Testing, 123, testing....

I'm trying to dust off the old blog, not having had a living contribution since 2011, and as one might expect, techno difficulties exist.  Have I fixed them?  The above, surefire way to test out anything new will be the proof of the pudding.  Keeping my fingers crossed!

We left Bucksport early, even though we only had to ride 46 miles to a planned rendezvous point at the Acadia National Park Visitors Center. It was raining the entire route, so for the first time in the entire trip (YES!), we got to don full rain gear for the slog into Bar Harbor. It was kind of a get er done kind of ride where we didn't want to take any pics for fear of damaging our cameras. I'm pretty sure the rain lifted as we rode into a very crowded downtown Bar Harbor, or if it was raining, we didn't notice in all the wonderfulness of completing this big ride. More on the end of the trip to follow......

Our last map meeting in the hotel lobby at Bucksport, ME. The mood of the group seems to be a mixture of excitement that we are about to complete an incredible journey mixed with a sort of grieving that we will have to say goodbye to all of us in a few hours....

We had a perfect day of riding today, out of Bath to Bucksport, ME, our next to the last day of the tour. We had to pinch ourselves when riding along in the quiet of the beautiful Maine backwoods, chatting about the fact that we have ridden our bikes from North Dakota, how lucky we feel to be able to take part in such an amazing journey.

The weather report was bleak - rain all day essentially. Several of us elected to be 'bumped' (ie ride in the van) part of the route. We all got out in Camden, and while most of the riders elected to go off route on route 1, Elisabeth, Beth and I followed our cue sheets onto a beautiful hilly back road. The hills were easy since we were fresh, and we got in to Bucksport for lunch and with enough time to take some much needed time to get organized. I'm feeling giddy and sentimental about tomorrow, the end of this weird lifestyle of living out of a suitcase and just getting up and having the entire day to go for a bike ride with an incredible group of women and our two very gifted guides. Tomorrow's ride is reported to be hilly, so we'll be leaving early I imagine - will find out at our last map meeting after dinner tonight. I plan to wear my parent's cross country jersey and dip my front wheel into the Atlantic. More to come....

The ride into Bath was long and hilly, which seems to be the order of the day in Maine. We're passing lots of beautiful lakes, seeing new varieties of shore birds and there has been cloud cover, a summer bikers dream. That's a field of sunflowers that stopped us up on a ridge - wow! Bath is right on the Kennebec river, and we got arrived in time to have a lobster roll at a riverside restaurant across the street from our hotel. I had a message waiting for me from good Camp Hill High School buddy and now Portland local Alice Mazurie, saying that she was on her way up. It was wonderful to see her - anyone who knows Alice will appreciate that much guffaw took place in our short time together. These long time friendships are really prescious.

Here's our luggage outside of the hotel in Bridgton, ME. We were really happy to see another Southern Tierer, Marcie and her husband Michael there. Then, as icing on the cake, my friends Janice and Sean, also en route from Acadia National Park (and our final destination...) stopped and had dinner before heading home. These visits with friends have been really fun - it's great being on your extended home turf!

Soon after a really long descent and a latte in Conway, we crossed into Maine - VERY exciting! The route got us off of the main roads - images follow....