We’re back from our bike trip to Maine and back again. It was a great, great trip. We started from West Chester, defeated mechanical trouble, and rode north to Kingston, NY, where we diverted to Mohonk to sit out the Great Blackout of 2003 wearing tuxedos and sipping iced drinks. When the blackout fizzled the next morning, we rode north through the Catskills and the Adirondacks, then cut over to Bennington, Vermont, up to St. Johnsbury, then over to Bar Harbor.

After attending Kate’s cousin Brian’s wedding at the Bar Harbor Inn (which was beautiful), we rode to Belfast, Maine, to visit my mom and Robin and drop off the Tower of Power. Next was Deer Isle, Maine, where a friend of Kate’s mom had lent her a rental house for the week. I spent three days working via dialup modem on the back porch, looking at pine trees, and generally enjoying the hell out of myself.

Finally, we set out on Thursday morning, rode up to Bangor, headed west to New Hampshire on Route 2, then turned south at the Mount Washington Auto Road. After earning our stickers there, we continued south and west through the Kankamangus parkway (at the suggestion of several New England Airheads.) That was a goshamighty beautiful trip, if somewhat slow through North Conway, New Hampshire. Though I did get to see the original EMS store. After that, up to Burlington, Vermont, a night in a motel, then across Lake Champlain on a ferry, and through the Adirondack Park on routes 9 and 30. The weather was threatening at this point, and the high altitudes were very misty and solemn.

We got our rainsuits on in the nick of time, were hammered by one fierce thunderstorm just south of Binghamton, NY, then rode the rest of the way on the PA Turnpike Northeast Extension back home.

Total Mileage: Just over 2,000
Tower of Power Objective: Achieved

Lessons Learned: Do not wear backless “cruiser” gloves in an effort to stay cool. I bought a pair in New Jersey to switch for my hot black elk-hide gauntlets, and now have a deeply tanned patch on the back of each hand, plus sunburned knuckles. They’re called “Harley hands”, and they’re pretty embarassing.