On the road again

After a brief trip to Cleveland to celebrate my Grandma's life (it was a beautiful service), we got back on the road again Sunday. And I can honestly say that it felt great to be on our bikes again. We left from our friends' brand new house in Portland, Maine (they kindly let us store our bikes there and picked and dropped us off from the airport, too!). We said our good byes and then promptly got a flat tire before we even got out of the driveway. Dave swapped out the tube and we started off again.

Not much later, before we had even gotten out of Portland, we got our second flat of the trip! I rode over something very sharp and heard the loud hiss of air immediately. We noticed that there was a bike shop just a few miles ahead - what luck! We swapped out the tube again (using our last spare tube) and rode on to the bike shop. We were feeling like we had made a good recovery from our double flat morning until we discovered the bike shop was closed on Sundays. Shoot!

We started to discuss options and decided that if we got another flat, we could patch the one tube, but it didn't seem like an ideal situation. We were heading for western Maine where there was unlikely to be places to eat lunch, let alone a bike shop. But, as we were getting ready to ride off, we noticed that a light was on inside the bike shop and that the car in the driveway had an open window. Maybe, just maybe, there was someone inside. We knocked (perhaps a little loudly). We soon heard a dog barking and then a man opened the door. The store was closed but he had come in to catch up on some paperwork. Hurrah! He was happy to loan us his pump and sell us a few tubes. We got to talking and he asked us how we got the flat. That prompted us to look at the front tire and we noticed that the slash was quit large and pulling apart with the inflated tube beneath it. So we decided to buy a new tire, too. Perhaps we would have been fine, but it seemed like a good idea to have a slash-free tire for our journey across western Maine.

The flats delayed us quite a bit but this turned out to be a good thing. We got to Gorham around lunch time and stopped at the best looking place - the Sebago Brewery. Since it was a brewery, we decided we should have a beer with lunch (but we declined the offer to have our water bottles filled with beer!) It was pretty refreshing! As we ate, I realized that there probably wouldn't be many places to eat on our route after Gorham. That made the beer taste even better :-)

We got on our bikes and were happy to finally be in a more rural area with fewer cars again. We made pretty decent progress despite the fact that it was hot - really out first hot day of the trip. At some point, I remembered our friends in Wolfeboro (our destination for the day) lived on a lake, and that we could jump into that lake when we got there. Talk about some real motivation! The only other thing I was dreaming about was a nice cold lemonade, but I was trying not to get my hopes up since we were in western Maine, where there just wasn't much of anything at all. In fact, I had checked Yelp for eating establishments but there were no results anywhere near us. (Later, I realized that Yelp is probably not be widely used in western Maine.)

However, in Newfield, Maine when we saw a sign on the road for a museum which had food, drinks, and other stuff, I was elated. Especially because it was only 1/4 mile off our route. We rode to the museum and I walked inside. There were two women inside, and when they turned to look at me, an expression of grave concern came over their faces. "Can I get you a paper towel?" the one lady stammered. "You're perspiring so much." I must have looked pretty bad and I'm still not sure exactly what a paper towel would have done for me, but I assured them I was OK, and just needed something cold to drink. They didn't seem convinced, but told us that the restaurant just down the road had lemonade. We hurried down and drank two glasses of lemonade in about 5 seconds flat. Incredible. We also stuck some ice cubes in our bike shorts -- you just tuck them up under the legs and the spandex holds them in there. They cool you down considerably.

At this point, we took stock of where we were, and how much further we had to go. I also thought a lot about the lake and how badly I wanted to be in it. Our friends Nancy and John had offered to come get us if we needed a ride, and so we decided to call them and see if they would be willing to meet us in an hour just across the New Hampshire border. We picked the spot on our route just before the directions told us to walk our bikes for 3.7 miles. We weren't really sure why the directions told us to walk our bikes, but guessed that the road must have been rough. Given our delayed start, we thought it would be OK to skip this adventure and instead jump in the lake. We called, and Nancy and John happily offered to come get us at the meeting point.

We rode on for another hour or so, and then saw a friendly car flash its lights. We pulled over into the parking lot and about 30 seconds later, a major downpour started. What timing! We tried to pack up the bikes as quick as we could, and then got in the car. We headed home and the only sad part of the day was that between the rain and all of the water I had poured on myself, I wasn't hot anymore (plus it looked like a thunderstorm was coming.) So we didn't jump in the lake. Instead, we decided to stay another day so we could jump in the lake the next day. Also, there make had loons and I really wanted to hear them again because I LOVE LOONS! 

What a good decision that was! John and Nancy have sea kayaks and a sail boat and they like to hike! It was perfect weather so we took out the sea kayaks in the morning, hiked in the afternoon and swam just before another thunderstorm rolled through. It as heavenly - absolutely one of the best days of our trip. 

Since the days seem to flow from one to the next, I'll just continue on here with our final day of the trip. We had about 90 miles to go and John kindly offered to drive us part way so we didn't have to do 90 miles. When we originally planned the trip, we thought we could probably do 90 miles if needed. During the trip we discovered that we had no desire to do 90 miles in a day. 

John dropped us off near 93 and we started our final day of riding. In Bristol, NH we met a cop from New Zealand. He seemed so out of context but it was great talking to him. He even recommended a diner to us near Hanover. He also thought we were crazy but maybe not quite as crazy as New Zealand cyclists because all of their roads are narrow and windy apparently. I'm not sure how he made it to tiny little Bristol but I'm glad be was there and that he talked to us. 

Soon after all of this, we made it to Grafton where we got on a rail trail. It as a little rough going, but no cars and no hills! I have no idea how they made it that flat but it was kind of nice after so many hills on the rest of the ride. Also it was much more shaded than the road and so also cooler! A big bonus and definitely worth the blow downs we had to walk our bikes over and the one dog that chased us a bit.

We stopped for first lunch and second lunch by two different beautiful lakes. The first had a loon calling! The second was Mascoma lake and we knew we were close. 

We made it into Hanover, I stopped to get an iced chai and then we headed down to the river. We jumped into the Connecticut, jumped out, rode across the river and met my aunt Judy right where she had dropped us off some two weeks ago. And, then it started raining! A perfect ending to a pretty amazing trip. 

We're so grateful to all of our friends and family who helped make it possible! Thank you John, Judy, Jim, Mary, Tara, Jesse, Jake, Catrina, Kyle, Gray, Sean, Sarah, Sam, Kristin, Nick, Carol, Chuck, Scott, Katie, Nancy, and John. We could not have done it without you guys!