Days 53 and 54 Bethel to Lewiston to Rockport

53 (25 Sep 09) Bethel to Lewiston 50 miles

We slept in - at least for us. Jackie was up early preparing a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, juice and coffee. I (Jim) awoke to the smell of cooking bacon - what a change from the last 50 days! We ate a relaxed breakfast and Gerry showed us his progress on his “man cave” in the basement - wonder why it’s down there? We said our goodbyes and thanked the Bells for their great hospitality.

We were off, this time down Paradise Drive, but into the wind again. Much to our surprise, as we turned on to Route 26 to head toward Lewiston, it became a tail wind and we nearly flew south. Despite a late start, we reached South Paris around 12:30 and decided to stop for lunch at a restaurant rather than doing our usual forage at a gas station convenience store. Jim spied Shaner’s Family Restaurant. The parking lot was full, always a good sign, so we stopped there. Lunch was unexpectedly good (guess the parking lot sign worked). The restaurant was full of senior citizens and we chatted with a few of the other patrons during lunch.

With a persistent tail wind we breezed into Lewiston for a stay at the only truly bedraggled Super 8 motel we encountered on the trip. We took a long walk to a not so good Thai restaurant (Toby’s iPhone told us 7 of 8 people who ate there and wrote a review thought it was good - so much for that source of information). Toby and I slept through a fight in the Super 8 hall between a 75 year old man and a 25 year old woman (age estimates provided by the night clerk at breakfast). Len said there were flying shoes and lots of execrable language. I was wearing my earplugs, a defensive maneuver when rooming with Toby, so never heard anything.

Anticipating a hilly ride, we started riding close to 7 AM.

Day 54 (26 Sep 09) Lewiston to Rockport 73 miles

It was brisk when we started out of Lewiston - record low of 30 degrees for September 26. After being passed by a parade of pickup trucks (at least 8 of them) towing variations on the ATV, we encountered little traffic leaving Lewiston. After crossing interstates 95 and 295, we reached Dresden Mills at mid-morning. Making our usual stop at a gas station convenience store, we encountered an unusual culinary fare: freshly homemade sandwiches and egg rolls provided by the Asian proprietress. It was on this particular morning that Toby discovered Len’s stealthy eating habits: before we were back on our bikes, Len had consumed his ostensible lunch - a problem to be solved later.

A bit of riding adventure was provided by a short cut down the Bog Road (unpaved) and across Rabbit Run Path - almost worse than the unpaved Bog Road by virtue of huge frost heaves and an “alligatored” surface. Toby breezed over the rough road on his Surly Long Haul Trucker (that really is what his bike is called) and Jim took it gingerly, afraid of breaking another spoke. Len suffered on his modified regular road bike with narrow, highly inflated tires.

We stopped for lunch by a small pond in the sun and out of the wind (it was still cold) on Route 1 after climbing a viciously steep hill in historic Waldoboro. Len solved his lack of lunch problem by visiting the restaurant next to the pond, returning with a bowl of hot clam chowder and a biscuit. He suffered jealous looks and comments from Jim and Toby.

With the exception of a lot more hills, the remainder of the ride into Rockport was relatively uneventful. We were joined by Jim’s wife Bev who drove over from her cabin on a small lake in New Hampshire near the Maine border. Following a glorious reunion, Toby and Bev drove to a nearby wine shop (more on that from Toby in the last day’s entry) where celebratory libations were purchased from a most entertaining shop owner. Finding that it would not be possible to eat out at a reasonable hour, we proceeded to a nearby Shaws for rotisserie chicken and cooked to order lobster among other things - stuff to go with the great wine selected by Toby. It was an early night in anticipation of what we thought was going to be a 90 plus mile ride into Bar Harbor, possibly with a lot of rain.