September 2 -4, Arrive in Bar Harbor (Bawh Hawbah)

BACKUP AND MOVE FORWARD

 

I am sure those of you that read my blog last year are probably wondering about my spokes or rather the breaking of my spokes.  Well I bought a wheel truing stand and spoke tension device, trued up the wheel and didn't break a spoke since.  this includes climbing hills in Utah to  an elevation of 10,500.  So, the bad news is I went to check my wheel a few weeks before the trip and I couldn't quite get it to where I wanted it.  I set it down and came back a week later... same thing,  In my vast experience of truing wheels (about 3), I decided to check for cracks in the rim around the spoke nipples....shore enuff they were there.  So the good news is that I now have a new stronger back wheel with 36 instead of 32 and reinforced rim around the spoke nipples.  I tried to get a road service warrantee for the wheel, but couldn't get one.....cant imagine....

 

 

So onward from the last post.....we had left Greensboro by train and arrived in DC for a five hour layover, of which I spent about 2 hours doing the blog....starting to come back to me.  Then we went out for a walk and we have pics to share......

it was an eight hour train trip to DC.  Wasn't too bad, Barb had given me a book, "The Boys in the Boat", very inspiring book about the University of Washington crew who took gold in the Berlin Olympics.  I didn't finish until almost to Bangor Maine.  But meanwhile we go back on the train and headed to Boston, left at 10:50 PM and got in around 8:30 AM.  it was shortly into this ride that I found out my butt was DONE!!!!!!  Barb just told me to turn the other cheek, so I did that for a few hours(over and over).  Finally the car was empty enough that I moved and commandeered a double seat on my own.  this only got slightly better on the 4 hour bus trip to Bangor.   BUT, WE MADE IT!!!!!  Our driver from Bangor airport to Bar Harbor was a biker!  She was a retired school teacher and told us that she had biked across country from San Diego to St Augustine FL

 

We were dropped off in front of our campground at about 5:00 PM, only to be met at the door of the office that they were closed at 4:00PM.  We walked around the campground and didn't find anyone that worked there.  Met some nice people though, but they didn't know how to get a hold of anyone.  I am sure that if we had looked harder (actually, if we had read the fine print on the door it told us what campsites they were in) we could have found someone.  However,        it was after 5, we had been on trains, buses, and shuttles for the last 32 hours and the thought of a dinner out with a comfortable bed sounded GOOD!  not to mention that all our gear was boxed and we would have had to open Pandoras Box to get to our stuff, then we would have had a bigger project that what I wanted to do......So we called the shuttle lady (Helen) back and she came back and picked us up and hauled us the 9 miles into the town of Bar Harbor.  Since we were bikers, she gave us sn abbreviated tour as she drove us through town.  it felt good to have a good meal, warm shower and comfy bed.  I didn't even realize it had the frills as seen below until I the next morning.....  While we were in the lobby, we met a fun couple from Wisconsin, they were there to do a Ride Maine trip on their tandem bike, so we went to dinner with them   

 while we were at dinner a fire broke out in an apartment above one of the restaurants.  they had four ladder trucks spraying water on it.  looks like a total for that building and I am sure at minimal lots of water damage for adjacent structures.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.

 

Next day at the fire house.

Here I am with all our crap in front of the campground office, ready to assymble equipment.  I am looking so spiffy cuz I been wearing the same cloths (even underwear) since Monday AM and here is is Wednesday.....  Actually, needed some things in town, so off we went and we didn't get showers and clean clothes til Thurs.  Aw the joys of camping  :>)

I do need to mention that the staff at the campground were VERY accommodating, as I kept going in and asking for "things" as I assembled the bikes.

Enjoy our evening in Bar Harbor

our mandatory lobster dinner (note our spiffy 3 day old outfits!!)  good think blogs don't have smells, but for the benefit of the other patrons, we were sitting in an open air dock

 Thursday AM we got our bikes and took the shuttle into town.  from there we took as shuttle to the carriage trails in Acadia Park.  As my friend Gordon would say, "lovely ride!"  had to take the pic below, I like the not autos on ice sign.


It was a sunny day and we wanted views, so we left the carriage trails early and rode up to the top of Cadillac Mountain.  1500nfeet high, said to have the earliest sunrise in US.   

 back on the carriage roads

Imagine this, we actually saw carriages on the carriage roads!!!!

Cool old house with slate roof

tough duty watching sunset at our campsite

One of the problems with this trip is about 8 weeks ago we had a new granddaughter, Rosalie, born.  Kelsi, our daughter in law has been posting videos and pictures on her facebook account, and boy is she changing fast.  So in her Honor, the following pic.

 And we finish with our friend Krista's favorite pose!  it is now Friday AM and I need to start helping pack for our trip south.