Camden, ME - Wednesday, August 23

Conway, NH - Saturday, August 18
On our route to Conway, we went through Lincoln, which was a very neat New England tourist town. In addition to the natural beauty, white water sports and skiing are the draw.

We had our last big climb of the trip today, about 1,800 feet. It was not a particularly hard climb though, because it was not especially steep. We said goodbye to the White Mountains.

In Conway, traffic was backed up for a mile or so: we sailed right through on our bikes.

In the campground, we camped on dirt and sand. It sprinkled a bit at supper time, then rained hard all night; we broke camp in the rain and had breakfast at a restaurant.

Turner, ME - Sunday, August 19
It continued raining all day, and the temperature dropped from 68 degrees to 59; had it gotten much colder, some of us would have been in trouble. Andy worked his cell phone and pay phones throughout the day to find us a warm dry place to stay. He managed to get us a hostel: a new experience for me.

The hostel was a family-run old working farm where they raised organic foods, goat milk, and llamas. They also made their own goat cheese, jams and jellies, bread, etc., which they served in a store/restaurant. Everyone was friendly, and the kids were especially outgoing. They introduced themselves, and I told them my name was Paul, but they could call me Grandpa. One of them, 7 year old Mackinsey was especially friendly, and wanted 'Grandpa' to tell her a bedtime story. She saw through my two versions of Little Red Riding Hood, and I had to give up. The guys slept in one spare bedroom with 4 beds and the gals slept in a living room. The guys flipped coins (odd-man-out) to see who got the smallest bed. Hans lost. Lodging and supper cost $25 each, and we bought our own breakfast the next morning. It continued raining all night, and was still raining when we got up.

Damariscotta, ME - Monday, August 20
We started riding in a light rain, but it stopped in the mid morning. All our gear was still wet from the rain of the past two days. We had some sun in the afternoon: Andy, Hans and Ann stopped and dried out their tents about half way through the ride. Cal and I dried out our tents in Damariscotta, and used the laundromat to wash or dry out some clothing. I started drying my tent in a restaurant parking lot, and was politely asked to leave. I moved to a bank lot that had lots of empty spaces. We had supper in a nice restaurant again. Since we will be finishing the trip two days early, we have some extra money which we are spending on restaurants. Anne and I had Maine lobster!


Camden, ME - Tuesday & Wednesday, August 21 & 22
WE MEET THE ATLANTIC OCEAN! Coast-to-coast is complete! What a great feeling to see the ocean.

We met at a small marina in Rockport, where we did the traditional 'wheel dip', by dipping our front wheels in salt water. We were all congratulating each other and exchanging High Fives. A local, observing our celebrations invited us to be his guests for supper and a nights rest. After deliberation, we declined. As we were taking pictures of our wheel dip, others were taking photos of us, as the word quickly spread around the marina.

Today's ride was short, only 33 miles, and we had a light tail wind. All three remaining days will be short, as we wind down. We are camped at a nice campground at a state park on the ocean. We had supper at Bippies, a roadside stand, where we all had seafood: Anne & I had lobster again. After supper, some of us rode into town and picked up beer and Jim Beam. We had quite a salt-water celebration that night. During the celebration, Andy and I called our wives, where we had a round robin conversation with them. Cell phone coverage was not good, and my call to Karen got dropped while Hans was talking to her. I could not get service again, so she kind of got left out in right field.

On the layover day Cal and I went for an ocean sail on a two masted schooner. Very nice. I got to catch up on this blog, and we had supper again at Bippies.