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October 23 Sunday Bicycle touring from Canaan Maine to Newry Maine The scrunch of dry leaves under my soles. The rustle of month-old oak and maple leaves in the breeze. The pungent aroma of burning piles of raked leaves. The silent cascade of an earthward bound leaf swirling on unseen currents. This is autumn in New England. We awoke at 5:30 AM. It is still dark. About 6:30 AM it is light enough to pack up inside the cabin. Sunrise is at 7:15, but it is light at least half an hour earlier. There is fog on the lake. We have a great view while sitting on top of a log. It's too bad they couldn't keep at least one outdoor toilet open. Ah, the joys of bicycle touring in the off-season. There are lots of cars in the parking lot at "My Cousin's Place." A good sign that the place serves good food. So we turn our bicycles in. They open daily at 5 AM. Talk about early risers. Crikey, it's not even light for an hour-and-a-half past that. We are past Skowhegan and almost to Norridge. I have the Monte Cristo breakfast special. Another bike is parked by the window. The handlebars are way out of the stem. I figure the guy who rides this bike has to be at least six foot six. Charlie turns out to be a guy with extremely short arms. I think he must have been a thalidomide baby. He tells us the cycling conditions on Hwy 2. He toured two weeks ago in the White Mountains. He says it got down to 20º F (-6.6º C) and his water froze. He wants to do a "notch" tour next year. That is what they call the passes here -- notches. How about a covered bridge cycling tour? There are a lot of those here. Pretty scenic, too. Spectacular reflections follow us as we cycle along the Androscoggin river. I took two pictures with bridges reflecting autumn colours. We bought some milk and had cereal for lunch at the Pleasant View rest stop. The view is indeed pleasant. Some times the sun breaks through and it feels warm, even without my fleecy cycling jacket. Sharon even took off her windproof rain pants today. The first time in how long on our cycle tour? Her legs are looking fit and strong, but when I mention that fact, she says she is tired today. (By 7 PM she was sleeping. We climbed up and down quite a bit today.) We are almost to the White Mountains State Forest area. Hwy 2 has a good shoulder in most places and today, being Sunday, there is not much truck traffic. The pulp mill at Mexico was awfully smelly. We had supper in a rest area just before Newbury. The water pump there even has a handle on it. We had hot chocolate, Coke, spiral vegetable pasta, salad, a sandwich with pickles, tomato, and cheese. Cheese is cheap here. We stopped at 5:30 PM. Darkness set in quickly. There was a good sunset. I took a picture of pink speckled cumulus clouds. We pushed our bikes along the river edge to a small clearing behind a soft pine tree and set our compact cycling tent behind it. It is great having a small cycling tent when we want to wedge into these tight places. A beaver on the river slapped her tail on the water. The sudden sound of it is quite frightful when its loud crack breaks the serene tranquility.Even in the dark Sharon saw me jump. I kid her about females being so noisy. After we crawl into our bicycle touring sleeping bags, I hear little (hopefully, little) woodland creatures scurrying through the crackly leaves. |
