on election day

 Today represents the most American thing we can do.

 The world is watching. I hope we get it right this time. 

bailin' on the long ride

 At 71, I've developed a number of those thousand shocks that flesh is heir to, as my ol' pal Bill put it, and a number of the medications I now take reduce my strength and stamina, so I haven't been doing rides longer than about 30 miles... and most of 'em have been much shorter than that.

But friend Ricky G saw a ride that Laura OLPH had posted, and noted that it was routed right past both our houses. He's also not been riding the way he once had, and he had an Idea. 

Ricky said something to the effect of, "Look, the ride is 40-plus miles. But how about I drive both our bikes to the start, and you and I can do the ride up to near home... and if we feel like bailing at that point, we can get in your car, and you can drive me to the start so I can get my car?"

Well, that sounded just the ticket. Ricky went on to say that we might feel like we could do the whole thing, and we wouldn't have to decide to do anything about it until we were actually on the ride.

It sounded good to me. We signed up, and Ricky brought me to Mercer East lot, the ride start, this morning.

 We ran into Marty and Bobbi, doing their own ride from there.

 A number of the folks I used to ride with regularly were there, and it was good to see them and ride with them again (Tom H, Laura [of course], Eric H, and others). But, first, the route wouldn't load into my GPS (there may have been something wonky about the way the route downloaded). And then the pace was faster than I could maintain, although I did reasonably well for the first twenty miles or so.

By the time we were a few miles away from the stop at about mile 30, I was cooked. I told Ricky I was planning to bail at the stop, the way we'd planned. Ricky agreed, initially.

We stopped at James Brew, the local cafe, to which I should give more business than I do.

 After the stop, though, Ricky decided he was going to do the distance. I thought about it for less than a flash, but I knew I was done, and went home.

Ricky has been referring to my getting to the top of Cadillac Mountain before he did when we were in Maine (the story of the ride is about halfway down the linked post). I told him after the ride that I may have done the climb, but he did the distance.

bar harbor trip: second post

 

This is the second post about a trip to Bar Harbor that several friends of Laura OLPH made with her this year; the first is here.

 As soon as she heard about the trip, The Excellent Wife (TEW) decided that on one of the days, she wanted to go to Campobello, the summer home of FDR, one of her favorite presidents. It is in the only international park in the world, co-supported by the US and Canada. The driving distance (a little over two hours) and the necessity of a passport to pass into Canada made this an all-day event, and the only other taker was Rickety's wife, Cheryl (the rest of the group was doing a gravel ride, and Rickety, very sensibly, did not want to have taken his bike all the way up to Maine, and then given up his best chance to use it!)

 On Campobello, there was a small chance that we might see whales or seals, especially from the lighthouses (there are two), so we proceeded to the first.

 

Too much fog. We went to the other:

 

Too much fog here, too. There's another of those land bridges that connects the island to the main at low tide; TEW resolved to come back after the visit to the Campobello compound. (The pictures above could have been reference photos for Myst, one of my favorite PC games.)

At Campobello, FDR's summer home:

 As I noted, TEW is a big fan of FDR, but to me, the house was mostly just a historical house. But we did see seals in the water, although they didn't appear in the photos.

We went back to the other lighthouse to see about whales.

 Still too foggy... and I declined the opportunity to go up and down those stairs in the photo (you can barely see them), claiming my aging knees, and the ludicrous price of $10 Canadian for the opportunity.

On the way back, we passed this excellent gas-station-turned-antiques-and-junk-shop:

 And the next day, Wednesday, we went up Cadillac Mountain on bikes. While some took e-bikes, Rickety and I were among those who decided to try it on our road bikes. Laura OLPH had developed a 30-something mile route, with some lovely views on the way.

 But, of course, the thing about Cadillac Mountain is the climb and descent. You can see my ride info here: the mountain is, as near as makes no difference, 1500' of climb over three miles. At the age of 71, I did it. 

I wanted a picture of my bike, the Yellow Maserati, at the top:

The gift shop at the top (of course there's a gift shop at the top) has key chains indicating the height; Laura bought them for Rickety and me as medals for having achieved the goal.

 The ascent was hard, and the descent was frightening. I'm not a great descender at the best of times, and this was to be a three-mile descent, on a road with tight switchbacks, that I barely knew. I rode the brakes nearly all the way down, feathering enough to avoid overheating the rims. And clearly, since I'm writing this now, I finished the ride!

There may have been something else that happened on that Wednesday, but I have no room to remember what it may have been.

On Thursday, TEW and I decided that just the thing would be a slow, easy ride, on our own, at a lovely, disconnected part of Acadia Park on the Schoodic Peninsula.

 

We had lunch in nearby Winter Harbor, a town with far more locals than tourists. It was an excellent day.

And nothing else worthy of your attention went on for this trip. We had a quiet day Friday, and drove home Saturday. And now back to real life. 

bar harbor trip: first post.

 Laura OLPH has been spending a week at Bar Harbor, Maine, every year for umpteen years. It's clearly special to her; if you go over her blog posts about it, she loves it there, and she'd talked about retiring there. The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I were honored to have been part of a small group of bike-y friends and partners who were invited to share this place with her this summer.

The town of Bar Harbor is touristy (to my taste, it's pretty and energizing; to some it's likely to be too much), but the surroundings are undoubtedly beautiful. In addition to the storied "rock-bound coast", there are nearby mountains, including Cadillac Mountain, to the top of which Laura makes a point of riding one of her bikes each year, and then terrifying herself on the subsequent descent. (Reader, is this foreshadowing? Of course it is.)

TEW and I drove up last Saturday, in fog and greyness, and settled into a Vrbo we'd rented to share with friends Rickety and his wife Cheryl. We four met the five who were staying at a hotel for dinner that night.

The next day, Sunday, we gathered to hike the Ocean Trail in Acadia Park. The park protects much of the land and shoreline in this area of Maine, and not all parts of the park are connected. We took a loop bus (part of a system of these buses, heavily supported by L.L. Bean) into the park, and got underway.

 At the trail:

 The grey and fog from the previous day had not cleared, and my pictures do not do justice to the views. While not an easy hike, it was a beautiful one.

From the trail, we took another bus to the park restaurant at Jordan Pond, where we had (among other things) popovers that are apparently famous (and rightly so).

 And back to the bus, back to Bar Harbor.

The next day, TEW and I got up early, and walked along the Shore Trail, which meanders along the shore in Bar Harbor. (There was a bit of confusion between the Ocean Trail, in the Acadia National Park, and the Shore Trail, in the town. Your editor considers this bit of confusion understandable and forgivable.)

 Later, the group assembled to walk to Bar Island. At low tide, Bar Island is connected to the town by a land bridge. (I'm sure Bridge Street, at the end of which the land bridge appears, is named for this phenomenon). 

 

In past years, one could pretty reliably depend on the bridge to be dry enough to walk 90 minutes either side of low tide... but when we tried to cross, there was a low point still under several inches of water (higher than the tops of my hiking boots). Some of us waited for the water to recede; others didn't.

 

After a while, the water was low enough for us all to cross.

 On the island, looking back at the land bridge:

 There are trails on Bar Island going to the summit of the hill. They are rocky and demanding, and my knees reminded me that they are well into their eighth decade, and would not be grateful for this mistreatment, so TEW and I turned around and went to investigate the ruins of a stone house on the island.

 Why is there such an elaborate fireplace outside the main house?

From this vantage point, we could see that the waters had receded even more from the land bridge.

 TEW and I took this as our reminder that the land bridge is subject to submersion again each tide, and decided to head back to town. (The adventurers met for dinner, but I will spare both the adventurers, and you, dear reader, from some of the worst pictures ever taken.)

Continued in another post.