Day 13 - Lakes & Blueberry pie
Day 13 - Bucksport to Machias, ME - 77 miles - 4,560 ft of elevation gain
As we make our way up the coast of Maine, the options for lodging are limited. We stayed at a cute roadside motel, but again breakfast was on our own. I needed some caffeine and since I’m not a coffee drinker, I went for a chai latte from the Dunkin practically sharing a parking lot with the motel. It wasn’t the best, but it gave me the hit of caffeine that I needed. We left the hotel and headed north on route 1 with the temps in the mid-60s.
The first part of our ride was on route 1, with a shoulder and lots of traffic. It’s amazing how many trucks and cars are on the roads in these parts. We took a left at one point off of route 1, and onto what I was hoping was a calm back road, but it proved to be just as busy. Our rest stop was along this route, it seemed to be some sort of train ride for tourist at one point.
It wasn’t long until we were back on route 1 and dealing with traffic, cracks, and various shoulder widths. A few miles up the road there was a gas station with a restroom for me!! Then we turned on the most amazing road, it was freshly PAVED! And as we kept rolling the scenery got even more beautiful. Everyone is still waiting to see a moose, and this road would have been an ideal setting for a sighting, but alas we didn’t see one. There is still tomorrow! I could have stayed on this road (route 182) for the rest of the ride, even though it had two bigger climbs. It was a good ride while it lasted.
Back on route 1, we were dodging cracks and various widths of shoulders. We came to a small town and I noticed that the route was leading us to a 4-wheeler path. I’m not sure why they label these gravel paths as a bike route, because I’m fairly certain running into a 4-wheeler would not be fun. We took a different route that had us back on route 1 for the rest of the ride. The good thing was the shoulder got much better about 5 miles from the hotel. The bad news was that we added two climbs for a total of 13 registered on my climb-o-meter.
The miles and climbs took a toll on our legs, so the sight of the hotel was welcome! We are staying at the Machias River Inn, with really nice rooms and a view of the water. One thing about riding far, is that dinner is never far from our minds. I chose a place we could walk to, like 50 feet from our hotel doors. It happened to be the biggest game in town, because they were hopping. It took a while to get our seats, but it was worth the wait. I started a thing last summer when it was someone’s birthday they got to take my playing cards with random questions on them, and ask the team questions. So we sat at the picnic tables and took turns asking and answering random questions until our table was ready.
On our final ride into town we were surrounded by blueberry fields. And we passed a place that claimed to have the world’s largest blueberries. So for dessert we had to try some blueberry pie! And since Aaron’s birthday was yesterday, I got the restaurant to sing to him and put a candle in his pie, and the surprise was worth it!
We have one more ride day to reach our destination!
