(Carol) We made it!!!! It’s simply amazing what the body will do when you ask. When we last left off we had one more day in Quebec City. It was another beautiful sunny day–toured the Citadel and watched the changing of the guard in the am and then tried out our bikes on a great bike path along the St Lawrence river in the afternoon. Met some great people along the way. I know I said we would report the bad along with the good, so I will start with discovering I thought I had lost my rainjacket late Tuesday afternoon. You just don’t want to start out a bike trip in the east without a rainjacket-Dick kept his head and called a cab which took us to a sport store like REI and I bought a very expensive replacement. We missed our tour of the Frontenac Castle which made me very unhappy. We did discover a new section of Quebec City and ate in a great restaurant–Hobbit Bistro. All ended well that day., and turned even better in the morning when I found the preferred original jacket!
Changing of the Guard at the Citadel
Wed-August 27th- (Dick) We awoke on this scheduled departure day to beautiful skies. We quickly packed our gear on the bikes and rode downhill to catch the ferry across the St Lawrence, so we could ride on the rail trail west, with a view back across the river toward Quebec City.
Leaving Quebec City through Hope Gate
About one blissful hour out I realized I had left my wallet in a secret spot in our (unlockable) hostel room. We called back, they found the wallet, and agreed to extract some of its contents to pay for postage to Cape Cod. Luckily Carol had the passports and duplicates of the VISA and bank cards. The next issue was my front rack losing a key screw, and I had no spare.
Front rack repair an hour from Quebec City
By chance a bike shop was nearby and I made the repairs and some other reinforcements; other than one flat and some chain drops we had zero other bike problems all the way to Bar Harbor. The rest of the day was fabulous, along the “Route Verte” ending in St Joseph ( a 58 mile day). We camped in a muni campground with pool and a babbling falls next to our site- and we had a great dinner and beer at the “Bourre- Joix” (a pun, I’m sure) across the river from our camp- an exhilarating first day on the bikes!
First camp- by the babbling brook
Thursday-Sept 28th–We got an 8:10 AM start as we knew it would be a long day. This day had plenty of ups and downs–first the ups-the hills, the beautiful day-cloudless again, trouble free and we made it–the downs-the hills again, lots of roadwork and less than perfect roads. Southern Quebec is very beautiful-many perfect looking farms, wildflowers, and lovely tasteful homes. We had no idea how high up the border crossing would be-we just kept riding up and up some more. At the crossing we were rewarded with much down-although not entirely. We found the Cozy Cove Cabins in Jackman-after 69.5 miles-a perfectly lovely spot with what has to be the perfect cabin- right on Big Wood Lake, with a great view. We would have loved to stay another day. Left French cooking for American home cooking at the Four Seasons. We were tired but happy; we even stayed up to watch Barack Obama’s compelling acceptance speech.–Carol
The border after our longest climb
Carol sees the sunset from the Cozy Cabin
Sunset over Lake of the Woods
Friday, August 29 (Dick) We hated to leave that pinewood cabin! After famous breakfast sandwiches at Jackman Java, run by another semi-Californian returning to her roots, we headed off around ten. We had lots of wonderful downhill riding (matched by a few ups of course) but mostly we rode along the beautiful Kennebec River. The water was fast and we watched many rafters. Had a fine picnic lunch at The Forks, then an easy ride to Bingham.
Closed Bingham ice cream stop
We’d thought about staying there, but were ahead of schedule, and headed south in a huff when the most perfect ice cream shop (we’d been salivating for a root beer float) turned out to be closed.
We rode on to Solon on Hwy 201 and left it temporarily to find the Evergreen campground on the river, with its own acclaimed restaurant. The place was great, but somewhat spoiled by uncountable ravenous mosquitoes. We borrowed some repellant but it seemed largely ineffective. The restaurant was ostensibly closed for an event, but the owner, considering our plea that we’d have a long uphill ride to any other eatery, fixed us a great dinner and they even served us beer (we went to bed itchy but happy).
Evergreens campground and restaurant
Saturday-Aug 30th, We left Solon at 9am after breakfast. It was cloudy but the weather soon cleared and we were in short sleeves and without tights again. We had to change our route plan as we had chosen a gravel road which crossed over a small mountain. Instead we took a great downhill side road through farmland. This turned out to be a relatively easy day but clouded over in the afternoon with a short light shower which we avoided by standing under a tree for about 15 minutes. Highlight– delicious root beer floats in Newport. We decided to camp again slightly before Bangor due to the pool and timely location, at the Wheeler Stream Campground where the owners brought us beer. We ordered food to be delivered after swimming–it seemed quite the perfect evening.-Carol
Camping deluxe at Wheeler Stream
Today, the last of August! (Dick) We started with meatloaf sandwiches (my dinner leftovers; Carol ate her entire lobster roll). We found our way through Bangor, feasting on big fruit smoothies and pastry at a Dunkin’ Donut (they’re as common as Starbucks here) then rolled mostly downhill with a tailwind on busy single number roads (2 to 1A to 3 with a brief stint on 1). Some roads were great with wide shoulders and some were horrible with none; we found one “shortcut” that turned to gravel but was still one of the highlights for beauty. We made it to Mt. Desert Island about three and found this great old cabin/motel combination, and later found it featured in a book (from the seventies) of cabin-camps. After a quality Halibut dinner at the Chart House, marred only by a brief fear that we had lost our remaining credit cards, here we are at the keyboard! We hope to reply to individual blog responses on our layover day tomorrow. Wow, 297 miles in five days- we’re ready for a rest.
Our cabin colony near Bar Harbor
