June 9, 2007

A long day, but not saddle wise.

It rained last night and when I heard it at around five AM I rolled over and slept until about 6:30 when Denny called my name. By then the rain had about subsided. It’s not a lot of fun breaking camp when everything is wet. The rain had stopped by the time we finished breakfast. We rolled out at about eight-thirty, which is late for us. The skies were overcast all day but there was no rain until some sprinkles arrived as we reached Wells, Maine. We were planning to camp but saw a vacancy sign and rooms for $58 so we decided to get a motel as it was around 7:30 PM. Temps today were cool and reached a high of around fifty-five degrees. We were both dressed appropriately so the riding was comfortable. The roads today were fairly flat and there were no winds to speak of. When we were riding our speeds were good, but it seemed that we were stopping for one thing or another all day long and thus the late arrival. With the threat of rain the camera was deep in a front pannier bag until I saw a shot that I couldn’t pass up. I got a couple of angles of a reflective pond as shown below.

Reflective pond.

Another angle.

Second breakfast was at the Southgate Family Restaurant in Bath, Maine. It is located next to the south gate of the Bath Iron Works and thus the name. It was Saturday morning so the place was packed. There was a couple sitting at a table for five, which was actually two tables side by side with the menus, napkin container, salt and pepper between them. I asked the couple if it was all right for us to join them, they said yes, so we sat there. I had a named breakfast again today. It was the International Special which consisted of two Texas toast sized french toast, a large portion of home fries (boiled then fried on the grill like they are supposed to be prepared), two eggs over easy with whole wheat toast, and a piece of ham steak about six inches in diameter and about a quarter inch thick: all this for $6.45. With the coffee and tax it came to around $8.50. My breakfast was free however as I found a $10.00 bill on the ground outside a bike shop we stopped at earlier to pick up some chain lube and a tube for Denny. I found two pennies on the way out the door. An older gent saw one but passed on picking it up as it was showing tails. I saw both pennies and the other one was heads so I figured the heads cancelled the tails. Actually I would have picked them up anyway. One observation I made in the restaurant was that not too many people in Bath, Maine are on a diet. When touring I eat a lot to stay fueled. I couldn’t hold a candle to a guy next to me who had what I had except three french toast. Then he ate half of his wife’s breakfast as well. I made another observation that I won’t share here. If you’re a guy ask me some time and I’ll tell you, if I know you well enough.

Just before we got to Portland we saw two riders approaching on the opposite side. They had panniers and racks on their bikes so we waved them down and crossed the road to talk. Ken and Pat left Key West, FL on May 1 and have been riding the eastern coast ever since. They have about four days left and will finish in Bar Harbor. We talked for about half an hour exchanging stories, route information, and e-mail addresses. If I ride the California coast some day I have a place to stay in San Diego. I could feel the excitement in both them and us during the conversation. There were smiles all around. If we didn’t have destinations to reach by the end of the day we would still be standing there talking by the side of the road.

Ken, Denny, Pat and Jim

Riding through Portland was not as bad as I thought it would be. There was a bike route leading into it and a bike trail leading out. Actually there were a couple of marked bike routes and at one point Denny and I stopped to ask a family for directions to the bridge we had to cross. They were a father, mother and two sons out for some exercise on the bike path by the river. One of the young boys was on roller blades, the rest were on bikes. We told them about our trip and they gave us excellent directions out of the city.

Heap big indian chief.

All of the above plus a lot of traffic lights, which we are not accustomed to seeing in the more rural sections of the ride, took up a lot of time. So consequently, although our speeds were good and our saddle time was under my six and a half hour limit it was a very long but enjoyable day.