Room With A View

For anyone in a rush to reach Bar Harbor, our advice is don't.  Tarry awhile.  Camp a day or two at Lemoine State Park, where you can claim a campsite like this one if you get there early in the day. We spent a wonderful three nights there dallying in the precious sunshine and enjoying the campfire.  Tip: make sure you stock up on supplies before you leave Ellsworth.  There is a general store 5 miles down the road from the park but the pickings are limited, mustly canned goods and hot dogs. Somehow it doesn't matter.

Ever-returning spring

All along the road, especially north and east of Sabago, we are treated to the incomparable smell and sight of lilacs in full bloom.  The faintest whiff of lilacs never fails to bring to mind Walt Whitman's soulful commemoration on the death of his beloved President, Abraham Lincoln. There is no evidence that I know of that Whitman ever actually met Lincoln, but when did that ever matter when the passion is for an ideal and  for  promise  only partially fulfilled?  It is a good thing that poetry, like the smell  of lilacs and the sight of  the drooping great star, outlives us all. And why, on remembering lilacs and reading Whitman, do I feel a sense of mourning or maybe simply resignation as we head into the election season?

The full poem has 16 parts, here are two of them for whatever road you are taking.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd
And the great star early droop'd in the  western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring.
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

In  the dooryard fronting an old farm-house in the white-washed palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle--and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.

Moody's Diner Don't Miss It

Suddenly or not so suddenly the hills became less treacherous as we rolled into the posh seaside resorts of Rockport and Camden. The high point of the day was finding Moody's Diner, thanks to a lady we asked for directions at the top of a hill in Waldoboro. She was planting spring flowers and was quite startled that we hadn't heard of Moody's, which was back DOWN the hill and apparently in every travel magazine in the country.  Started in 1927, the place used to rent cabins out at $1/night.  Our server at present-day Moody's, Jill, steered us toward a mobile exhibit of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and not only loaded us up with the best Reuben sandwich ever created but filled our bottles with ice water and road advice.  Only two  stiff hills, she told us, between there and Rockport.

Jill and Mike at Moody's.  Don't miss the Reuben.

We didn't take the detour to the mobile memorial, having spent hours in the permanent one in Washington one rainy morning, wondering why our country has failed to learn the lesson of Vietnam.  So many lives lost on both sides for no gain.  Bumper sticker of the day award: MAKE AMERICA KIND AGAIN.

Ready for Day 5  from Duck Puddle Campground to Rockport or Camden! Sun's out, light breeze, gorgeous day.

MOMentum

On our very first ride through this part of the ecosphere, our (then teenaged) son Eliot taught me how to take advantage of momentum to tackle the next hill. I'm still trying to perfect the technique here in Maine, where the roads offer up a never ending chain of increasingly challenging hills.  The trick is to get enough speed on the downhill without crashing to make it up the next without bonking. I'm doing better, Eliot!

Rolling Home V is upon us. Getting the sleeping bags packed and tires pumped. Long hiatus since Rolling Home IV, filled with excruciatingly sad and difficult projects in South Sudan (2013) and Yemen (2014).  We came away from both with many wonderful colleagues and remain hopeful that the terrible wars in those countries will allow them to one day live in peace. We are ever more aware that in this interconnected world, we in the West are complicit in the suffering of the poor and marginalized in those countries (among others) and will continue through our biking adventures to spread that message. More recently, an exciting project in Uganda (2015) and the candidacy of Bernie Sanders has given cause for hope for a future we and the younger generation can believe in.

So now, before returning to the important work of education for peace, justice and preservation of our natural resources, the time has come for Rolling Home V, a modest three week door-to-door exploration of the coast of Maine.  There may be a part 2 later in the summer, a train and bike combination revisit to Idaho and Montana. Stay tuned for more posts and pictures very soon.

He's Got a Ticket to Ride

Doon at Green Mountain Bikes, Rochester Vermont

This was a tough decision. The bike mechanics who helped us solve various problems all along the route were outstanding. Dean, the irrepressible 'host with the most' we met along the Pere Marquette Bike Trail near Midland, Michigan, not only fixed Jean's slipping gears within a matter of seconds, but proceeded to invite us to a swim and cookout in his back yard bordering a brilliant green corn field, then spent the evening entertaining us with stories of his years as a DJ. The shop that takes the prize, however, belongs do Doon---Green Mountain Bikes in Rochester, Vermont is simply one of a kind. When we reached the college town of Poultney, Mike realized that the wheel he'd had built in Fargo was beginning to disintegrate, literally, not-so-tiny cracks were beginning to spread like spiders. We sat in the garden of a lovely little cafe desperately making phone calls to shops all over the state, none of whom were willing and/or able to build a new wheel for the Sojourn; that is, until we found Doon, who knows the bike, has the tools and loves to build wheels.  Miraculously, a wonderful pair of nearby diners who also happened to be bikers happened to overhear our dilemma, and in the end offered to drive Mike and the broken Raleigh the 50 miles across the mountains to Rochester and back, while Jean set up camp on Lake Ste. Catherine. He was back in no time with a beautiful, sturdy new wheel, which has yet to drift out of true.  We were then treated to an evening out with our son's friends Kyle and Dawn listening to Kentucky (Vermont style) bluegrass on the deck of the Poultney Pub.  Another cool thing about Doon's shop is that he uses as roll of movie admission tickets as his business cards. Good old Vermont.