We started talking, he was a former biker (wife made him give it up) so we swapped riding stories for a little while. He was from Toronto and in Quebec for a conference. Looking for affirmation of our decision to come to Quebec, I asked him about the city. We had the option of building Quebec or Montreal into our route, so I asked him his opinion. He emphatically said that we made the right choice to come to Quebec. We continued to talk about various things until a couple of guys came in and sat on the stools in between us.
When these guys first sat down I was a little disappointed to not be able to continue talking to my new friend. Shortly after they sat down, I overheard them speaking to each other in English, but placing their order with the bar maid in her native Quebecois French. I was curious enough to ask them about it. They were both from just outside of Ottawa, but one of them was second generation Canadian with his family hailing from France, so he was fluent in the language. I continued to speak with Jon and Luke for awhile. They asked about me; where I was from, how I came to be in Quebec, etc. I proudly told them about our motorcycle trip up from North Carolina, which had garnered respectful responses when I had told others about it. Luke said that they were doing something “similar, only without the motor”. Jon and Luke had set out from Vancouver in mid-May on their bicycles for a trip across Canada.
I enjoyed hearing about their trip, which they estimated had about 10 days left before they would reach their final destination in Nova Scotia. Once there they would have completed their transit of the country save for the island province of Newfoundland, which they intended to conquer with another trip someday. The guys had averaged 100 kilometers a day with some days as high as 200. That’s 60 to 120 miles a day. Some nights they stayed in hotels or with relatives. Other nights, especially in the vast western part of the country, they had camped out under the stars. Once, in British Columbia, they had an equipment problem and were helped by a stranger who drove 70 miles to replace the damaged part.
While I continued talking to Jon and Luke, T returned. Soon she was talking with the gentlemen sitting beside her. The common connection was that he, Michel Lachance, was a retired professional hockey player who had once played minor league hockey for the Greensboro Generals in North Carolina. He was extremely nice and was enthusiastic in sharing about Quebec City, his hometown. He was a well-traveled man, with his hockey career having taken him throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Michel loves to cook and having spent time in France during his hockey career, is a serious foodie. We asked him about his favorite places in the city. He knew chapter and verse about every restaurant in town, but was especially fond of Café du Monde on the waterfront. He made it sound great and soon we were asking him if we should get reservations there for that evening. He did us one better by pulling out his cell phone and calling the restaurant for us. While he was speaking on the phone (in French, of course) the bar maid asked T “Is he making reservations for you? That should be good.”
After Michel completed his call to the restaurant he told us that we had the reservations set for 9PM and that he thought they were going to seat us at one of his favorite tables by the window overlooking the water. Monsieur Lachance also gave us numerous recommendations about what to order. I told him that I had to buy him a drink to thank him. He politely declined saying, “No. I have already decided that I will be buying each of you a drink.” We asked him a couple more times to let us treat him, but ultimately ended up enjoying another beverage on him. Soon we had to leave. We wanted to rest for a bit in the room before heading to Café du Monde for dinner.
The dinner was incredible; we sat at a great window-side table overlooking the water. At Michel’s suggestion we ordered an appetizer of Quatuor de Salmon (smoked, marinated, tartar, and rilletes) and I had the roasted lamb. The food was excellent, but further enhancing the meal was our waitress, Marie Claire. She was just delightful. Teresa kept asking her to teach her say “It is my pleasure” in French. Poor Marie Claire had to repeat it several times before T got the hang of it. Later T asked what her name was. She sweetly told Teresa “you would not be able to pronounce it”, which based on T’s learning of the earlier phrase was probably a reasonable stance. Still...she wrote down her name and tried to help us both to say it correctly, which we either finally did or she was fatigued with giving us the language lesson for the day. Either way her attitude was nothing but pleasant the whole time. By the time we finished it was 11PM and the rain had started to come down again so we took a cab back to the hotel.
We’ve both come to really enjoy sitting at bars in various places, both at home and when traveling. As often as not, with just a little effort you can strike up a conversation with someone and you just never know what might come of it. Today, what seemed destined for a rainy day spent mostly within the hotel ended up providing us with a lot of fun stories and an incredible evening.
Monday we left Quebec for Maine. We were both a little sad to be leaving. Neither of us knew anyone who had visited Quebec before so we didn’t have any trusted opinions upon which to base our expectations for the city. Whatever expectations we did have were exceeded. I truly hope that we’ll find our way back to this place again sometime.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: No matter what quality your hotel is, the advice of the concierge isn't as good as what you get from a local without another motivation. The bistro our concierge had sent us to for dinner Saturday night was nowhere near as good as Cafe du Monde, while about the same price.
Sunday morning the rain was coming down heavily in Quebec. With the forecast calling for rain most of the day it looked like we would not be able to explore much of the city. Around noon, fortune smiled on us and the rain stopped. It was also approaching lunchtime so we grabbed an umbrella and headed out to walk the streets. Our plan was to walk up to the Citadel and take some pictures, find a place to eat and maybe pick up a few souvenirs.
We took some shots from the Citadel, which was the highest point in the city, including the picture of the Frontenac posted here. After an excellent lunch topped off by dessert crepes, we walked around Vieux Quebec looking for souvenirs and a book store. The book store was across the street from a pub, the Pub Saint-Alexandre, that we had been told served over 200 different types of beers. The previous night when we walked by this place people gathered there were overflowing out into the street, so we decided to stop in and check it out.
Not long after we sat down T remembered another souvenir she wanted to get. I was pretty content on my stool, so she headed out and left me at the pub. No sooner had she left than a man sat a few seats down from me and I noticed that he spoke English. We started talking, he was a former biker (wife made him give it up) so we swapped riding stories for a little while. He was from Toronto and in Quebec for a conference. Looking for affirmation of our decision to come to Quebec, I asked him about the city. We had the option of building Quebec or Montreal into our route, so I asked him his opinion. He emphatically said that we made the right choice to come to Quebec. We continued to talk about various things until a couple of guys came in and sat on the stools in between us.
When these guys first sat down I was a little disappointed to not be able to continue talking to my new friend. Shortly after they sat down, I overheard them speaking to each other in English, but placing their order with the bar maid in her native Quebecois French. I was curious enough to ask them about it. They were both from just outside of Ottawa, but one of them was second generation Canadian with his family hailing from France, so he was fluent in the language. I continued to speak with Jon and Luke for awhile. They asked about me; where I was from, how I came to be in Quebec, etc. I proudly told them about our motorcycle trip up from North Carolina, which had garnered respectful responses when I had told others about it. Luke said that they were doing something “similar, only without the motor”. Jon and Luke had set out from Vancouver in mid-May on their bicycles for a trip across Canada.
I enjoyed hearing about their trip, which they estimated had about 10 days left before they would reach their final destination in Nova Scotia. Once there they would have completed their transit of the country save for the island province of Newfoundland, which they intended to conquer with another trip someday. The guys had averaged 100 kilometers a day with some days as high as 200. That’s 60 to 120 miles a day. Some nights they stayed in hotels or with relatives. Other nights, especially in the vast western part of the country, they had camped out under the stars. Once, in British Columbia, they had an equipment problem and were helped by a stranger who drove 70 miles to replace the damaged part.
While I continued talking to Jon and Luke, T returned. Soon she was talking with the gentlemen sitting beside her. The common connection was that he, Michel Lachance, was a retired professional hockey player who had once played minor league hockey for the Greensboro Generals in North Carolina. He was extremely nice and was enthusiastic in sharing about Quebec City, his hometown. He was a well-traveled man, with his hockey career having taken him throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Michel loves to cook and having spent time in France during his hockey career, is a serious foodie. We asked him about his favorite places in the city. He knew chapter and verse about every restaurant in town, but was especially fond of Café du Monde on the waterfront. He made it sound great and soon we were asking him if we should get reservations there for that evening. He did us one better by pulling out his cell phone and calling the restaurant for us. While he was speaking on the phone (in French, of course) the bar maid asked T “Is he making reservations for you? That should be good.”
After Michel completed his call to the restaurant he told us that we had the reservations set for 9PM and that he thought they were going to seat us at one of his favorite tables by the window overlooking the water. Monsieur Lachance also gave us numerous recommendations about what to order. I told him that I had to buy him a drink to thank him. He politely declined saying, “No. I have already decided that I will be buying each of you a drink.” We asked him a couple more times to let us treat him, but ultimately ended up enjoying another beverage on him. Soon we had to leave. We wanted to rest for a bit in the room before heading to Café du Monde for dinner.
The dinner was incredible; we sat at a great window-side table overlooking the water. At Michel’s suggestion we ordered an appetizer of Quatuor de Salmon (smoked, marinated, tartar, and rilletes) and I had the roasted lamb. The food was excellent, but further enhancing the meal was our waitress, Marie Claire. She was just delightful. Teresa kept asking her to teach her say “It is my pleasure” in French. Poor Marie Claire had to repeat it several times before T got the hang of it. Later T asked what her name was. She sweetly told Teresa “you would not be able to pronounce it”, which based on T’s learning of the earlier phrase was probably a reasonable stance. Still...she wrote down her name and tried to help us both to say it correctly, which we either finally did or she was fatigued with giving us the language lesson for the day. Either way her attitude was nothing but pleasant the whole time. By the time we finished it was 11PM and the rain had started to come down again so we took a cab back to the hotel.
We’ve both come to really enjoy sitting at bars in various places, both at home and when traveling. As often as not, with just a little effort you can strike up a conversation with someone and you just never know what might come of it. Today, what seemed destined for a rainy day spent mostly within the hotel ended up providing us with a lot of fun stories and an incredible evening.
Monday we left Quebec for Maine. We were both a little sad to be leaving. Neither of us knew anyone who had visited Quebec before so we didn’t have any trusted opinions upon which to base our expectations for the city. Whatever expectations we did have were exceeded. I truly hope that we’ll find our way back to this place again sometime.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: No matter what quality your hotel is, the advice of the concierge isn't as good as what you get from a local without another motivation. The bistro our concierge had sent us to for dinner Saturday night was nowhere near as good as Cafe du Monde, while about the same price.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Biking Into Another Country
From the beginning when we planned this trip, our intention was to visit Quebec City. We chose this destination for several reasons. We knew we would want to take a day off from riding the bike and wanted to do that in a larger city, the pictures of Quebec we saw online were very pretty and the city was easy to build into our route. Mostly we chose to spend a couple of days in Quebec because it was reputed to be the “Most European City in North America.” This title was due to Vieux-Québec (Old Quebec), a walled city that was largely constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries. The other reason for the European feel (at least to an American) is that this city and province speak French.
We knew the primary language was French, but were somehow still unprepared for it. Everyone speaks French. The television has 12+ channels in French, 3 in English, and 1 in Spanish. All of the signs are in French, including road signs. We both just felt like the entire scene was surreal. I’m not sure why. Perhaps we never believed we would actually make it this far. Perhaps we had a preconceived notion that French Canadians were mostly American-like. I think that’s certainly part of it. Mostly, I think it’s just hard for us to believe that we left a hotel in Vermont one morning on our motorcycle and 3 hours later were in a place that is both literally and figuratively foreign.
We hit the road about 9:15. As we’ve mentioned, our ride on Friday was supposed to be one of the more scenic days of the trip and it had been a disappointment. For our route to Quebec we chose to ride back roads to the northeast corner of Vermont (from Burlington, at the western border, to the other side of Vermont is only about 65 miles) hoping to give the state another shot at providing us with an enjoyable ride. Vermont did not disappoint us this day. The weather was gorgeous and this route was great. We went through fewer villages, the roads were not under construction, there was less traffic, and the scenery was better.
We were both reenergized immediately by the ride. We stopped in Cambridge, VT to mail home some extra stuff and picked up some Vermont cheddar cheese and deli meats for a roadside lunch later on. Shortly after that, T noticed a petting zoo with a llama so we stopped for a bit to take some pictures. It turned out to be a small farm with a bed and breakfast, antique store and flower gardens. As soon as we dismounted a dog was at our feet to greet us. I reached down to let him sniff my hand and he immediately ran off. I thought that he had smelled gas or something from my riding gloves that had spooked him. Instead he ran right back a moment later with a ball that he clearly intended for me to toss for him. So I played fetch with Sam (the farmer was outside and told us the dog’s name) for a few minutes while T took some pictures of the farm’s flowers and petting zoo animals. Still tossing the ball for Sam, I was approached by a guest of the inn who struck up a conversation. He was a biker from Maine and gave us several suggestions for rides around Bar Harbor. Bikers really are a friendly lot.
Back on the road we made our way to Newport, VT which was the last town we would go through before the border. The scenery is surprisingly different from the mountains back home in North Carolina. Vermont is more foothill-like, with wider valleys and smaller mountains. It’s very green and beautiful. Another difference is the number of lakes. We don’t have any natural lakes in the NC mountains because during the last ice age the glaciers didn’t come that far south. In Vermont there are numerous lakes of varying sizes that are quite picturesque.
Around noon, we hit the interstate about 7 miles south of the border. We came across an interesting and unexpected sign that read: “45 Degrees North Latitude – Midway point from the Equator to the North Pole”. It’s not like I had to ride a thousand miles north to discover this, but I had never thought about it. It reminds you of just how large Canada is. The Equator runs through northern Brazil at this approximate longitude. The north-south spread of Canada is nearly the same distance as from Brazil to the northern border of the United States. Think about that the next time you’re watching Ice Road Truckers on the Discovery Channel.
Soon we came to the border crossing and with a minimal wait were through Canadian customs and into the province of Quebec. The lady at the crossing was surprised that we had ridden a motorcycle there from North Carolina. Surprised may be too kind a word. I think she thought we must be a little off our rockers. She then asked where we were staying. We hadn’t made a reservation anywhere yet. Our habit along the way has been to write down the information for a few inns in the anticipated destination and then call to reserve about mid-way through the day. She seemed incredulous that we would be able to find accommodations since Quebec City was very busy this time of year and is also celebrating its 400th anniversary in 2008. By the time we left she probably thought we were the dumbest travelers she had seen in awhile.
We had checked online before departing Burlington and knew of at least a couple of acceptable hotels that had accommodations available for the evening. We stopped at the tourist information center and got some recommendations, a provincial road map, and used the public phone (we’re still not sure that we can use our cell phones here) to make hotel reservations. After eating our Vermont cheese and deli meat at a picnic table we hit the road for Quebec, which was about two and half hours away.
This is when the differences started to hit us. All of the distances were in kilometers, speed limits in k/hr, and the language was 100% French. We’ve traveled in countries where we didn’t speak the native language, but this was the first time either of us had driven in a foreign country. Some of the signs we could figure out. The one that read “Risque’ de Collision” and had a picture of a moose; I pretty much knew what that one meant. The worrisome ones were the temporary orange signs marking road construction that were both more important for us to understand and less intuitive in their interpretation. We quickly discovered what the sign for “bump in the road” was. Mileage in kilometers was not a problem. The speed limit was 100kmph, approximately 62 mph, most Quebecois people drove around 75mph. Riding the Canadian Autoroute we passed out of hill country into flat terrain similar to eastern North Carolina before re-entering some rolling hills as we approached the city. We crossed a bridge over the St. Lawrence River, which is incredibly wide at this point and flanked by steep banks on each side, and into Quebec City.
I thought we would have no problems finding our hotel, the Chateau Frontenac. It is enormous and dominates the skyline of every photograph I have seen of the city. Unfortunately for our navigational purposes, all of these photos must be taken from the water and we were entering the city from the opposite direction because we couldn’t see it at all. Still, I knew which direction it was in so we rode that way. What we didn’t know is that the city has a road and buildings along the water front, but also has many buildings on top of a steep mountain in the middle of the peninsula and this is where our hotel was. We were along the water when we saw the hotel, but had no way of climbing the hill where it was located. So we circled this mountain, frustrated because we both thought we would be checked in and resting in our room already. Finally, after riding through the city for about 45 minutes we made our way through the steep, narrow, winding streets, filled with festival goers (we later found out that this weekend is the Summer Festival) to our hotel.
After resting for a couple of hours we left to find some dinner and see the town. There are still many blocks of narrow, cobblestone streets, lined with 3-5 story buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. It’s a unique enough city that it’s easy to see why Vieux-Quebec was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. While not the best comparison, of all the cities I have visited, Quebec is most similar to Salzburg, Austria. Quebec is quite a bit larger and has a gorgeous waterfront whereas Salzburg is smaller and located in the Alps, but the feel of Vieux-Québec is similar to the Aldstadt of Salzburg. We ate at a small French bistro, and then made our way to the waterfront. The city has a nightly light show celebrating its 400 year history. Images are projected onto a line of waterfront silos that form a 600 meter long screen. The images are accompanied by music played on hundreds of speakers spread along the waterfront. It was an impressive show with an impressive crowd there to see it. We ended the evening at a sidewalk pub table people watching.
The weather today is overcast and rainy. I guess that I am grateful that the first real rainy day of our trip came when we were taking a day off from riding, but I have to say that I am very disappointed that the weather will likely keep us from taking full advantage of our stay here. Simply put, this is a beautiful city. Today we’ll probably be limited to visiting a museum or something, but hopefully tomorrow the weather will be clear enough that we can take a few pictures of the city to share with all of you.
T’s Terrific Thought of the Day: If you’re sitting on the back of a motorcycle and you’re frustrated and ready to be done because of tight inner-city traffic; then don’t complain because the driver is even more frustrated.
We knew the primary language was French, but were somehow still unprepared for it. Everyone speaks French. The television has 12+ channels in French, 3 in English, and 1 in Spanish. All of the signs are in French, including road signs. We both just felt like the entire scene was surreal. I’m not sure why. Perhaps we never believed we would actually make it this far. Perhaps we had a preconceived notion that French Canadians were mostly American-like. I think that’s certainly part of it. Mostly, I think it’s just hard for us to believe that we left a hotel in Vermont one morning on our motorcycle and 3 hours later were in a place that is both literally and figuratively foreign.
We hit the road about 9:15. As we’ve mentioned, our ride on Friday was supposed to be one of the more scenic days of the trip and it had been a disappointment. For our route to Quebec we chose to ride back roads to the northeast corner of Vermont (from Burlington, at the western border, to the other side of Vermont is only about 65 miles) hoping to give the state another shot at providing us with an enjoyable ride. Vermont did not disappoint us this day. The weather was gorgeous and this route was great. We went through fewer villages, the roads were not under construction, there was less traffic, and the scenery was better.
We were both reenergized immediately by the ride. We stopped in Cambridge, VT to mail home some extra stuff and picked up some Vermont cheddar cheese and deli meats for a roadside lunch later on. Shortly after that, T noticed a petting zoo with a llama so we stopped for a bit to take some pictures. It turned out to be a small farm with a bed and breakfast, antique store and flower gardens. As soon as we dismounted a dog was at our feet to greet us. I reached down to let him sniff my hand and he immediately ran off. I thought that he had smelled gas or something from my riding gloves that had spooked him. Instead he ran right back a moment later with a ball that he clearly intended for me to toss for him. So I played fetch with Sam (the farmer was outside and told us the dog’s name) for a few minutes while T took some pictures of the farm’s flowers and petting zoo animals. Still tossing the ball for Sam, I was approached by a guest of the inn who struck up a conversation. He was a biker from Maine and gave us several suggestions for rides around Bar Harbor. Bikers really are a friendly lot.
Back on the road we made our way to Newport, VT which was the last town we would go through before the border. The scenery is surprisingly different from the mountains back home in North Carolina. Vermont is more foothill-like, with wider valleys and smaller mountains. It’s very green and beautiful. Another difference is the number of lakes. We don’t have any natural lakes in the NC mountains because during the last ice age the glaciers didn’t come that far south. In Vermont there are numerous lakes of varying sizes that are quite picturesque.
Around noon, we hit the interstate about 7 miles south of the border. We came across an interesting and unexpected sign that read: “45 Degrees North Latitude – Midway point from the Equator to the North Pole”. It’s not like I had to ride a thousand miles north to discover this, but I had never thought about it. It reminds you of just how large Canada is. The Equator runs through northern Brazil at this approximate longitude. The north-south spread of Canada is nearly the same distance as from Brazil to the northern border of the United States. Think about that the next time you’re watching Ice Road Truckers on the Discovery Channel.
Soon we came to the border crossing and with a minimal wait were through Canadian customs and into the province of Quebec. The lady at the crossing was surprised that we had ridden a motorcycle there from North Carolina. Surprised may be too kind a word. I think she thought we must be a little off our rockers. She then asked where we were staying. We hadn’t made a reservation anywhere yet. Our habit along the way has been to write down the information for a few inns in the anticipated destination and then call to reserve about mid-way through the day. She seemed incredulous that we would be able to find accommodations since Quebec City was very busy this time of year and is also celebrating its 400th anniversary in 2008. By the time we left she probably thought we were the dumbest travelers she had seen in awhile.
We had checked online before departing Burlington and knew of at least a couple of acceptable hotels that had accommodations available for the evening. We stopped at the tourist information center and got some recommendations, a provincial road map, and used the public phone (we’re still not sure that we can use our cell phones here) to make hotel reservations. After eating our Vermont cheese and deli meat at a picnic table we hit the road for Quebec, which was about two and half hours away.
This is when the differences started to hit us. All of the distances were in kilometers, speed limits in k/hr, and the language was 100% French. We’ve traveled in countries where we didn’t speak the native language, but this was the first time either of us had driven in a foreign country. Some of the signs we could figure out. The one that read “Risque’ de Collision” and had a picture of a moose; I pretty much knew what that one meant. The worrisome ones were the temporary orange signs marking road construction that were both more important for us to understand and less intuitive in their interpretation. We quickly discovered what the sign for “bump in the road” was. Mileage in kilometers was not a problem. The speed limit was 100kmph, approximately 62 mph, most Quebecois people drove around 75mph. Riding the Canadian Autoroute we passed out of hill country into flat terrain similar to eastern North Carolina before re-entering some rolling hills as we approached the city. We crossed a bridge over the St. Lawrence River, which is incredibly wide at this point and flanked by steep banks on each side, and into Quebec City.
I thought we would have no problems finding our hotel, the Chateau Frontenac. It is enormous and dominates the skyline of every photograph I have seen of the city. Unfortunately for our navigational purposes, all of these photos must be taken from the water and we were entering the city from the opposite direction because we couldn’t see it at all. Still, I knew which direction it was in so we rode that way. What we didn’t know is that the city has a road and buildings along the water front, but also has many buildings on top of a steep mountain in the middle of the peninsula and this is where our hotel was. We were along the water when we saw the hotel, but had no way of climbing the hill where it was located. So we circled this mountain, frustrated because we both thought we would be checked in and resting in our room already. Finally, after riding through the city for about 45 minutes we made our way through the steep, narrow, winding streets, filled with festival goers (we later found out that this weekend is the Summer Festival) to our hotel.
After resting for a couple of hours we left to find some dinner and see the town. There are still many blocks of narrow, cobblestone streets, lined with 3-5 story buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. It’s a unique enough city that it’s easy to see why Vieux-Quebec was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. While not the best comparison, of all the cities I have visited, Quebec is most similar to Salzburg, Austria. Quebec is quite a bit larger and has a gorgeous waterfront whereas Salzburg is smaller and located in the Alps, but the feel of Vieux-Québec is similar to the Aldstadt of Salzburg. We ate at a small French bistro, and then made our way to the waterfront. The city has a nightly light show celebrating its 400 year history. Images are projected onto a line of waterfront silos that form a 600 meter long screen. The images are accompanied by music played on hundreds of speakers spread along the waterfront. It was an impressive show with an impressive crowd there to see it. We ended the evening at a sidewalk pub table people watching.
The weather today is overcast and rainy. I guess that I am grateful that the first real rainy day of our trip came when we were taking a day off from riding, but I have to say that I am very disappointed that the weather will likely keep us from taking full advantage of our stay here. Simply put, this is a beautiful city. Today we’ll probably be limited to visiting a museum or something, but hopefully tomorrow the weather will be clear enough that we can take a few pictures of the city to share with all of you.
T’s Terrific Thought of the Day: If you’re sitting on the back of a motorcycle and you’re frustrated and ready to be done because of tight inner-city traffic; then don’t complain because the driver is even more frustrated.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Maple Syrup, Jump Rope, and The Chipmunks?
After getting settled last night and taking a short rest for our backs, we headed out for dinner in downtown Bennington. We found an ad for a place with hand-cut steaks and pasta. Unfortunately, there was only one steak on the entire menu, so we opted for pasta. We decided to skip dessert and stopped by Madison Brewing Co on the way back. They had several micro brews that were excellent – and we meet a local who gave us some suggestions for scenic rides around the area. James was about 28 years old and had recently relocated to Bennington from his home in the Bronx to take a position as a mechanical engineer with a local company. We enjoyed talking with him and the bartender for about an hour before turning in for the evening.
This morning, we took another walk downtown to the Blue Benn diner for breakfast. The Blue Benn was an old railway car diner and we sat on stools at the counter, which was a little too similar to sitting on a motorcycle seat. The food was excellent with hearty portions. One surprise was that the syrup brought out for Brian's pancake was not "Vermont Maple Syrup", but regular old syrup. Brian said that he would have specified had he not thought he would look foolish for asking for maple syrup. Who knew?
We sat beside a mother and her son who were obvious regulars – the waitress asked him why his sister had not been in for breakfast this week – she has been at jump rope camp – I found this quite amusing. At the same time, B was distracted by the mini jukeboxes and the current selection playing – the Chipmunks version of Achy Breaky Heart – of course, that is now the theme song for the trip. We can now add this to our list of memorable Achy Breaky versions along with the Spanish version by the mariachi band in Puerto Vallarta.
Then, it was time to get back on the bike and take a look around Vermont. On the way out of town, we were able to mark the white rabbit off of the scavenger hunt list. We saw two white horses and a punch-buggy, but I was not able to get pictures of them. We will keep trying. The weather and roads turned out not to cooperate too well. It was overcast and threatened to rain all day. The state of Vermont appears to be in the processes of paving all major non-interstate roads at the same time. After only going about 60 miles in 2 hours, we decided to head on to Burlington and stop for the day. It still took us about 90 minutes to travel the remaining 45 miles to Burlington.
We got the last room available at the Willard Street Inn B & B. It was the smallest room on the 3rd floor, but it was just perfect. We took another break and then headed out to downtown and to see Lake Champlain. It was just a 12 minute walk (all downhill) to Church Street. There are 4 blocks of pedestrian-only traffic with shops, restaurants, and entertainment. We met a few interesting dogs – a trio of bulldog puppies with pink collars, a miniature whippet, and a very well trained Burmese Mountain Dog. This dog belonged to a couple who ate at the same outdoor cafe we did. When they got a table, they instructed the dog to sit, which he did just on the other side of the velvet rope while they ate their meal. Even when people (kids mostly) would walk up to him and want to pet him, he would look to his owners for their permission before complying. After dinner we headed over to the Vermont Brewing Co and got a sampler. To cap off the evening we headed to the waterfront of Lake Champlain to watch the sunset before taking a cab back up the hill to our room.
We'll update the pictures sometime in the next day or so. Tomorrow, we are headed to Canada.
T’s Terrific Thought of the Day: What do you do at jump rope camp? Does it take a whole week? Did I miss out on this when I was a kid?
This morning, we took another walk downtown to the Blue Benn diner for breakfast. The Blue Benn was an old railway car diner and we sat on stools at the counter, which was a little too similar to sitting on a motorcycle seat. The food was excellent with hearty portions. One surprise was that the syrup brought out for Brian's pancake was not "Vermont Maple Syrup", but regular old syrup. Brian said that he would have specified had he not thought he would look foolish for asking for maple syrup. Who knew?
We sat beside a mother and her son who were obvious regulars – the waitress asked him why his sister had not been in for breakfast this week – she has been at jump rope camp – I found this quite amusing. At the same time, B was distracted by the mini jukeboxes and the current selection playing – the Chipmunks version of Achy Breaky Heart – of course, that is now the theme song for the trip. We can now add this to our list of memorable Achy Breaky versions along with the Spanish version by the mariachi band in Puerto Vallarta.
Then, it was time to get back on the bike and take a look around Vermont. On the way out of town, we were able to mark the white rabbit off of the scavenger hunt list. We saw two white horses and a punch-buggy, but I was not able to get pictures of them. We will keep trying. The weather and roads turned out not to cooperate too well. It was overcast and threatened to rain all day. The state of Vermont appears to be in the processes of paving all major non-interstate roads at the same time. After only going about 60 miles in 2 hours, we decided to head on to Burlington and stop for the day. It still took us about 90 minutes to travel the remaining 45 miles to Burlington.
We got the last room available at the Willard Street Inn B & B. It was the smallest room on the 3rd floor, but it was just perfect. We took another break and then headed out to downtown and to see Lake Champlain. It was just a 12 minute walk (all downhill) to Church Street. There are 4 blocks of pedestrian-only traffic with shops, restaurants, and entertainment. We met a few interesting dogs – a trio of bulldog puppies with pink collars, a miniature whippet, and a very well trained Burmese Mountain Dog. This dog belonged to a couple who ate at the same outdoor cafe we did. When they got a table, they instructed the dog to sit, which he did just on the other side of the velvet rope while they ate their meal. Even when people (kids mostly) would walk up to him and want to pet him, he would look to his owners for their permission before complying. After dinner we headed over to the Vermont Brewing Co and got a sampler. To cap off the evening we headed to the waterfront of Lake Champlain to watch the sunset before taking a cab back up the hill to our room.
We'll update the pictures sometime in the next day or so. Tomorrow, we are headed to Canada.
T’s Terrific Thought of the Day: What do you do at jump rope camp? Does it take a whole week? Did I miss out on this when I was a kid?
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Long Road to Vermont
After a long day of riding we achieved our goal for the end of Day 2...We're in Bennington, Vermont.
We hit the road at 8:15 this morning, heading out of Hagerstown, MD into Pennsylvania. We made fantastic time going through the mountainous east central part of the state until we ran into a few stretches of road construction that slowed us considerably. Still...by lunch time we had made it all the way to Binghamton, NY, which was just past the halfway point of the day's planned ride.
Heading north out of Harrisburg, PA, we were riding roads that neither of us had never been on before (in a car, bus, or on the bike). We were both surprised by how mountainous Pennsylvania and New York are. The mountains are not quite as high as in NC and the valleys and ranges are more well-defined. These ranges were more like what you see in the Shenandoah Valley than what we're used to in North Carolina. As a result, the interstates are still fairly straight and level so travel through these mountains is relatively easy.
Encouraged by our progress we took a very slight detour to go into Binghamton and eat at a local diner rather than one of the cookie cutter chain restaurants out by the interstate. The diner had very hearty, homestyle food. Homestyle in the rural New York sense, not in the North Carolina sense. Not that the food was exotic; T had spaghetti and meat balls, I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The difference was in the preparation. T's meatballs were just shy of baseball sized, while my meatloaf had Italian sausage-type seasoning and was smoothered in mushroom gravy.
We both enjoyed the food quite a bit, but there was a drawback. The hearty meal made us both want to take a nap. Unfortunately we still had a couple of hundred miles before we were done for the day.
Not far out of Binghamton we both started to hit the wall. After riding 6 hours yesterday and 5 by the time we had lunch, we were starting to have some riding fatigue. Coupleing the long hours with them being on the interstate our progress slowed considerably this afternoon. Our stops were coming every 45-60 minutes rather than 90. So...after thinking we might arrive in Vermont around 4 this afternoon we ended up arriving around 5:15.
Our room is in a motor inn in downtown Bennington, VT. We're planning to go out in a bit and find some dinner and explore the town a little bit. We'll try to include that in the next entry.
The goal for tomorrow is some leisurely riding through the towns and villages of central Vermont, ending up in Burlington, VT on the shores of Lake Champlain.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Stretching is important -- Who would have thought that I would be more than happy to do lunges, squats and crunches multiple times a day!!! Otherwise, I think my gluteus maximus might look like it is the other half of a motorcycle seat.
P.S. One more item checked off the scavenger hunt list.
We hit the road at 8:15 this morning, heading out of Hagerstown, MD into Pennsylvania. We made fantastic time going through the mountainous east central part of the state until we ran into a few stretches of road construction that slowed us considerably. Still...by lunch time we had made it all the way to Binghamton, NY, which was just past the halfway point of the day's planned ride.
Heading north out of Harrisburg, PA, we were riding roads that neither of us had never been on before (in a car, bus, or on the bike). We were both surprised by how mountainous Pennsylvania and New York are. The mountains are not quite as high as in NC and the valleys and ranges are more well-defined. These ranges were more like what you see in the Shenandoah Valley than what we're used to in North Carolina. As a result, the interstates are still fairly straight and level so travel through these mountains is relatively easy.
Encouraged by our progress we took a very slight detour to go into Binghamton and eat at a local diner rather than one of the cookie cutter chain restaurants out by the interstate. The diner had very hearty, homestyle food. Homestyle in the rural New York sense, not in the North Carolina sense. Not that the food was exotic; T had spaghetti and meat balls, I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The difference was in the preparation. T's meatballs were just shy of baseball sized, while my meatloaf had Italian sausage-type seasoning and was smoothered in mushroom gravy.
We both enjoyed the food quite a bit, but there was a drawback. The hearty meal made us both want to take a nap. Unfortunately we still had a couple of hundred miles before we were done for the day.
Not far out of Binghamton we both started to hit the wall. After riding 6 hours yesterday and 5 by the time we had lunch, we were starting to have some riding fatigue. Coupleing the long hours with them being on the interstate our progress slowed considerably this afternoon. Our stops were coming every 45-60 minutes rather than 90. So...after thinking we might arrive in Vermont around 4 this afternoon we ended up arriving around 5:15.
Our room is in a motor inn in downtown Bennington, VT. We're planning to go out in a bit and find some dinner and explore the town a little bit. We'll try to include that in the next entry.
The goal for tomorrow is some leisurely riding through the towns and villages of central Vermont, ending up in Burlington, VT on the shores of Lake Champlain.
T's Terrific Thought of the Day: Stretching is important -- Who would have thought that I would be more than happy to do lunges, squats and crunches multiple times a day!!! Otherwise, I think my gluteus maximus might look like it is the other half of a motorcycle seat.
P.S. One more item checked off the scavenger hunt list.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Up the Shenandoah Valley
For the most part, riding a bike (or a car for that matter) on the interstate is boring. It only serves the purpose of quickly getting you someplace else. While maybe not exactly an exception to this rule, riding from our home up I-77 and I-81 through first the Blue Ridge Mountains and then up the Shenandoah Valley is a lot better than most interstate rides. The valley, in particular, is really nice. Pretty scenery, and the route isn't so windy and steep that it keeps you from your real goal on the interstate...putting miles behind you.
The goal for today and tomorrow is to get these high mileage days out of the way early in the trip. We left the house today just before 1PM hoping to make it to Hagerstown, MD. We estimated we would be there around 7PM. Our bike has a range of about 175 miles. That's somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours of straight interstate riding, which is more than our stamina will allow, so our plan was to stop around 90 miles into each tank and then stop again to fill up. This worked out really well today and we didn't have one "wasted" stop. We were helped somewhat by the fact that both rainstorms we hit came upon us as we were already stopped to fuel up, allowing us to don the rain gear without an extra stop. The rain gear worked pretty well. We went through two soaking showers and our clothes stayed completely dry.
We made better progress than we expected and flirted with the idea of proceeding on past Hagerstown, but ended up stopping there anyway. We checked in around 6:30, picked up a couple of tall boys and ordered Papa Johns.
Only two pictures today. First is of us posing with the fully packed up bike, immedeately prior to our departure. The second is at our first fuel stop in Natural Bridge, Virginia. Why a pic at a gas station? Well...perhaps our first scavenger hunt success. The Exxon had a large tiger stature. T couldn't get on top of it, but we took this pic of her posing with the big kitty. Since Swish sent in this scavenger hunt recommendation, he can give us a ruling if it counts without her actually sitting on it.
Tomorrow's goal is Bennington, Vermont. The planned route is north through Pennsylvania, driving through Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton. Then on to Binghamton and Albany in New York, before arriving in Vermont. So long as we don't have any mechanical difficulties and the weather isn't too uncooperative, we should be able to get there. Hopefully we'll have wi-fi tomorrow night and can add another entry.
PS-We went by JMU, Toms Brook and Boonsboro today.
T's terrific thought of the day: K2O protein water rocks!!
The goal for today and tomorrow is to get these high mileage days out of the way early in the trip. We left the house today just before 1PM hoping to make it to Hagerstown, MD. We estimated we would be there around 7PM. Our bike has a range of about 175 miles. That's somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours of straight interstate riding, which is more than our stamina will allow, so our plan was to stop around 90 miles into each tank and then stop again to fill up. This worked out really well today and we didn't have one "wasted" stop. We were helped somewhat by the fact that both rainstorms we hit came upon us as we were already stopped to fuel up, allowing us to don the rain gear without an extra stop. The rain gear worked pretty well. We went through two soaking showers and our clothes stayed completely dry.
We made better progress than we expected and flirted with the idea of proceeding on past Hagerstown, but ended up stopping there anyway. We checked in around 6:30, picked up a couple of tall boys and ordered Papa Johns.
Only two pictures today. First is of us posing with the fully packed up bike, immedeately prior to our departure. The second is at our first fuel stop in Natural Bridge, Virginia. Why a pic at a gas station? Well...perhaps our first scavenger hunt success. The Exxon had a large tiger stature. T couldn't get on top of it, but we took this pic of her posing with the big kitty. Since Swish sent in this scavenger hunt recommendation, he can give us a ruling if it counts without her actually sitting on it.
Tomorrow's goal is Bennington, Vermont. The planned route is north through Pennsylvania, driving through Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton. Then on to Binghamton and Albany in New York, before arriving in Vermont. So long as we don't have any mechanical difficulties and the weather isn't too uncooperative, we should be able to get there. Hopefully we'll have wi-fi tomorrow night and can add another entry.
PS-We went by JMU, Toms Brook and Boonsboro today.
T's terrific thought of the day: K2O protein water rocks!!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
On the Countdown
Heading out from North Carolina, we are going to see where the bike takes us...The goal is Quebec City, Canada followed by a winding trip home with hoped for stops in Bar Harbor, Maine - Cooperstown, New York - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We'll keep you all posted on our progress and events.
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