Author: Maja Wessels

Day 3 — Biting off more than we could chew

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After waving goodbye to our warm shower hosts this morning, we planned on riding from Ashcake, VA to just past Charlottesville, to Crozet, VA.  We anticipated riding 78 miles over hilly terrain.  The weather was hot and humid.  But worst of all, we faced a strong headwind all day.  Long story short, we crashed—physically, not actually—just after climbing into Charlottesville.  The photo below is Charles calling some of our closest friends to see if we might be able to stay with their friend in Charlottesville.AD3E949E-9A7C-4051-80C8-25CF12C9C49B We got to a gas station in Charlottesville just as a huge thunderstorm passed over us, with a deluge of rain and hail.  Our reluctance to ride in a thunderstorm combined with our fatigue got the better of us and we called a taxi to drive us the 12.5 miles remaining to our warm showers hosts.

The taxi story deserves a bit of elucidation.  As already mentioned, we pulled into the gas station just ahead of the storm but the roof over the pumps was not sufficient to keep us dry in the lashing rain, so Maja asked the convenience store manager if we could pull our bikes into an empty room with tables and chairs associated with the fried chicken counter in the store.  The manager at first said no, but Maja sweet talked him into changing his mind and so we planned to sit out the storm there.  It was then that we noticed what looked like a homeless man sleeping at one of the tables.  Long story short, he overheard us talking about our options for getting to Crozet—riding, taxi—and took charge.  He called a buddy at the local yellow cab and a little over an hour later, we were on our way to Crozet.  Our very nice cab driver affirmed that our guardian angel is, indeed, homeless.  He sleeps in his Crown Vic in which he also ferries customers.  We are extremely grateful that he took a liking to us, because the hotels in Charlottesville appeared to be sold out and we certainly weren’t looking forward to more hills and rain on the way to Crozet at what, by then, was a pretty late hour.

So, with the story of our 12.5 mile cheat behind us, let’s get back to the ride.  All in all it was a pretty ride and relatively uneventful.

FDC3511F-A260-450E-B6AD-2AF10A28CB0ACharles had some problems with his front brake rubbing the tire for a bit and slowing him down.  But we stopped and removed the tire (and put it back on!) and things seemed to work better from there on.

We rode on an extremely hairy road past James Monroe’s mansion and Monticello.  The lanes were so narrow and the roads so windy and hilly that traffic backed up behind us as we slowly climbed the relatively steep slopes.  It was pretty nerve wracking and we were happy that no accidents ensued.  The drivers were amazingly patient.

Maja is especially thankful for the large number of churches on our route for the bathrooms they make available to us, since peeing in the bushes is not an option given all the poison ivy everywhere.

Our warm showers hosts are very bike friendly—see our bathroom below.  In fact, they set up an aid station during the Race Across America that takes our route, but from West to East.  The record for the 4,230 mile race is 17 days, unassisted!!044A871D-6275-4C82-A599-70B1AF7983A3

Tomorrow will be our toughest climb so far.  And we thought today was bad. Total miles are estimated to be around 60 miles. Luckily, the wind is supposed to be at our backs.  Fingers crossed.6B282E85-8B54-4966-8F87-A5AA95944F5A

 

On the road again

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Tomorrow we will dip our rear tires into the water here in Yorktown, Virginia where the good citizens have paved a bike path to the water’s edge to save our gears from starting our ride sand encrusted. It’s hard to believe that we will, once again, be embarking on a cross-country adventure. We feel we are in worse shape than last time, but with the experience of our WA-ME ride under our belts, we are more confident of our ability to ride ourselves into shape. Time will tell. We hope you will enjoy the ride with us. And don’t forget that you can leave comments.

Addendum

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It’s hard to believe that it was only yesterday when we rode into Bar Harbor. It already seems like days ago. Yesterday was a strange day in any case. When we got on our bikes in the morning, we knew we would not be doing so again in the context of our cross-country ride. And so we were feeling nostalgic. But we also knew we would have a fair number of hills and the morning was gray and chilly, so our level of enthusiasm was moderated somewhat.

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Charles heading off early in the morning for the last time, under cloudy skies. Later in the day we would reach our final destination of Bar Harbor, ME.

Indeed, the ride was pretty grueling. Maine hills can be thought–they are relatively short, but not at all sweet. I much prefer longer climbs that are less steep than the short, steep Maine variety.

At one point in our ride, we had the opportunity to stay on Route 1–the crowded, tourist highway to the coast–and cut about 10 miles from our trip, or take a quieter albeit longer route. Normally, we would have looked quite fondly at the short cut but we decided this being our last day and all, that we should take the road less traveled. And we were glad we did. We got to stop and munch on wild blueberries on the side of the road and bike through the pretty coastal town of Surry.

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Wild Maine blueberries are so much yummier than the commercial ones we get in grocery stores! I could have spent their rest of the day happily munching away, but we had places to go.

Our bike map showed only two hills of any significance between Surry and Bar Harbor, but our map was not truthful. In fact, we had about 5 or 6 pretty long and steep hills before we got to our destination. We then added another 8 miles of riding some of Arcadia’s carriage roads to make it up to Jordan Pond House for some popovers. I have very fond memories of having popovers there as a child for special occasions, so it seemed only fitting that Charles and I should celebrate the completion of our journey there. We were literally given the best seat on the lawn, closest to Jordan Pond. It was gorgeous. And probably due to the little note I wrote when making the reservation about growing up in Maine and finishing our bike trip there. Whatever the reason, the views from our table were stunning.

We then took the bus back down to Bar Harbor and dropped off our bikes at the bike shop for them to be shipped back home. I was worried that we might want to use the bikes later in Maine, but given the difficulty of the ride we had just completed that day, we both thought that a week without bikes in Maine would be a good thing. Of course, today, as we were driving around Schoodic–a beautiful coastal area across from Mt. Desert Island but still part of Acadia National Park–we missed the pace of riding and the ocean and pine smells. So we slowed down and rolled down our windows and all but stuck our heads out of the car. I guess it will take us a little while to get used to not being on a bike and experiencing the world from the inside of a car.

Our day yesterday ended with a wonderful dinner in Bar Harbor and a long drive in the dark to our B&B. We were exhausted, not being used to riding and partying!

Today we woke up and took a shower in the morning instead of in the afternoon as we have done for the past 89 days. We had a leisurely breakfast, enjoyed the view from our bedroom and caught up on some emails and I went out to the beautiful beach across from our B&B and participated on a Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Board call. After the call we got in the car and explored the area. We stopped in an art gallery in the small town of Winter Harbor. While chatting with the owner we discovered that she had gone to the same high school I had, graduating a few years earlier. Her father had been one of my high school math teachers and her grandmother had taken my senior photo! Another person entered the gallery and after a few minutes conversation we realized that her cousin had been in my junior high and high school classes. It’s a small world.

Anyway, long story short, we’re enjoying ourselves but it feels strange not being on our bikes part of every day and I feel somehow a bit guilty for it. Don’t ask me why and I’m sure that feeling will be gone by tomorrow. Now we just have to start eating a lot less than we’re used to. No more daily malts! It may take us a while to wean ourselves from this addiction.

Maine, by the way, is an incredibly scenic place. Whoever of you has not been here yet definitely needs to come. Some photos from today are pasted below.

This adventure has been something to remember and I’m so happy we were able to undertake it. I know that many of you think that you could never do something like this, but you’re wrong. I believe that you all could–just taking it one day at a time and one mile at a time. That’s the secret to success. Signing off. Cue tears.

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Schoodic Point is another place where my parents used to take us as children. We would spend the day happily hopping from rock to rock.

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The view from our B&B. Sand beaches such as this one are quite a rarity on the craggy, rocky coast of Maine. At low tide the beach is about three times as large. Two kayaker a are visible in the distance.

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Bar Harbor was named as such because of a sand bar between the town and the island you see in this photo. At low tide you can walk on the bar to the island. This is the location where we dunked our front tires into the ocean.

 

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Taken from the carriage rode on our way to Jordan Pond House for popovers and prosecco.

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Toasting ourselves with Perrier Jouet and eating cheese and crackers on our own private beach. We saw a seal merrily jumping through the water after having scared up fairly large schools of fish that we could see churning up the water.

Post script

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I forgot to mention that the other thing that was so special about our ride over the past days was the opportunity to see three beavers at the start of one of our days. We had started early in the morning to beat the heat and were riding next to a crystal clear river. We saw one adult beaver swimming toward what seemed to be a small log in the river, but we then realized that it was a baby beaver that the adult picked up. And just further ahead was another adult beaver that dived under the water, but because the water was so clear, we could continue watching it. It was really amazing! And it reminded me of my very first longer bike ride that I took while in high school with a friend. We rode from Bangor to Dedham to spend the night with her grandmother. The ride was about 12 miles each way with one serious climb. Not bad for two girls who had never gone more than a couple of miles to school and back. On the route we stopped by a little pond and watched a beaver dragging some branches to its home. Later that day we saw a moose behind her grandmother’s very modest home. It was a real adventure for us.

The same day Charles and I saw the beavers, we saw another bald eagle. It’s so exciting to see these majestic birds soaring over us. I will never tire of it and hope we will see many more along the Maine coast.

We didn’t have any adventures today. Just a lot of climbing and a fair amount of heat. Sometimes the smaller hills can be harder than the mountains just because they’re so steep. I was in my granny gear several times today, which I hadn’t needed to use while climbing our monster mountain yesterday. And Charles and I actually dismounted and walked 25 yards or so when the incline was just too steep up one hill. Tomorrow will be another tough one. But we only have three to go.

The last couple of weeks

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These last couple of weeks or so, as we’ve been cycling through New England, have been some of the best of our trip for me, first and foremost and not surprisingly, because of the people we’ve met up with. In New York, my sister, her husband and two of their three daughters drove from Ithaca to Fair Haven, NY–over an hour’s drive–to meet us for dinner. It was great to see them all and be able to catch up, which we hope to do more of in September when we all get together in CA for a nephew’s wedding. Also, they had arranged for a dinner at a gorgeous water-front restaurant. It was definitely one of the best meals of our trip. We were doubly lucky since our motel was miles from a place to eat and I’m not sure if the town had any taxis to drive us to dinner had we not been dining with my sister. And the last thing we want to do after a hard day’s ride is bike to and from dinner. My brother-in-law had also decided that, since there seemed to be no breakfast place in town, he would organize a boxed breakfast. The sandwiches were incredibly yummy and so big that the leftovers became our lunch.

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My sister, Anke, her husband Ric and two of their daughters Marin and Rory at the beautiful lake location where we had dinner.

A few days later, we rode to Buffalo where a college classmate had reached out to us when she read in the alumni magazine that we were biking cross-country to benefit the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and invited us to spend a night in her home, just around the corner from the Darwin Martin House. Jennifer and I couldn’t quite put a finger on how we had known each other at Dartmouth, but after spending a day with her and her kids, I wished that we had spent more time together in college. But there’s always time to make up for that now and I hope we have more opportunities to get together in the future.

A few days later, we cycled into East Thetford, VT where we were met by one of our oldest and dearest friends, Camilla, with whom we just spent two nights and a rest day in Hanover, NH. We squeezed our bikes into her mini-van and she drove us to and from her place and our route. We had such a wonderful time with her–catching up, talking politics, watching the Olympics and eating and drinking to our hearts content including an incredible home made peach/blueberry pie and homemade chocolate malts. Camilla knows us way too well and had all our favorite foods and drinks. And she treated us to a wonderful massage. We have found that periodic massages really make all the difference! My shoulder has been SOOOO much better. While in Hanover we had drinks with an old college roommate, Deb. It was so much fun to talk about old times and great to realize that my difficulty in remembering exactly who I had roomed with at Dartmouth was not unique to me. Deb also gave us great tips on places to travel to, so our travel “to do” list as just grown by leaps and bounds. Earlier that day Camilla drove us to Manchester where we met up with another old college roommate, Judy, for lunch and a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Zimmerman House. Again, it was great to see Judy and I just wish that we all lived much closer together so we could see each other more often.

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We tried to convince Camilla to join us on our ride, but this was as close as we got her to come–dropping us off on our route after a wonderful stay with her.

We then stayed with another old housemate from my SAIS days just outside Lincoln, VT, the next night. Larry drove over 2 hours from Boston, had organized for the local bike shop to store our bikes overnight, and drove us to his vacation condo 30 minutes away where we had a wonderful dinner, watched the Olympics and spent the night. We hadn’t seen Larry in about 7 years so had a lot of catching up to do. We really appreciate that he drove almost 5 hours back and forth to spend a little time with us.

Getting together to with friends over the course of this trip has been a highlight and has made me realize how lucky we are to know such wonderful people. We will definitely make more of an effort to meet up with them more frequently.

A second highlight of the last 10 days or so has been riding through New England where I spent my junior high, high school and college years. It’s been wonderful for me to ride through this beautiful area of the US and to remember trips and activities of my youth: picking blueberries and apples, swimming in pristine lakes, visiting the Niagara Falls, and hiking through gorgeous landscapes. I definitely miss the water that is all around us here–just in case you haven’t noticed from the fact that so many of my photos are water centric. I am looking forward to riding into Acadia National Park where we spent huge chunks of our summers and weekends over the course of the years we lived in Maine.

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Another aquatic photo from yesterday in New Hampshire.

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We haven’t seen any moose yet, but seeing this sign reminded me of the time a moose peered into my classroom window in 5th grade. What a shocker that was!

And finally, watching the Olympics has been so inspiring. I’ve stayed up until midnight on many nights watching the swimmers and gymnasts win so many golds and have been in tears most nights as I listen to their stories. I am awed by how hard they have worked to get where they are and happy that all of their hard work has paid off. Another of my college roommates won a silver medal in rowing (single scull) so I am well aware of the sacrifices each one of these Olympians has made to get to where they are today, making winning look so easy. I admit that during the course of the day, when I may be struggling on a particularly difficult climb, I think of how hard these athletes have worked and that encouraged me to keep going. I’m sorry that the swimming is over now, but happy that I can get back to a normal sleep routine. 😉

Only four more days until we ride into Bar Harbor. Hard to believe. The weeks have flown by.

 

Addendum to day 69

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Today was a GORGEOUS day. We started with some trepidation because our map said that starting from Old Forge where we spent the night yesterday, the hills would turn to mountains. The day started with thick fog, but the kind where you knew it would burn off and the day would turn sunny. And indeed, 90 minutes later we were biking in the sun, but the day remained cool. It was one of the prettier days of our ride. The air was crisp, the “mountains” were doable, and the scenery was beautiful. The problem for me, as team “Wescov” photographer, was that we were either climbing or descending most of the day so that stopping for photos was difficult. Suffice to say, I could have taken hundreds.

To top of a great day of riding, we had a nice, warm lake right across the road and some friendly Canadian hikers in our B&B who offered to take us with them to dinner since there was no place close by. We had an interesting conversation about politics in Canada and the US.

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The view from our dinner table overlooking Long Lake

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Charles and Maja after enjoying a great meal. That is not a halo above Maja’s head, just her reading glasses.

On a final note, I would like to thank the State of NY for keeping up its roads! The roads we’ve been on for the past three days have consistently been the best of our whole trip–nice smooth surface and wide shoulders.

We have a winner!

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Someone has guessed correctly what I was counting and has won a Frank Lloyd Wright design cell phone cover. I was, indeed, comparing the number of McDonald’s to Burger Kings. My winner was surprised by the low number of both, as was I, but we have to remember that we were riding through mostly small towns. The places that had a Burger King almost always had a McDonald’s nearby, but many towns could obviously only support one fast food burger joint, and in those cases they had a McDonald’s, proving the value of incumbency. I know that you will be disappointed to read this, but since we have a winner, I will stop counting. Thanks to all of you who joined in the fun!

As you all know, we have rarely been rained on. The parched look of western NY is testament to the lack of rain. Yards are brown, corn is stunted and dry and soybean plants are also significantly smaller than ones we’ve passed across other states. While we can’t complain about staying dry on our rides, we do feel bad about the farmers whose livelihood is suffering. Today as we were cycling along the Erie Canal, many farmers were pumping water out of the canal to irrigate their fields. We don’t know if this is normal or something that is just done when Mother Nature doesn’t do her bit to keep the crops watered.

Speaking of water, we have been drinking a ton over the course of the last few days as the heat wave has finally caught up to us. It has been hot and humid. And today add dusty to the list since we were riding on crushed limestone all day along the Canal. Our bikes, bags, etc. are gray with dust. We will have more of the same tomorrow until we turn off the canal and head toward Lake Superior, which we hope will be a bit cooler.

Today I made our reservations at a Bed and Breakfast near Bar Harbor, so the end of our adventure is nearing. We have only 13 more days with bums on saddles and 14 more days total until we reach our destination. As we looked at the map to plan our final days, we wonder why the American Cycling Association decided to end its Northern Tier Route in Bar Harbor since we bike north along the coast of Maine for a couple hundred miles before we get there. Charles and I discussed whether we should call it quits when we reach the Maine coast, but decided to soldier on. After all, what’s a couple hundred more miles? and we wouldn’t want to be accused of false advertising! 😇 So, with that said, we are now looking at riding into Bar Harbor on August 18 and flying back to Arizona around the 25th. Woohoo!

🎶Make new friends, but keep the old

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One is silver and the other’s gold.🎶 

We have been meeting lots of kind, interesting and engaging people on our trip, but there’s nothing like being with old friends. Our time in Birmingham, MI with our good friends Foley and Marion was fantastic, albeit too short and they get 5+ ⭐️s for their “warm showers” 🙃 hosting. Marion and her son Malcolm picked us up at the Marine City ferry, an hour from their home. On the way back to their house, Marion organized and then later generously treated us to two of the best massages we’ve ever had. She then chauffeured us around on various errands before cooking a wonderful salmon dinner that really hit the spot. Our next day was full viewing Frank Lloyd Wright homes, touring around some of the areas of Detroit that are in full revival, having lunch and going back home for a well deserved nap. That night, we were joined by more friends and three bottles of champagne and several bottles of wine later, we hit the sack. The next day, after a full and filling breakfast, Marion and Foley drove us back to Marine City for the ferry ride to Canada. It was so wonderful being around friends that are really family and getting back to our trip well fortified emotionally and physically. We are very lucky and thankful to have such great “old” friends. The only black mark against them was that we had so much fun over the dinners, wines and champagnes that we never had the energy for the long promised malts at their favorite ice cream shoppe. Something to look forward to for the next visit.

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Ending our fun time with the Jones’s at the Marine City Ferry landing.

We will be spending tomorrow night with a college classmate, which I’m looking forward to, and will also catch up with some more of our oldest and best friends from Virginia who now have a summer place in Hanover, NH a week or so from now. Those visits combined with our stay with our good friends from Paradise Valley, Craig and Steve, at their home in Golden Valley, MN have made this trip even more special than it would have normally been.

Musings from Day 58

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34:18. Hint: I am absolutely positive that the two things I’m counting are actually more numerous in the areas through which we’ve been biking, but we miss a lot of them because we’re on back roads and bike paths. We have been in several of the more numerous ones, but in none of the less numerous ones.

We have been missing our Warm Showers experiences. For some reason the areas in Wisconsin and Michigan where we’ve been biking haven’t had a lot of Warm Showers opportunities — and in Traverse City, MI, the one place that had multiple hosts, none of them were available. So we feel that we’re in Warm Showers withdrawal. We really appreciate the unique aspects of each Warm Showers experience and the conversations we have with our hosts. We hope to be able to organize our ride over the course of the last weeks of our ride so that we’ll end at least some of our days in places with Warm Showers hosts.

But, today and tomorrow we have something even better! We are with two of our very best friends in Birmingham, MI, Marion and William. We got to know them in Brussels, where William was a senior executive with Chrysler. Marion generously offered to lend Brady a cowboy outfit for a costume event (he was 4) when we first moved to Brussels and the rest is history. We are now family and Brady considers the three “kids” as his brothers.

Marion and their youngest son Malcolm picked us up from the ferry in Marine City, where we will be continuing our ride again on Saturday. She immediately said she had some “business” to cover with us, that included whether we wanted the massages they had set up for us today or tomorrow. How did they know that we had been dreaming of massages for weeks? We are so, so lucky to have friends like Marion and William and are so, so happy to be with them and in a building that’s not a restaurant or a motel room! Unfortunately, we have learned from experience that more than one rest day in a row is not good for us, so we will not be staying for as long as we would like to.

We are now about 1,000 miles from the end of our trip. I’ve looked at the remaining maps and am intimidated by the climbs we have coming up in New York, Vermont, NH and Maine. We will be starting with rolling hills — that sounds so poetic, but on a bike even rolling hills can be tough — but then quickly get into real mountains. So, we are lightening our load and mailing back some gear tomorrow. I think I’ll probably be able to carry what I have left in my rear panniers so will send the front ones back. Charles may keep his front panniers and he and I can switch off carrying them.

While I am looking forward to reaching our goal and getting to Bar Harbor, it will be very strange not to get on a bike every morning. We have gotten so efficient every morning with packing, loading up our bikes, putting on sun block, having breakfast, packing lunch and getting on our way by 7 am at the latest, that it will be very strange once we are back home to get out of bed, have a leisurely breakfast, read the papers and not get on a bike. But I know I am getting ahead of myself. We still have three or so weeks to go. Fingers crossed that everything continues to go well, although it doesn’t make for very exciting reading 😉