Near Freeport – July 13^th

I’m writing this from yet another campground, this one a few miles north of Freeport, ME, which is very near Portland.  Tomorrow I’ll ride into Portland and, on the advice of locals, take the Amtrack to Boston (apparently costs $25 and $5 for the bike – no bike box required, as in Europe, there’s a special bike car).  Apparently the ride between Portland and Boston isn’t great so who am I to blow against the wind…

Today’s 48-mile ride started well on a rail bike trail south along the Kennebec River  for the first seven miles south of Augusta. 

There was no wind and with an 8 AM start, a comfortable temperature. Once the rail trail ended, however, it was back to hills and increasing heat (high 80s) on a secondary highway with sparse traffic (Route 24) until Richmond, a small town north of Brunswick ME. There I met a couple of local rec. bikers who informed me (a.) of the Amtrack option to Boston and (b.) that I’d crossed Maine’s fat/skinny divide a few km north of the town. and (c.)  that the ride south would subsequently get less hilly, which was almost true except for the last five miles. The fat/skinny divide strangely seems to be holding up because the people I’ve subsequently observed today have definitely been skinnier.  Something in the water perhaps?  I’ve also now started meeting other recreational cyclists. 

During lunch at an excellent Indian restaurant in Brunswick ME, another local who struck up a conversation with me directed me to this “ must stay” campground. 

Truth be told, however, it’s kind of ordinary, even marginal by BC standards.  Living in “Supernatural BC”, one gets spoiled.  It’s on the Atlantic coast, which I’ve finally reached.  There’s apparently an air quality alert, today however, the horizon is an ominous pale orange and I’m wondering if I should be breathing the local brew.  This almost makes me nostalgic for some Vancouver rain (I stress the "almost").

Nevertheless, things here have worked out reasonably well.  I’ve been hob-nobbing and drinking beer with a 20-something foursome (two couples) who adopted me as I entered the campground and insisted I join them.  Everyone’s apparently curious about – or feels sorry for - the old guy on the loaded bike and I almost get more company than I want.  My reservations about such company quickly evaporate if they provide free beer however, as was the case here.  Anyway, it’s dark now, the bugs have arrived and so to bed.

Near Stratton, Maine – July 9, 2012

I’m writing this from a camp table near the Wifi “hot spot” in a nice lakeside campground about six km shy of Stratton.  It’s getting dark and cool so I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to carry on.

I can’t speak too highly of yesterday’s wonderful B & B hosts who besides plying me with wine and French immersion, fed me a gourmet breakfast this morning before I hit the road.

Today’s ride was, as I expected, hilly for the first 35 km

to about 5 km shy of the border crossing at Coburn, Maine (consisting of Canadian and American border posts and a gas station and nothing else). 

The rest of the ride was still somewhat hilly, but much with much smaller hills mainly because the route changed direction and began following the drainage southeast.  The weather was again ideal, sunny with a fresh tailwind breeze.  Nevertheless, I was somewhat fatigued after putting 77 km on the clock and stopped at this campground, which I’d been told was a good one.

Today’s low point occurred when I received a dressing-down from a local Homeland Security Gestapo guy when I innocently walked across the border with my bike to enter the US as a pedestrian (normal procedure at home in Blaine WA).  I’m now more convinced than ever that the US government uses Homeland Security as a dumping ground for its surly otherwise unemployable personnel, giving the biggest azzholes the most isolated border posts so they won’t pzz off as many foreigners.

The countryside changed significantly at the border, assuming a more New England appearance – wetter, moose pasture and more lakes – and bugs.  This is probably because I was now following a river valley.

Augusta ME – July 12

And on the seventh day, he rested…

It’s Friday morning and I’m writing this from a rather sterile Motel 6 just outside Augusta, the state capital.  I’ve had a couple of days hard riding through never-ending hills and I’m overdue for a day off the bike.

 On Wednesday, I rode about 85 km (57 miles – I changed the settings on my odometer after entering this unit-backwards country) from Stratton to just shy of Skowhegan ME.  Conditions were quite good – estimated mid-70s, a mix of sun and cloud and no significant wind.  The terrain, however, was as noted above, quite hilly and I was pretty tired by the time I arrived at the campground.

Maine, or at least that part of it, was almost undeveloped with none of the usual fast food joints, big box stores, motels etc. one typically encounters around mid-sized US and Canadian towns.  I was ready to grab a motel that night but couldn’t find one even in Madison, a fair-sized town with a pulp mill.  I was in fact having flashbacks of the Romanian part of my last year’s Danube tour by the end of the day.  The campground was a good one – even totally wired for Wifi

but I was too tired to do much more than check my E-mail and catch up on the news.

I finally reached America the Convenient at Skawhegan yesterday.  I’m now back in the land of fast and abundant food, dollar stores, etc. – all the necessities!

Yesterday’s ride to Augusta was short – about 65 km (43 miles on the odo.).  The weather was sunny and quite hot – mid 80s.  The terrain was reasonable for the first half of the ride (to Waterville) but degenerated into lots of short, steep hills for the rest.  Hill quantity and grade more than height or length wears one down on a loaded bike.  By the time I reached Augusta – the hilliest and most down-at-heel state capital I ’ve ever seen,



I was again very tired, dispirited, a pulled muscle in my left leg was bothering me and my aging body was crying out for a day off the bike .

I had an interesting interlude with the locals before I checked into the motel.  John, a 50-something local hippie and former Engineer, flagged me down and invited me home.  “Home” turned out to be sort of a hobo crash pad with assorted flotsam and jetsam hanging around.  I was initially apprehensive and worried that I’d landed amongst druggies who’d proceed to strip me and the bike of anything of value.  I soon realized they were simply OK people to whom life had thrown a few bad curves.  Mr. and Mrs. “Road-dog” – both 50-something and transients for several years - fed me some hobo stew, I bought them and the others some beer (and was immediately a hero), listened to some bad guitar playing – the guy was left handed so I couldn’t play his guitar myself – and enjoyed their company for a couple of hours.  It simply felt good to be sitting down!  John suggested I stay with the gang last night but my common sense and survival instinct kicked in and I politely deferred.  We parted with smiles all around.

I’ll probably get on my (unloaded) bike and check out Augusta’s limited attractions.  'with an early start, I should be able to make Portland and the Atlantic coast tomorrow.

A quick note on Maine generally.  Sorry to the natives but it’s sure not my favorite state.  The parts of Maine I’ve seen  to date seem rather backwards and past their prime, sort of like the US southeast.  Also I wasn’t expecting much in the way of scenery so I wasn’t disappointed but apart from a few isolated points of interest, I’ve found very little worth photographing.  It’s also seriously short of campgrounds (no camping in any Maine state parks I’ve seen or Googled), motels and B & Bs.  Hopefully the southern Maine coast will be more interesting and tourist-friendly.

Another thing - I thought there were a lot of fat people in small-town Quebec but when I hit the Maine border, I realized I hadn’t seen anything yet.  The number of not just fat, but really obese people has to be seen to be believed.  I haven’t seen this much per capita obesity since Mississippi/Alabama and down there, the locals at least have the excuse that it’s often too hot to move fast.  This has to be a major and as yet not seriously addressed national problem for the US and perhaps soon the Canadian government.  What to do about it, I honestly don’t know.  How do you get people to stop eating crap and start exercising?  Pedal-powered TVs perhaps?  Anyway, all for now.

La Patrie – July 8, 2012

I’m sitting in a very nice B & B in this pretty little town about 40 km from the Maine border. 

I thought I might make the border today but, after pedalling 80 km on a “roller coaster” secondary highway, I was getting bagged and I’d had enough. I’m guessing that today and tomorrow’s riding will be the most difficult of the trip.  I’m skirting the northern end of the Vermont and New Hampshire Appalachians and, while the topography on the Quebec side isn’t extreme, there’s still the typical Appalachian northeast-southwest topographic trend and the highway, which runs straight east-west, crosses ridge after ridge.  The hills aren’t extreme, today at any rate, but there are a LOT of them and looking at the approaching topography, tomorrow promises to be even hillier.  The weather was ideal – low 20s with a substantial cooling tailwind and a mix of sun and cloud and if it hadn’t been for the innumerable hills, I might even have enjoyed myself.  Once I reach the Maine border, the road appears to follow a river valley southeast towards Portland so riding there shouldn’t be too bad – famous last words!

I wheeled into town, found and got set up at the B & B, then went to the bar across the street to replenish my electrolytes and what do I run into in the Bar?  Cowboy music and country dancing francophones – that makes three days in a row!  Half the town must have been there on a Sunday afternoon, which confirms the Catholic church’s grip on Quebec is no more.  Les francophones appear to be party people.  I very much doubt that you’d get such a scene on a Sunday afternoon anywhere else in Canada.

Montreal to Washington Bike Tour - Days 2 and 3

Granby, Quebec – July 6, 2012

I’m motelling it tonight after the first day’s ride.  I can’t believe how much I’m paying for a second-rate motel.  Granby has about 60.000 people, isn’t without tourist attractions (according to Wikipedia) but has only three hotels, two of them first-class!  I did tell the desk clerk that I really didn’t think I needed the hooker, which I was sure the price must include.  Apparently it didn’t, however, so here I roost, alone and annoyed.  Granby really needs some Ugandan Indian-owned cheapo motels.

Anyway, back to the trip.  I arrived in Montreal about 7:30 PM Wednesday night uneventfully.  By the time I put my bike back together and rode the approximately 25 km into downtown Montreal in the dark, however, it was about 11 PM.  FYI, if you ride due south from Dorval airport to the river, there’s a riverside bike path that will eventually take you to downtown Montreal via the Lachine Canal.  I knew about the path because I’d ridden it ten years ago.

Yesterday was a semi-rest day, after a fitful night’s sleep in steamy heat.  Apparently whoever owns the Montreal IYH hostel figured we’d survive without air conditioning so they didn’t turn it on.  My three room-mates – a Swiss engineer, a Pakistan-Canadian grad student and a Korean kid who’d just completed an English immersion course - were excellent Thursday morning company.  There were no semi-housebroken nineteen year olds, which is always a possibility when hostelling. 

So, getting back to yesterday, I jumped on my bike sans baggage and spent the afternoon touring central Montreal. The tour included a climb up to Mont Royale Park, McGill University, St Catherine’s Street and the old port area. I also managed to catch a couple of Montreal |jazz Festival performances that I stumbled on en route

.

All in all, it was an interesting day, I now kind of know my way around the central city and the locations of many streets whose names appear in various Mordecai Richler novels.

I started out this morning in blistering heat and rode a modest 75 km in dead flat country.  The first part of the ride through interminable commercial sprawl, heavy traffic and hundreds of traffic lights lived down to my expectations.  Things improved somewhat when I hit a paved bike trail – an old rail bed - which carried me for the last 25 km into Granby.  Apparently there are several of these in la belle province, more than in BC.

The main problem I had was the heat – I lost track of how much water, Gator Aid, Coke, etc. that.I knocked back en route – and I was pretty well bagged by ride’s end.  I suspect it will take my aging body a few days to adapt to this sort of heat and humidity, which is forecast to continue for several more days at least.

Since I left Montreal Island, I’ve been in deepest Quebec.  To date, Quebecois culture appears to be like various unauthorized guidebooks describe it – Pepsi and Poutine, an interesting but not particularly attractive blend of redneck and French culture.  Some observations which may be expanded upon

·         There are lots of oversized Mussolini-modern churches and crosses from the pre-1960 theocracy that are often illuminated with naked household light bulbs.  Considering how secular contemporary Quebois appear to be, one wionders who maintains them.

·         I’ve just returned from a big-ass [Chinese] buffet where I was one of two or three non-obese patrons.  There are lots of other fatties on the street.  Granby reminds me of similar fat towns in Mississippi and Alabama I’ve passed through.  That could be what the French in France would look like if the food there wasn’t so expensive.

Near Sherbrooke – July 7^th

I’m sitting in a campground a few km before town.  70 km net again today, 80 onh the clocki after a few directional mistakes.  Rolling country, high overcast weather, low 20s temperature I suspect.

Riding today was somewhat more civilized temperature-wise.  I rode the first 25 km on a continuation of the former railway trail I rode yesterday – part of the Trans Canada Trail.  The rest was a combination of Quebec Highway 112, a secondary highway with sparse traffic, and another bike trail for the last 10 km.

The trail part of the ride was very civilized with periodic beverage stops and bike shops en route,  There were lots of locals on it (Saturday) and I ran into some nice ones en route.  getting complements on how well I speak it from les Quebecois.  I think they’re just being nice but I also think I speak it as well as some of them speak English.

I decided to try camping after my $120 plus motel last night and I’m now ensconced in a huge trailer park.  There must be three or four hundred mobile homes here in the middle of nowhere with nothing much to commend it.  There are several nice large lakes in the area but here, there’s one sub-Olympic-sized pool for several hundred families in what appears to be a former forest cut block.  It's strange that such a large campground wouldn’t be on a lake somewhere.

I’m getting my nose rubbed in small-town Quebecois culture again.  Tonight’s highlight is the big Western dance In the trailer park’s restaurant/ballroom.  It’s very strange.  The music’s all US country and there’s a large group of 50 to 70 something retirees who appear to have gone to the same night school dance class tripping the light country/western fantastic – line dancing, Texas two-step etc.  I saw the same thing in Granby last evening.  ‘Quebecois hicks appear to be even hickier than ours.

There’s not too much else to talk about today, it’s just about dark, the mosquitos have come out so I’m going to bed early.  I’ll hopefully hit the Maine border tomorrow and try to post this from a Macdonald’s in Sherbrooke (no Wifi here).  All for now.

North Vancouver - Sunday July 2nd, 2012

My Facebook page's "blog" feature having  inexplicably been de-activated, I'm switching this forthcoming trip  blog to this site.  This entry is primarily to familiarize myself with the site's features.

It's raining again today!  I'm temporarily benched work-wise, and desperate for some warmth and sunshine after enduring  this just-passed cold, rainy Vancouver "June-uary". I've therefore decided to fly to Montreal with my bike and touring gear, ride from there to approximately Portland Maine on the US east coast, ride south for a month, ship my bike and/or fly with it from wherever I wind up  to Seattle, then bike or bus home.   As long as I'm involuntarily retired, I might as well enjoy the summer.

Biking "America the Convenient" promises to be a lot less hassle-free and challenging than various European countries I've previously tackled .   I'm not anticipating much in the way of scenery on this trip but there should be lots of historical/cultural stuff to take in.  Also, except for the start of the tour where it appears I'll have to cross one or more Appalachian mountain ranges, the terrain appears to be somewhat flatter than I'm used to.  We'll see.  All for now.