Tag: Maine

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Crossing Green, White, and Blue

Current Location: Blue Lake Mountain, New York

Friday is Pieday, thats all it took to get me into a diner in New Hampshire. I may bemoan the state of some foods in America but there are a few things we do great, and pie would be one of them. There were about 6 pies on the shelf but the girl didn’t get far past chocolate peanut butter pie. Three of my favorite things together: chocolate, peanut butter, and pie… it didn’t stand a chance.

I think I’ve got most of the appalachin mountains out of the way at this point, the title is a reference to what a guy told me at a gas station as I explained what I was doing. He was also on a bike but just said jeeze, you gotta cross the green and the white. I figured he meant mountains. I surprised myself by getting over them fairly easily, which isn’t to say I don’t huff and puff but at least I don’t stop like I used to.

The scenery along the mountain sides are remarkable and the towns are quaint enough, with a diner here and there. Though I might complain that I can never find a diner when I want a cup of coffee in the morning.

I’m in the middle of the Blue Mountain Ranges, which I belive John Denver sang about? Though I could be wrong. Nice agian with little traffic, except for logging trucks which I love so much. I start the Erie Canal the day after tomorrow which will take me straight into Buffalo basically.

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The Prelude

Current Location: Bar Harbor, Maine

Lets forget about the nonsense I have to deal with for a while.  I’m still trying to ride hard each day.

This is certainly a different story than it was when I set off 2 years ago.  I have yet to walk my bike up any hills and I’m hitting my targets of near 100 miles a day, sometimes I get over that mark.  I do have to say that the terrain is fairly tame and I don’t hit anything over 1000ft for a couple more days, so that will be a better test to see how I handle things.

Passing through New Hampshire (the Live Free or Die state) was fairly uneventful, although people were quite proud to point out the motto of the state.  To me it seems more appropriate for Texas than rural New Hampshire, but they like it.

Getting into Maine (I’m not sure of the state motto, I’m guessing the Lobster State or the Tree State) one of the first things I see commonly is signs for Lobsters, I think I even found a chair making shop that sells lobsters.  Who here doesn’t sell lobsters I am not sure.  Another thing I found as I got nearer to Bar Harbor was signs for blueberries, I guess they are in season.  Lo and behold I start seeing blue things in low shrubs on the side of a quiet road.  After dumping the bike I gorged myself on free blueberries for quite a while.

Getting to Bar Harbor was something of a quandary for me, mostly because now that I am here I have to backtrack several days to get where I already was, but I thought it more important to do the whole ride instead of leaving off the tail.  And had I not come here, I wouldn’t have gotten a free meal of blueberries!

I have only run into one cycling tourer so far, he was on his first or second day from Bar Harbor headed to Florida, Chris is his name and I’ve linked his blog.  He is riding for cerebral palsy of which his son suffers from.  We had a nice chat and we went our ways.  A lot of the route so far has been on US1 which isn’t so much fun to ride.  I’m hoping as I get back into New Hampshire and Vermont it’ll be more back roads and rural riding.

Alrighty, enough messing around.  Time to ride over the mountain I just came over. wheeeeee.