The Utter Folly Tour (or Faith and Peter on the Run)

Photographs, photographs, photographs.

Today has been about tending to my plants, many of them very unhappy as they have been mostly abandoned by my daughter over the past three weeks.  There has been laundry, and laundry, and mail to go through, and laundry, and recycling to attend to, and plants to attend to, and mail (none of these are minor tasks when you have been away, they just keep going and going and going).  But mainly, today has been about bringing all the photo albums up to date.  There are photos through today, day 98, and I have been asked numerous times in recent weeks about reproducing photos for interested folks.  So, first, catch up on the photos.  There are the remainder of the photos for Day 91, half of them were up from a previous effort, then all the photos for days 92, 93, 94, 95 , 96, 97, and 98.  Though the photos on the web are modified, they are less than a tenth of the original size of the 7 megapixel digital images we have captured and archived, the photos on the web give a good idea of the photo content and a reasonable idea of the quality.  The quality improves when reproduced from the raw image, not the image you see on the web pages.  You can get to the photos by going to http://www.utterfolly.com/photos.htm and ignore what the heading says about how up to date the photos are.  Bringing the web pages current is next, along with more laundry, housework, resumes, cover letters, working on the book, straightening out mail and bills and finances and, and, and.........  But back to the photos.  I can reproduce a photo to any size, traditional or odd size, I can mat them and frame them or send them as unframed photos.  I suppose I will formalize this at some point, but in the mean time, for those that don't know, Peter and I have had a number of photo exhibits over the years, produced a line of photo note cards for a couple of years, and have experience producing gyclee' prints and gallery prints for those of you that might be interested.  At the moment, I don't have the initiative to formalize all of this, but if you like something, email me.

I can't say, SEE YOU ON THE ROAD any longer, :-(

Sending love and light and joy your way,

Faith

We're home!

Posted by Peter:

It's almost midnight, but I wanted to post a quick status. Mar made it to Canada yesterday, after several hours of traffic delays, rerouting, no cell phone service and finally, a "hands across the border" parade that shut the crossing down for a while. Nonetheless, she and her faithful companion Oggi, arrived in time to have dinner with us and fall into bed.

This morning, refreshed, we began our trip home. The first umpty-ump miles were spent on route 1, with a couple of shopping stops (now that we have the car, we can buy things and take them home). We hit Bucksport after 3 or 4 hours and decided to head for the interstate and put the pedal to the metal. We took some back roads to get to I95 just West of Bangor and set the cruise control on xx mph. After a couple of quick stops to handle various needs, we arrived at her home at 9:45, unloaded her things and reached casa Vicinanza at 10:30 after 575 miles of driving.

We've looked at some mail, started some laundry, made the futon up in the sun room, seen one of the two cats, and are going to pass out presently.

later.

A carrot

I have a special blog posting planned for the last day, day 100, stay tuned.......

We'll continue to blog until day 100.

See you on the road......

Day 96 - or - "O, Canada"

When we first planned this trip, it was easy to settle on a round number like 100 days.  What did we know of doing a trip like this.  NOTHING.  In concept, 100 days seemed quite doable.  Early in the trip, it seemed impossible, and we eliminated days off and touring days and eventually it seemed we could do it in 100 days or less, and here we are in Canada with four days to go.  We have cycled 75 days out of 96 days, we drove for three days to get to Key West, that leaves only 18 days off this whole time.  Sounds like a lot, but it does not feel like we had 18 days off.  We had 7 of those days off in Florida, if I remember correctly, that leaves 11 days off since we left Florida, wow, no wonder it doesn't feel like much.  We averaged 33.16 miles per day over 75 days.  Two of those 75 days were really short rides given by circumstance, but even if I take those out, we averaged 33.8 miles over 73 days, and it isn't much difference in the end.  I don't know what our weights will be, but it won't be anything miraculous, we probably lost about 20 pounds each, and we were both significantly overweight, so that's a nice weight loss, but falls short of our expectations. It is what health officials say is a good program, 2 pounds per week to keep the weight off, that would have been 14 weeks, or 28 pounds each, so I guess from that perspective, we ain't doing too terribly bad. It's no surprise we only lost a little weight when you look at the outrageous meals we have had, breakfast especially in the more northern states, dinners all along the way, and we didn't pass up one of them, lol, except on nights we arrived someplace where getting out to dinner was a 5 mile ride out and back on the bikes and we opted not to do that and we had a few things on us in the way of ROAD food to keep us from starving, but there was no formal dinner, and sometimes no formal lunch, and sometimes no formal breakfast, but when we could get a meal, we took it, always, and eating has been a sort of orge on this trip, experimenting with new foods along the way, spoiling ourselves,  eating things we would not ordinarily eat at home, and we pay the price, but all in all, we did lose about 20 pounds each, and we are much healthier even if we aren't much skinnier.

Today is the ultimate day of cycling, though not really the ultimate day of the trip, we still have to get home, we still have to go back to being normal, well, maybe we don't have to do that part.  We rode for over ten miles today up route 1 North along the St. Croix river the whole way, and it was low tide.  There were so many spots where you could have practically walked across the river (tides average 20 feet here and can get up to 28 feet, that's twice a day so every 6 hours the tide goes out, comes in, goes out, comes in, and that means about 240 inches in 6 hours, which is 240 inches in 360 minutes, or two inches every three minutes, is that amazing.  I think so.)  What struck me, however, was the ease with which you could get to the other side at low tide, it makes the whole check point thing seem a little, well, silly.  I am sure if Pres. Bush were reading my blog right now, I would quickly be in handcuffs and suddenly be among the missing for saying something that would be considered politically sensitive.  But nearly anything you say today is politically sensitive.  We live in a time where government wants to keep people afraid, okay, okay, enough of my political rant for the moment.  Calais boasts the third busiest crossover point between the USA and Canada.  The towns on both sides are small, nothing spectacular, and not designed to handle the traffic that passes over the bridge between Calais and St. Stephen.  The design and check point are obviously older and on both sides, traffic backs up along one of the few main roads in either town causing havoc on both sides and if you aren't trying to cross over - this can be pretty frustrating I'm sure.  If you are local, you probably know when to stay off those roads and all the options for getting where you are going without taking those roads.

There were the prerequisite hills this morning, even though Peter called it an easy ride, hmmmm, I don't completely agree, but then, Peter and I often don't completely agree, lol.  It was over before we knew it, however, amazing how we can knock out 13 miles, even with hills, these days and it doesn't feel like much.  Just how long will that last I wonder. 

I want to say I am happy to be done, and though I am happy to be done with hotel bathrooms, motel bathrooms, public bathrooms (do you see a pattern here), other people's bathrooms, other people's showers, bathtubs instead of showers, the woods on the side of the road in Maine, even though I am happy to be done with eating whatever whenever and I do look forward to more regulation to my day, up at a regular time, eat at a regular time, have food available as needed so I can eat at a regular time, even though I am looking forward to a wider selection of clothing to chose from on any given day, and the option of always having something clean to put on, even though I am definately looking forward to not reading another cue sheet for a long time, not being lost, not asking someone at the other end of the phone for directions to their place and they can't help us, even though I am looking forward to not blowing through money at an alarming rate, I will miss the destinations, I will miss the people, the scenery, the feeling of accomplishment each day that I arrived someplace and I got there by my own power, I will miss the feeling of being part of some larger magnificent thing though I don't know what that thing is, I only know I have felt a part of it over and over again when people have been caring and generous and supportive.  I won't miss having to wash my hair every single day.  I won't miss not being able to get out of the sun on hot days.  I won't miss the many nights we slept in accomodations without a.c., and I will miss all the nights we had accomodations with a.c.  Most of all, I will miss the adventure of it.  I now know a little bit of what it must have felt like to be an explorer, to venture into unknown lands and marvel at unexpected sites.  I now know a little bit of what it is to live full out.  What a wondrous time it has been.  I leave you with a little Grateful Dead:

You’re sick of hangin’ around and you’d like to travel;
Get tired of travelin’ and you want to settle down.
I guess they can’t revoke your soul for tryin’,
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Truckin’, I’m a goin’ home. whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin’ on.
Hey now get back truckin’ home.

See you on the road.....

Robbinston, ME - St. Stephen, NB

Posted by Peter:

A lazy start, sleeping until 7AM, a gourmet breakfast, nice conversation with other guests, good chat with Joan, the innkeeper and internationally known artist. A late start because we only had 15 miles to do and our room wouldn't be ready too early.

It was an easy ride and we were surprised when the International Bridge came into view as we cycled through downtown Calais. There was a block long line of cars and trucks waiting to get into Canada, but we had been advised that we could bypass them and go to the front with pedestrians. We did and I had to take our pepper sprays inside where it was decided that they were "legal" in Canada because they were for dogs only. I was cautioned to not use them on people. We then had a mile ride to get to our motel. The line of cars waiting to go into the U.S. was almost that long. Hopefully, it won't be as bad tomorrow morning! The motel is OK, reasonably clean and it has a/c.  We're waiting for Mar to arrive to go have lunch.  Just chilling.  It's all somewhat anti-climactic. I think it hasn't sunk in that this part of our journey is over. We've sucessfully cycled 2500 miles from Key West to St. Stephen. I can't say we did it on our own, although in a sense we did, but in reality we did it with the help of so many good people that we've met on the way and we couldn't have done it without you. Thank you all.

later.

East Machias - Robbinston

Posted by Peter:

Last night we had a fabulous dinner at the inn.  every bit as good as I had hoped, including lobster and scallops cooked in cream and wine, served over pasta, and very tasty hake (a type of fish) cakes.  We ate with fellow cyclist John Andrews. John is Mr. Eastern Trail of Maine, which was slightly embarrasing given how we bagged that trail in favor of a coastal route.  He's the chairperson for that 70 mile stretch and has also been instrumental in helping to create other trails in Maine, even to the extent of having an important law passed and sponsoring a ten million dollar state bond proposal.  The bond has unfortunately not been approved, but John continues to push for it.  Although he's "retired", he puts in 40 - 60 hour weeks forwarding multi-use trails in Maine.  In fact, there's an unused track right behind our inn that parallels the river.  it's scheduled to become part of a 100 mile long trail.  The state has purchased the right of way, the tracks are slated to be removed, the steel rails sold and the proceeds used to help construct the trail.  It only needs about four million dollars to become a reality.  I am amazed at how much has been accomplished by some of the people that we've met!

more coming...

What was that quote I made yesterday about sliding into home.....

shouting "Holy Crap, What a Ride"

There was no coasting to be had today, not physically, and not emotionally, and that was fine, how could the penultimate day being anything less than this day.

First, we rode 41.8 miles of your basic middle of nowhere Maine from southwest Nowhere, Maine to northeast Nowhere, Maine (this is not a criticism by any means, it was quite wonderful, miles of mostly woods and hills, vistas, bodies of water, and very little else, and we loved it ....

To lean on a few lyrics by Cat Stevens:

Miles from nowhere
I guess I'll take my time
Oh yeah, to reach there

Look up at the mountain
I have to climb
Oh yeah, to reach there.

And we did take our time, sort of. We left East Machias at 8 a.m. and arrived in Robbinston, Maine (only 15 miles from our final destination) some time after 2 p.m.  It was a chilly day, which is good and bad.  The good part is that I prefer to be cold than to be hot.  The down side is I have to pee more often when I am cold.  So now, put this all together, nearly 42 miles of nothing, cold temperatures, and I have to pee more often.  We have the making of a minor disaster, well, okay, not exactly a disaster, but definately a memory, embarrassing as it is.  The first time I could not wait any longer and we were literally miles from nowhere, or miles into nowhere, I knew this would be it, when I finally just hit the open road (pun intended).  I have camped for years (though that was a few decades ago) and in that other life time, I have stood naked in the woods, washed up, changed my clothes in the open, dug my own temporary potties, but knowing this, remembering that I have been there, done that, doesn't help when I have become (for some years) a cover up aholic (there are few people in this world who have even seen my legs in the past twenty years).  One thing about the miles of Maine road through nothing but woods and hills and bodies of water is that there are lots of dirt and gravel side roads leading who knows where, and I finally decided I would duck into one of these side roads before I wet my pants.  Trying to be descrete a stone's throw from Route 1 North in somewhere, Maine, (without going into the really embarrasing details), I ended up with urine soaked underwear and bike pants, and hands, so now I have to take my clothes off from the waist down, clean up, and rummage through my bags on my bike for clean clothes to wear, actually we have no clean clothes left save a few pair of underwear for me and one bra and a few pairs of socks.  So much for descrete - in the distance dogs were barking their fool heads off, they knew I was there in the middle of the day in a very open area just off Route 1 North butt naked (literally) and I feared their owners would wonder what was so alarming to the dogs and come looking.  I did not know we were close to anything until we got back on the road and just up the next hill was a house on the right, the side we were on, with a bunch of caged dogs.  We are all of ten miles into a 40 plus mile ride, hmmmm, is this an omen for the rest of the day..........  The next bathroom break, at 18 miles (I am so glad I have not had other days like today), we took a mile diversion to stop at a park, it had to be done and there wasn't any other options visible and our experience to date has been good when it comes to parks, they have been a plus, and we get to the state park and the only option there is an outhouse. After the side of the road fiasco, the outhouse, though barely, was somewhat more appealing and after a number of long deep breaths, I managed to force myself through the experience and survive it okay.  It's as if today was all about getting over my resistance to making due when the body demands it and learning to appreciate what ever option there is available.  Even the side of the road in Maine.  At thirty miles, and passing a few grungy looking gas stations in a short few blocks of civilization somewhere between Pembroke and Perry Maine, I stopped at the last one when all that was before me was a horizon of open road, the gas station was actually a gas station combination convenience store and the bathroom was the best thing I had seen since I left East Machias.  We ended up in a long conversation with Doug, who worked there, perhaps was the owner, and who lived between there and Robbinston, our destination for the day.  He layed out a short cut for us, which he anticipated would save us 6 miles of ridiing.  In the end, it saved us two miles, and was a roller coaster of hills, but we were off Route 1, the back roads were hardly traveled so we mostly had them to ourselves, and it did save us two miles.  Doug also told us which house along the way was his and if we wanted to stop there for a break we were welcomed to.  How amazingly cool is that?  We pushed through to Route 1 a mile below the inn where we are staying tonight and as we came over one of the last few hills on the back roads there it was, CANADA!

We finally arrived in Robbinston, Maine, 14 miles below Calais where we ride to tomorrow.  We are staying at an old captain's house, and it is quite awesome (The Brewer House, Robbinston, Maine).  When we arrived, Joan, who is one of the owners I believe, told us they were upgrading us to the captain's room (you should see this place, oh my) at no extra charge, and when I asked about doing laundry, which is now a critical item under the conditions described earlier in this post (my bike pants being in with all the other dirty laundry, well, you get the idea), she arranged to have a load of clothes done for us and delivered back to us washed and dried, then we had juice and muffins and waffles delivered to us in our room, very very cool.  We have learned that this house, another historic home, was one of the last stops on the underground railroad.  The captain would take slaves across the street, if you had a good arm you could throw a stone into the St. Croix river from our bedroom window, and load up the boats and port the slaves across the river to Canada and to freedom.  This is our last stop in the United States, as it was the last stop in the United States for so many slaves.  Tomorrow we arrive in St. Stephen and spend the night in Canada. I cannot say that it will feel like freedom somehow, but I can say it will feel historic. 

Thre are so many people to thank, there are so many extraordinary memories, the journey has a life of its own, it has been a ship asail in the wind and I have been fortunate enough to be on deck, I don't know how I came to this fortune, I did not expect this when I stepped on board, but I can look to the night sky now and still not be able to navigate by the stars, but I can say "fuck it", where ever the wind directs me, I know now it will be just where I need to go.

See you on the road.......

Columbia Falls - East Machias

Posted by Peter:

Great breakfast at the Dream Catcher, hung out chatting with Jack and Maureen because we knew it was going to be a short ride today.  Actually, we thought it would be 23 miles and it turned out to be only 19.5.  So, unless our next stop has crept a little closer, we'll do those other miles tomorrow.

Speaking of which, we've known that tomorrow's ride is going to be a long one (40+ miles) for a few days.  we've spent hours trying, unsuccessfully, to find closer accomodations.

East Machias, Maine

Or, TWO DAYS AND WE ARE IN CANADA!!!!!!

No cell service yesterday, and the B&Bs mostly have no internet access for their guests.  Something is also wrong with my p.c. and it is no wonder with all the different unsecured networks we have tied into along the way.  My son, the p.c. guru, will have a chance to clean it up when we are home this weekend.  In the meantime, we have cell service today, who knows about tomorrow, and we can access our mail but cannot load pictures over the cell connection.  Too bad, really, we have some extraordinary photos over the past few days, including a Maine coast sunset over Frenchman's Bay (Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park).  We arrive in St. Stephen on Friday, July 29th, day 96 since we left our home on April 25th, we stay over night and on Saturday the 30th, day 97, we start the long drive home, meandoring through coastal Maine with a car, look out, the only thing that will probably save me from loading up too much is the limited space we have to add anything to the car.  There will be three people, one dog, two bikes, and all the luggage, but I'm sure we'll fit a few things.  We should arrive home late Saturday night, then Sunday will be our first full day home and day 98 since we started on this mad adventure.  It is hard to believe, very hard to believe.  We will keep posting through day 100 and we will have lots of photos to upload which I don't expect we will get over to the net while we are in Maine or Canada.  We will continue to leave the web site and the blog and photo albums up for at least the coming year.  It will be strange not to be keeping a journal of our day to day life.  In the past two days, I have taken the time (since I could do little else) to review photos we have taken since we started the trip and it was a bit overwhelming, I can't believe all the wonderful photos we have and I often thought along the way that we were not taking even half the photos we should be taking.  Well, I am ahead of myself again, as I have been the past few days, thinking of the end, thinking of transitioning back into my life, but what about the past two days?

Yesterday was a scorcher of a day and hilly, of course.  It was a short ride, just under 30 miles, and we nailed it all the way, averaging just over 11 miles an hour, our second best average speed, go figure.  We pushed to get to our destination in Columbia Falls, Maine, a lovely town, before it became unbearable, and we collapsed on the front porch of our adorable Dream Catcher Bed and Breakfast to cold glasses of orange juice, shade, and the company of our lovely hosts Jack and Marueen who really went out of their way to make us comfortable.  Peter will fill you in on more of the past two days when he gets to do his blogs for yesterday and today.

The towns we have been passing through are all about two miles from beginning to end, then open road again for miles and miles. There have been a few larger towns, but larger here would be a postal stop in Connecticut.  We have been traveling along the coast of Maine in Washington County.  Washington County is considered around here to be one of the last places where "you can still yield to that bit of pioneer blood left in your veins and live completely out of sight of the smoke from your neighbor's cabin, if you want to." (Maine's Washington County, Calais Press Printing Company) "... from the town of Danforth in the north to Steuben in the west is further than the distance from Boston to Albany, N.Y. With its two cities, 44 towns, and 33,900 population, Washington County is larger in area that the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.....  1.68 million acres of land, ... 1.47 million acres are forested.... 133,000 acres of lakes and ponds.  Ten rivers travel a total of 412 miles from their source to the sea..... Washington County is 85 percent woodland; eight percent lakes, four percent bogs and swamps and three percent cropland and pasture."  In other words, you can get lost up here real easy if that is what you want.  There isn't much here but good old fashioned untouched and uninhabited Maine woods and miles of gorgeous coastline.

There is so much to organize when we get home, financial issues to resolve, house projects to attend to, and most important a book to write.  Somehow, I need to put in about five hours a day for the first month just to get as much of the details organized and a rouch draft knocked out before I am too removed from the experience.  That will be a challenge since one or both of us needs to go back to work and soon.  I also have a literary press that I am selling after 11 years, and we are putting our house on the market by the spring of 2006 if not sooner, a lot to do.  But there I go again, getting ahead of myself. 

At the moment, I am enjoying a lovely room at the charming Riverside Inn in East Machias, Peter is snoring, I have cue sheets to write up for the next two days, and they will be the last cue sheets I write up for a while.  We have dinner reservations at 7 p.m. (the Riverside Inn is owned and operated by a chef who also operates a small restaurant attached to the inn - talk about convenient - the same chef who treated Peter and I to a lovely river side on the deck lunch since the nearest place to eat is 3.5 miles away.  Rocky did offer us his car and we thanked him and declined and he then offered to make us lunch since he was in the kitchen anyway - again, we are treated to unexpected generosity).  When we planned this trip, we planned to spend $10,000.  We did not have $10,000 sitting around and how we came to aford this trip is another story in itself which culminated in our receiving a near $10,000 check two weeks after we were on the road and we have lived off that, and we have exhausted that.  We are now living off our bills money, but we are so close to the end and it doesn't matter, this trip has been worth every penny we robbed from Peter (pun intended) to pay Paul.  We will have spent about $15,000 when all is said and done, but if it were not for so much generosity along the way, we would have spent $20,000.  We will eventually recover from spending so much money on this adventure, and we'll recover sooner because of so much support along the way than if we had spent $20,000.  Yes, we could have bought a car, we could have paid our mortgage for a year, we could have put the money away for retirement, we could have done a lot of things, but we did this, YES!!!!!!!!!! 

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting 'Holy Crap, What a Ride'" - I don't know who this quote is attributed to, but it is perfect.

One more thing for today.  I am interested in book titles.  At the moment, I am considering calling the book "See you on the road...." - please send along your ideas, and if your idea becomes the title of the book, you will get a free autographed copy of the book and a great big thankyou in the list of acknowledgements.  The book will have a lot more story than the blog and web site, though not all the photos, we will have to be selective with the photos and keep the photo albums up online indefinately.  Thank you to everyone who has written us of late to say you cannot imagine not reading this blog every day, we are tickled pink to have shared our adventure with you all and to have you share your comments and support with us.

See you on the road.......

Gouldsboro to Columbia Falls, ME

Posted by Peter:

28.8 miles. A great 11.1 mph average speed. Guess why? Lots of hills. We've gotten lots better at going up them, sometimes over 10 mph. Then there's the flying down part. That really boosts average speed. Also were many beautiful vistas. Sadly, the mornings have been foggy and it's been low tide, so many of the bays and inlets have been dry and not too scenic.

Breakfast at the Bluff House was tasty, but not very wholesome, lots of sugar and carbs, zero protein. When we arrived at the Dream Catcher B&B we were pooped and we both napped for a while before showering.  After a while, we cycled 1/2 mile up the road (unloaded, the bikes are so much fun) to a take out restaurant and enjoyed fresh fish and chips and lemonade sitting at a picnic table.  I hear that people pay extra for dining al fresco.  We spent $15.  Back at the inn, we sat on the porch for a while chatting with Jack and shooting pics of a hummingbird feeding 5 feet away.

This B&B is another winner! Jack and Maureen are both nurses and have worked in places like Alaska (way up in the northern part), Arizona (on an Indian reservation). In addition, they are first generation Irish Americans and have a love of Ireland. Their home is filled with art and artifacts from all of these places, including a wonderful collection of dream catchers. 

Columbia Falls is another down east place that Cingular hasn't deemed worthy, so there's no cell phone or internet service. Plus tomorrow's cue sheet wasn't much work. It reads "Left out of the B&B onto US1, after 23 miles look for the Riverside B&B". I don't think we'll get lost. What all of this means is that life has slowed down a bit. I'm writing this (to be put on the pc later) and Faith is working on a poem (not a haiku). There's a cool breeze wafting through our second floor bedroom. This ain't bad.

later.