Days Three and Four
/Perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven’t quite nailed down the whole blog-posting-while-bike-packing part of this bike-packing trip. In previous rides, it was straight-forward: write the story, assemble the photos, post them on FB & IG. Bob’s your uncle.
For some reason I thought to do it all through my blog on Squarespace. Because, you know, there are more customizable options… But what I didn’t consider was that “options” and “functionality” are euphemisms for “traps” and “complexity.” If I had a laptop, if I had a more reliable internet connection, it’d be one thing. But I’m doing this all on my phone, which is not the most flexible operating system - and it’s damn tiny to look at every evening. So, we’re gonna try a more streamlined approach. Words, then pictures. Boom. And again - Bob is still your uncle.
Day Three began the most perfect way one could imagine a bike-packing trip through Maine might begin: with a breakfast of salmon, eggs, Maine maple syrup and coffee made by my host. Because he was just that cool. And I’d put together my bags pretty well the night before, so getting loaded up and on the road was a fairly straightforward affair.
Riding out of Orono, I went through the business district and past the university campus. Much of Orono’s architecture is evidence of (or evocative of) where you might imagine a Thornton Wilder play to be set. Soon I found myself in wide expanses of fields and dwindling urban residue. Cars turned to trucks, houses turned to farms, and soon enough roads turned to dirt.
I’d plotted a course with my friend Erik daSilva of Bicycle Coalition of Maine which would keep me shuttling back and forth from main thoroughfare to backroads, so I was prepared. Gravel bike, gravel tires, gravel mindset. And when the first dirt road showed itself, I waved good bye to the tarmac and leaned into the skree.
However, I had to keep checking my route, at the next turnoff. Surely this wasn’t a road? It was a wide clearing, a track through to someone’s back yard, maybe an easement for some tractors, yes?
Apparently not. And as I bounced around, weaving around puddles and divots that contained small ponds of rainwater, I kept an eye on the bags mounted on each of my forks: this terrain was going to test their mounting hardware verrrry well.
It was around this time that I watched farms turn to fields, and barns turn to shacks. And then shanties. And then shambles. Rural Maine is much like my home state of West Virginia in that respect. Dogs barked at the ends of chains stretched to their limit. Piles of leaves, deadwood, and garbage burned in a corner of the land. Vehicles sat immobile with decades of rust and animal infestations - almost like subway cars that are dumped offshore to create artificial reefs for coral. Things which one would not normally consider ‘bio-degradable’ are actually, in their own way, bio-incorporated. I can’t speak to the level of ecological safety in that, but it is interesting to watch the way nature subsumes us sometimes when we aren’t looking.
Eventually, I turned back onto an asphalt road and began riding through some more of Small Town USA. It’s a village with many zip codes, and a lot of boroughs, and none are the same but many are similar. I find myself interacting differently with people as well - smiling more, for instance. As if a smile is a currency with greater value there.
Which is, of course, exactly the way a city boy would think.
People in small towns have just as busy schedules, just as many commitments, and just as much travel time to get from one to the next. Except when they don’t. And perhaps, in a small town, the times when they don’t resonate a bit more, with less distraction from their own opportunity for respite.
At any rate, the ‘September Summer’ (as the weather person was calling it) was in its final throws, and 80 degree heat and 70% humidity were bearing down on me. I made it the first 45 miles and stopped for lunch. And I noticed it starting to turn cooler. And drier. And then windier. And then rainier. And after seeking shelter under some trees on the side of the road, I carried on about a half hour later. 25 miles to go.
Uphill, largely. And into the wind, mostly. And eventually, I pulled into Medway with rest, a hot bath, and dinner in mind. And I n that order.
On the fourth day, it was cooler. And greyer. I’d planned to be riding into Baxter State Park but, as I rolled into Millinocket, right near the entrance to the park, there was clearly weather ahead. And I spent the morning at the Appalachian Trail Cafe with a couple of dinner plate-sized pancakes and three different weather reports, trying to synthesize their guesses. Eventually, I pulled the trigger and checked into the Appalachian Trial Hostel & Outfitters for the day, to avoid the oncoming rain and in the hope (as it looks to be ending around 5pm tomorrow) that I could avoid setting up camp in a downpour tonight by riding in the remnants of rain tomorrow and set up under a clear sky. Fingers crossed, on that front.
“Appalachian Trail” you say? “In Maine?” But of course - Baxter State Park is the home of Mt. Katahdin, the Northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. And my dinner in a local pizzeria (and my dealings in the common areas of the hostel) were all awash in trail ‘handles’ and sufferfest stories and scraggly beards. Also some very quiet individuals who seemed like they had either not been around a lot of people or had been avoiding a lot of people (which is maybe why they hit the trail in the first place). At any rate, the culture of the through-hikers is its own thing, and I found that short conversations worked best, begun and ended with a sincere ‘congratulations.’
Tomorrow I head into Baxter State Park, rain be damned. I’ll have no cell service there, and I’m planning on spending a couple nights there, so I’ll have to catch everyone up on the events in a few days. Meanwhile, of course, you can track my whereabouts on the link below:
