Welcome to our blog! We apologize for the delay, but believe it or not it’s difficult to perfect a website while you’re biking anywhere from 40 to 130 miles a day (yes, 130, more on that later). I’ve got plenty to catch you up on, so I won’t waste any more time!
Our trip officially started on Sunday, May 3rd when we dipped our bikes in the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Acadia National Park. (Special thank you shout out to our friends Hannah, Caleb and Betsy for the different roles they played in helping us get from Troy to Acadia in one piece!) After dipping our bikes, we climbed back up the rocks and started biking! Our first day started with rolling hills that slowly graduated to long, arduous climbs. We had gorgeous weather and rode about 54 miles to Bangor, ME. We stayed with our first host from warmshowers.org, Charlie Smith. What a wonderful, interesting and accommodating guy! He has so many neat hobbies including home brewing, skiing, canoe racing, and of course cycling.
Monday morning we grabbed delicious breakfast burritos in town before starting the 62 miles to Skowhegan. We had another gorgeous but hot day with scenic views. We enjoyed glimpses of mountains and lakes as we made our way to the house of our second warmshowers hosts, David and Anne. They are a wonderful and inviting couple. David showed us the workshop where he builds boats, and he had a warm meal ready for us after we had taken our showers. We chatted about various things and got to meet their 3 lovely pets. Later Anne and I played duets on the piano while we all ate fresh pineapple for dessert. David and Anne were especially helpful when we asked for advice on our route for the next day. They pointed out scenic side roads and ways to avoid city traffic.
After some cereal and homemade bread on Tuesday morning, we were off to our next destination! At this point, we honestly weren’t really sure where that was. Our butts were sore from the first two days in the saddle and our bodies were adjusting to the long distance rides. We decided to be conservative and aim for 53 miles to the town of Rumford. However, we made it there by mid afternoon and were still feeling good so we decided to go farther! While enjoying a dinner of sub sandwiches in a park with free wifi, we found a last minute warmshowers host just outside of Bethel, ME. We made it there before dark, totaling 68 miles! Ann was out playing ukulele, but her husband Roger showed us the shower and gave us some excellent cycling advice. We set up the tent on their front lawn and passed out pretty early. All that biking had been wearing us out!
On Wednesday we woke up early and packed up the tent. We rode a few miles into Bethel where we had an excellent diner breakfast. Once again we had beautiful weather and marvelous views on the back roads. At one point we were feeling slightly nervous when we saw a man down the street heading in our direction with a shotgun, but then we remembered we were in Maine. We shrugged it off and said hello as we passed.
After crossing into New Hampshire, we took a short but worthwhile half mile hike just off the side of Route 2 to Gordon Falls. It was a lovely break from riding and we enjoyed feeling the cool mist coming off the falls.
We eventually made it to Lancaster, NH, where we stayed at the home of David and Carol (also from warmshowers). After dropping our stuff off, we had excellent burgers and ice cream in town. Before bed, we chatted extensively with David about what roads to take the next day. He was extremely helpful and had plenty of great maps to show us. We shared stories from past cycling tours while I let their dog lick all the salt from my legs. (I didn’t mind because he was adorable). After a good night’s sleep, we were up and ready to go Thursday morning. This was when the trip started to get REALLY exciting, but this has already been an extensive blog post so I’m going to leave you with a cliffhanger. If you want to know about the disappearance and reappearance of my wallet, and our traversal of fallen trees and locked gates, keep checking back for our next blog post!!!