Day 53 Bar Harbor, 0 miles. We Did It!

It's so hard to believe that our Atlantic Coast Adventure has come to a close. I'm sitting in a lovely hotel room without a bike to ride tomorrow, yahoo! It's being packed up and ready for shipping home. But I would like to let you know just how well my bike did; together we rode 2615 miles, 0 flats and minimum gearing problems. Some of the roads we put our bikes through just made us wonder how much damage could be done, but onward the bikes went. It's very hard to wrap up an adventure like this one, there were so many highs and much laughter. A favorite was watching the policeman stopping his car to walk 2 turtles across the street to safety. The other turtle story was our stopping and trying to decide if we should walk another turtle across to safety. Well, to our and the turtle's good luck along comes a local service person who picked up what turned out to being a snapping turtle! And snap he did, sure glad we left that one alone. And the wonderful ladies we grew to love, 5 Kathys, 4 Susans, 3 Nancys, 2 Marilyns, 2 Marys, 2 Barbaras, Patricia, Ann, Pam, Dolly, Linda, Janet, Leslie, Vickey, Judy, Tina and my roommate par excellant - Wendy! How much fun we had and how much we learned about ourselves. For me I had to dig deep when I became so fatigued and come up with a way to just turn it around. I'm very sure others also had some pushing to do to keep going.

Now Tom and I will relax and travel through Maine and Canada to return home late July. I want to thank each and everyone of you for your good wishes and positive thoughts sent our way, it really does help!

Arrival at the pier in Bar Harbor

At the Pier

The 8 who road every mile

The Bar Harbor pier the day after

Day 50 Bucksport to Bar Harbor ME

Today was a 46 mile ride to the end of our journey in Bar Harbor. We were suppose to leave after an 8:00am breakfast,but Gail was anxious to get on the road as her nice husband was waiting in Bar Harbor for her. We left early and again with all the hills,we arrived at aprox 12:30pm and were welcomed by Tom,riders,and loved ones that made the trip. It was a beautiful day and the local T.V. Station did a story of our arrival. I am so glad to get off this bike for awhile and just do something besides riding a bike. We have a banquet tonight with just the riders and lots of champagne and I have already consumed a margarita and a beer,so I am writing the blog now. I miss home very much and all my friends and I am glad I did this trip,just so I won't do it again. Gail and I are still good friends and that means a lot to me as this trip was very hard and stressful and she completed every mile. A shout out to my cousins Chris and Carol Macadams who took care of Charlie and my house for such a long time,of which I am eternally grateful.

   

   

   

They have arrived!!

They called me via FaceTime and I witnessed the end of their journey!  The whole crowd was there including Gail's husband, Tom. They promised to take pictures!  It was exciting for me to see how excited they were!  What an adventure!

Day 49 Rockport to Bucksport, ME 41 miles

Our ride today took us by Oreo cows, pretty little towns and rides on US 1. The weather was perfect for riding. We still had hills to climb, trucks to dodge, cracked road surfaces to be careful around and just 41 miles to cover. So we left at 9A and even had lunch along the way. We rode over 2 beautiful bridges close to our hotel and Wendy and I have a wonderful view of the Penobscot bridge. My husband Tom has arrived in Bar Harbor and is at the same hotel we'll all be at tomorrow night. Yes, our ride is finished tomorrow! We'll have a 46 mile ride to the harbor there for ceremonial dipping of our tires in the Atlantic Ocean. Then the bikes will be taken to a local bike shop for packing and shipping. Since Tom and I will be in Bar Harbor for a bit I'll wait to the following day to take mine over. Our ride is almost over and I'm looking forward to a good long rest. This has been a challenging ride for me and I have a few details of the ride: with my miles for tomorrow my total miles are 2,615. The revolutions of our tires from FL to ME turned out to be approx 1.8 million.. Thanx Susan R for figuring that out for me. Finally our approximate total ascent in feet was 71,022 and that's before tomorrow. I'm looking forward to my upcoming rest!

Oreo calf

Oreo cow

4 young ladies riding with Bike to Build and our own Mary B.
Great group of 31 young adults riding from Bar Harbor to NYC
and helping with home repair along the way.

A real wonky house that is barley standing 

Penobscot bridge

Wendy and myself outside of our last hotel

Day 48 Freeport to Rockport MA

Today was a 67 mile ride through the towns of Brunswick, Bath, Woolwich, Wiscasset, Damariscotta, Waldoboro, and then Rockport. The terrain was hilly and the weather was humid, cold , wet, foggy, and a little rainy. Gail did the whole route,but I stopped at 31 miles and got into my fellow rider, Nancy Howard's, car and had a lovely lunch of crab melt sandwich in Damariscotta. We are still in the land of lobster rolls and every little town has their version. We don't have any pictures to send as the weather was not nice and everyone is eager to finish before any more rain occurs. We have 2 more rides and then it is finished. Tomorrow we ride to Bucksport, a 40 mile ride, and on Thursday, we ride 46 miles to Bar Harbor. It seems such a long time ago when Gail and myself flew to Ft. Lauderdale and started this journey. The riders have been so nice and our guides make this trip accommodating to everyone's needs. I may never see some of these women again, but in this moment in time, we enjoy each other's company and laugh about the these difficult riding days.

More pictures of our day off!

Duck family

Golf cart parking, no cars on Little Diamond Island

May's cottage. Built early 1900's

Back view of May and her cottage

Freeport, ME. Day Off, 0 miles

Day Off! This is our last rest day of the Atlantic Coast ride. So very hard to believe that our ride is coming to a close, 3 more days and Bar Harbor here we come! Freeport, ME is the home of LL Bean. It's just huge and refers to its store area as a campus. True enough, after a very wonderful dinner last night Wendy, Vickey and myself walked the 2-3 short blocks to check out the Bean. We 3 immediately wandered in different directions. Some of our ladies found just what they needed, success at the Bean! Today was spent with 4 riders at the cottage of one from the 2013 cross country. It's located on Little Diamond Island a short ferry ride from Portland. There are about 65 families that have summer cottages on the island. It's open from approximately April to Nov when the water is turned off due to exposed water pipes and the cold. Most are built without much insulation on half of the island where our friend May's is located, it's a beautiful summer get away. Marilyn, Susan, Ann, myself and May had a wonderfully relaxing day. Thanks May! Great lunch!

Map showing ferry ride to Little Diamond Island

Ferry to the Island

Four going to the Island

Leaving Portland 

Cute tug

One of 3 lighthouses

Freeport McDonalds