Packed the bike, ready for liftoff

       I spent a fortune for the bicycle case design to hold my bike.  After this morning, no more, it is back to the drawing board to find a simpler way to ship my bike.  One hundred pounds of mature crammed into a fifty pound bag, the bike just does not fit.

      With my gear packed, I walked down to the King John fortress and picked off where I left off yesterday.  Fascinating place, that and St Mary's cathedral next door shouldn't be missed if you visit Limerick.

   For an early evening dinner, The Locke is the restaurant where it is at.  Empty when I arrived, a mad house when I left.  Great food, Irish music and traditional Irish dancing, a nice way to end up my trip.  Off to Shannon I go early

tomorrow morning.

Wrapped it up

      Up and at 'em before seven, hit the shoulder less road to Bar Harbor and took a boat over to Winter Harbor. As we powered away from Bar Harbor, a huge cruise ship was off loading passengers for the town I just left. These ships are so out of place up here but the money which flows into towns must be nice.

     An absolutely gorgeous day, a beautiful ride and no tourists, great way to finish up my Maine trek.  Forty-nine miles over hill and dale with the last twenty into the wind, not easy but that is part of the challenge.  With no campsites or Warmershowers accommodations between Ellsworth and Lubec compounded by not enough time, I decide to do the today's ride and head for home.  I logged on more than three hundred miles and proved my worth. Challenging vacations are the only way for driven guys like me. 

      Getting back to Drakes Island was proving to be difficult. Don Helm said he would pick me up but that was asking too much.  Anyways, I negotiated an incredible car rental deal with Enterprise and drove myself and the bike to Portland.  Don met me at the airport whereupon we dined in downtown Portland and had a good time.

 Tomorrow it is homeward bound and by late December or into January I hope to be cycling in Cuba.  

Shifting into idle for a day

      Sleeping in is novel for me; 8:45 was verging on guilt but the rest was appreciated.  No pedaling so now what? The bus dropped me off at the Bar Harbor green from there I ferreted out a side street bakery where all the local folk were lining up. It is always fun to dig around the edges of a town to get a feel for how things really are. The library was closed and I could not find a Wall Street Journal anywhere so I settled for a Bangor rag.  Across the street from the news stand, I hung out at a coffee shop and read the paper.  With the wind already blowing, the rain and lightning followed. A burst of lightning hit a few hundred feet down but the lights stayed on.  Good day not to be riding.  After the rain moved on, I picked up lunch at Hanafords super market and dined down at the wharf looking out at the hills and water, very scenic.  After lunch I drifted down a shoreline walkway and found a bench to finishing reading the paper and take in the view.  Hey, the Chicago Cubs have the best record in the league.  Now I have someone to root for this fall! Go Cubs.

      For my closing act I found a sports restaurant where I watched the US tennis finals and

had two delicious brews and a chicken taco salad.  

       Tomorrow I ride to town and hop the boat to Winter Harbor.  With three days remaining I will search out the various small peninculas above Mount Desert for a nice spot to dream about moving to and building a house.  

      

Only forty miles to Mount Desert Island

   Laura fed me like the prince that I am; pancakes, sausage, coffee, everything Maine organic. A late start of 10:25, give it a rest, her place by the water was worth the delay.  Anyways, what is the rush?  My driven nature is unrelenting.  

      Laura's rooster tuned up at 4:30 and crowed  for two hours.  My window was thirty feet from the hen house.  Terrific!  Actually, I slept like the dead given all the riding I am doing.

       Once on the road, the hills were steep and frequent.  Twelve miles to Blue Hill and another thirteen to Ellsworth.  I remember Ellsworth as being a run down town with not much to offer; forty-three years later, the historic district is restored and thriving.  The terrain flattened out as I head for Trenton, the gateway to Mount Desert. Six more miles and I arrived at Bar Harbor Campgrounds where I set up camp and took the propane powered bus to Bar Harbor.  A chalkboard advertising a small local pub caught my eye. Good find, two IPAs and a succulent corned beef sandwich was perfect.  I chatted it up with some folks at the bar and then headed out to find myself ice cream.  God's teeth,  Bar Harbor is a huge tourist destination for the hords who haven't a clue about real Maine.  The stores sell  chotski (sp) which is total crap, if I may be so crude.  Anyways, I enjoyed being the fly on the wall seeing Joe America in vacation mode.

     I caught the last bus back to my campsite. Tomorrow there is an 80% chance of rain, not a good situation for someone in a tent riding a bike. Bon nuit.

Each day gets better

   The first few days on the road are spent ramping up the body and mind to cope with the long rides.  Another fifty  miles covered on my fourth was reasonably painless, finishing up in Penobscot. I am getting in the groove.      

   Departed the campsite at 8:26 and had an outstanding breakfast in Camden.  Dined with a woman from Niantic, Saunders point, who was cruising along the Maine coast without her husband for week.  She saw my Mystic Cycle Center shirt and struck up a conversation. 

     The hills mellowed out the further away from Camden I rode. A blazing heat made up for the gentler climbs.  First Belfast, then Searsport and followed by a nowhere town, Stockton Springs, where I found an undiscovered Maine cafe for lunch.  Real Maine is still out there and today I experience a bit of it.  A key to a knowing that a town has been discovered is when the gold leaf and Edward Jones investment house signs start appearing. Don't stop, just keep bicycling.

    Wanting to get off route one, I turned off onto 166 and headed south with the Penobscot Bay on my right. Several miles down, I turned east onto 175.  Things got rural and deserted real fast.  Cresting the fifty mile mark, I was ready call it quits for the day.  No such luck, no stores, no nothing and hills were getting steeper.  Sucking down water at a quickening pace, I knew I needed to find a campsite soon.  Alas, a country store; a woman wearing well seasoned paint clothes came out of the store where I asked her where a camp site might be.  One thing led another and Laura loaded me and my bike into her Suburu and drove me to her place in Penobscot.  Before leaving the store she asked if I would remove my shades so she could see my eyes. No problem.  As we drove along, I related my travels to her. She asked how I could afford it. Fifty bucks a day on the road and I keep my overhead  real low.  Down a dirt road she drove to her house, barn and pastoral setting which all added up to a wonderful place where she and her partner lived.  Getting acquainted with her digs, she walked me over to the healthiest pot plants I have ever seen. She glows it for medicinal reasons for the local community. I was given an education on pot cultivation, the different types of plants, how to tell when it is time to harvest and so on, really interesting.  Turns out the part about the sunglasses and how I could afford to travel so much was her way of figuring out if I was federal narc. 

      Laura had fresh peaches she just picked. I picked more and ate way too many.  I am paying for it now! At first the plan was for me to camp down by the water but she offered me a room above her partner's office, who happened to be away on business.  Anyways, Laura and I covered a multitude of subjects and had a real pleasant time. Laura is a real saint. Once again, someone is looking out for me.  To boot, she is cooking me a killer breakfast but warned me that her rooster  tunes up at daybreak. What a day I have had. 

Perhaps, I will make it to Bar Harbor tomorrow.

A long day, a test of my will

       Sixty miles up and down challenging hills all day. Suzi and Carl were saints, they fed me a superb breakfast before I shoved off at 8:53.  Real good folks who I had a good time with.  Their Australua border Collie, Luna, and I bonded over a tattered basketball, you know kick, chase and retrieve.

     Once on the trail, the hills were unmerciful and never ending. After twenty-five miles, I stopped in Wiscasset for lunch and an hour break.  Nice town but kind of over cutecified with the usual tourists (a lot of bored husbands obediently tagging along).  The next stretch took me through Bath where I had an excellent vantage point from the Kennebec River bridge of the Bath shipyard. There was a Zumwalt destroyer under construction, a cross between a WW1 Dread knot and a Jules Verne creation.  I have been intrigued by these four billion dollar machines.

     Up and down I churned past numerous turn offs to quaint Maine towns.  No Warmershowers sites or campsites kept me headed for Rockport, where I knew there were several campsite. A heavy fog descended on the area starting a good five miles from the shore.  Picked up dinner at a nice gourmet deli, got to the site and set up as the rain was beginning to fall. As much as I like my MSR tent, I need to place arrows indicating the front sections to speed the set up time.  Setting up in the rain is shaky at best, things need to go fast and flawless.

    Tomorrow I will ride into Camden for Breakfast and a look around, I hate being a tourist.  Maybe I will make Mount Desert Island by day's end.

Second day out, no rain, easy riding

   8:35, put the rubber to the road. Rather than climb back up to the eastern trail, I opted  route 1 and hoped for a good ride.  Post Labor Day has its advantages, the traffic was tolerable even where the road widened into four lanes. Forty-six miles bested my forty-two yesterday and the body felt more in tune. No monster hills and the scenery was

pleasant dispite the roadside tourist trade.  Around mile thirty-two, in search of a lunch spot, I came across a drop dead delicious bakery, the European Bakery south of Yarmouth.  Don't miss this place, I could have set up camp there.  Savoring an apple whatever it was, I found a warmshowers destination outside of Freeport. Before going there I  checked out LL Bean and bought a new pair of crockies for my glasses. Rode down half mile to Shaw's super market for a gourmet lunch for half of what a restaurant charges.  With a topped off fuel tank, I bicycled a few miles into the countryside and found my warmshowers hosts.  Suzi and Carl set me up with a great spot to set up camp and gave me the run of there house so I could shower and wash the riding gear. You can't beat Warmshowers.com for great people helping cyclists.  After some red wine with them, I adjourned to my tent. What a

perfect night to be sleeping under the stars. Tomorrow, Suzu and Carl are having me in for breakfast. You can't buy this hospitality. 

Bicycling up the coast of Maine

    About two and half months have zipped by since finishing my trek through Ireland. Here I am on the coast of Maine.  Don Helm, an old college friend, drove me to Portsmouth where I crossed over the  Piscataqua River and headed downeast hugging the coast. Planning this ride after Labor Day  helped thin out the hordes of summer folks and tourists but when I rolled into Ogunquit, the place was buzzing. Asking for directions, I discovered the Eastern trail (ET) seven miles north.  It took me into the back country where the road meandered with virtually no traffic.  The remnants of Hurricane Hermine kept me company the entire day, a cloud covered day accompanied by a misty rain; Ireland revisited.  No stores to be seen for miles until I intersected with route 35 which lead me to Kennebunk.  42.5 miles was good for my first day. Don retrieved me and ferried
me back to Drake's Island for the evening.  Another day of rain is scheduled and I will stick to Route 1 and see how the traffic treats me.

Winding down, packing up

   Caught the bus from Kilrush to Limerick with a bus change in Ennis.  It was a Chinese fire drill getting the bicycle fit into the bus' luggage compartment.  Once in Limerick, I navigated to the hostel I had booked, dropped off the gear and hit the town.  Lunch and all that followed an amble through a twelth century church under restoration and then off to see King John's castle.  

      I finally was able to connect with Airbnb people I stayed with when I arrived. My luggage was stored at their house and they were away on holiday.  Their neighbor let me in so I could retrieve my bike case other related luggage.  A taxi driver stuffed me, the luggage and the bike into his Prius.  With the hatch open, he drove me back to my digs.  After dinner the bike disassembly commenced.  There must be an easier way to ship my bike but the airlines are brutally expensive when it comes to extra and oversized luggage.   

      I need to get home but would also like to keep riding. Ireland wasn't easy but it was well worth the effort. Why do I put these challenges in front of me? As a driven, task oriented person, it feels good to do something difficult which is worth doing; a challenge that validates my existence. As Teddy Roosevelt said, "it is not the critic who counts but the man in the arena....". Most people don't have the courage to get out there and really live their lives. I am fortunate enough to able to live much closer to the edge than most people.  Life is much shorter than you think, so saying you will do whatever it is you want to do "someday"  is a lame excuse for not having the courage enough to get off the mark. I plan and execute and don't waste what precious time I have left on earth dreaming about my dreams.  

End of the trail

     All good things must come to an end, the last thirty plus miles from Tralee to Kilrush were easy, more downhill than up. Took the ferry from Tarbert over the river and rode onto Kilrush.  Three days running I saw a hostel sign before the town proper.  With an early arrival, I had time to unwind a bit.  Schlepped my laundry over to have it washed, luxury.  Had two beers at a nice pub by the town square.  Checked out the bus schedule  to Limerick for tomorrow and generally contemplated the fact that I had actually ridden my bicycle completely around Ireland.  1500 miles, set off for the west coast May 13 and completed the loop June 22.  A much tougher ride than I expected; the never ceasing hills and rain wore on me a bit.  The country is spectacular and the people friendly.  If I come back, I might Island hop.  After a celebratory dinner at the same public house while watching part of the Ireland/Italy soccer match, I came back to the hostel, FaceTimed with my old friend Migens Bagger and read some. Now for re-entry: pick up my luggage, pack the bike and catch the plane home.  Where next? Maybe Denmark, nice country, loads of friends, very few hills and a lot less rain.  So many rode trips on my list, way to little time.

Rode out early to Slea Head

       Bright and ugly I was out of the blocks headed for Slea Head.  Though bicycling head on into the wind, intermittent rain and low visibility, I had a decent ride seeing two thousand year old beehive stone dwellings and a famine house along the way.  The rock cliffs and outcroppings are dazzling.  On the way back I had the wind at my back but a misty rain peppered me. Am I getting used to this weather? Twenty-four miles and I was back in Dingle and a bit damp.

The owner of the hostel let me stash my panniers so I would have a easier faster ride to Slea Head. As planned, I caught a bus to Tralee and checked into the same hostel from the day before.  Small place with interesting people, we took in Euro2016 soccer playoff game and shot the breeze about just about everything.  Trump is always a lively topic.  What an embarrassment.  

     Tomorrow my game plan is to ride the back roads to Tarbart, take the ferry over the Shannon estuary, then over to Kilrush.  Circumnavigateion completed!  The next day I will take the bus to Limerick where I pack up the bike and fly home the 25th.  

Rolled the dice, off to Dingle

       Woke up this morning with a little promise in the sky, i.e. no rail, maybe.  Here I am thirty miles from Dingle, when will I have the chance again to see this place.  Off I rode, no rain, moderate climbs and very light traffic, Monday.  The rain started spitting at me with three miles. A brief but firm conversation with the rain God stopped the rain.  You know like " Not now dude, don't ---- with me." Once again, a hostel sign caught my eye just as I was entering the center of town.  Two young German blonds were coming out the door.  Yes, the place is nice, clean, reasonably priced.  Checked in, Helen, the owner said I should go do the twenty-six mile loop to the end of the peninsula, like right now. Not. After some strategizing, I will do the loop bright and ugly tomorrow morning then hop the bus back to Tralee and stay at the same hostel.   I try not to cover the same ground twice.  Pray it doesn't rain.  My panniers will be stashed at the hostel for the loop ride, making the bike lighter and faster. 

Rain gear will be on board.

      Dingle is another tourist Mecca but I managed to ferret out some interesting places to see.  The local Catholic 

church (built in 1812), a part of Trinity College, is affiliated with Sacred Heart U. In Stanford, Connecticut. I did a double take.  Picked up a new leather belt for my forty-four year old nickel silver belt buckle at a one woman shop, Elaine does nice work.  Customized it by embossing it with ancient Irish Ogham lettering spelling freedom, a special word over here given their revolution of 1916.  The Gaelic/Irish spelling is written in the back of the belt, it's spelling escapes me. 

    A few more days and not a minute to spare.  Forty-one days on the road and now re-entry is upon me in a few days.  Where next?