June 30: York Harbor, Maine to Loudon, New Hampshire
York Harbor, Maine is a major milestone for The Dream Tour. It’s the easternmost point and when we left York Harbor this morning, it was the beginning of a 3,700 mile leg heading west towards Washington state.
When we were getting ready to leave this morning, light fog and dark clouds to the west made it look pretty gloomy outside. I prepared myself to be wet all day by putting on warmer clothes and packing the rain gear in my rear bag.
By the time I had covered twenty miles, the sun had come out and I gladly shed the warm layers of clothing.
As I rode through the New Hampshire countryside on its twisty and occasionally steep roads, I thought about some of the things that happened on yesterday’s ride, but I forgot to write about them on yesterday’s entry. First, it was a shaky start when I left my cellphone on the back of the car. We had just started the ride and Pat and I arrived at the first intersection at about the same time. A friendly baystater honked his horn and told Pat that something fell off the car. It was my cellphone! I went back to retrieve it. I made a quick call to Pat to make sure it still worked OK. It did. Ironically, later in the day, I dropped my camera in the middle of a busy intersection in Kittery, Maine. I watched nervously from the far side of the road while traffic passed — in both directions — before I could get back into the road to retrieve it.
As proof that my camera survived this near disaster, here’s some pictures from today’s ride. First, a couple pictures of me riding on the Atlantic coast:
Then, after the sun came out, I came across some great New Hampshire farms.
Note the photo on the left. It’s on a dirt road. For some reason, the GPS that I use for navigation routed me onto some dirt roads today. It has done this a couple times in the past. Today’s dirt roads were well-packed and lightly travelled, but I did have some concern about them with the amount of rain that has fallen recently in this area. The bicycle and I both picked up some dirt from the five miles or so on the dirt roads, but the roads were easily passable on the road bike.
July 1st, 2006 at 8:06 am
Hi Pete,
You’ve taken some great photos. When I’m up around the NH and VT countryside I like to take pictures of old barns and farm houses. I also like to take pictures of Lighthouses along the New England coast. What kind of digital camera are you using? It must be a well made camera to go through what you described happened in Kittery. Also what cell phone service are you using? Just curious.
Haven’t heard you mention anything lately about blood sugars so you must have things under good control. When I ask my daughter the LIVabetes Glucose Goddess how things are going, she tells me, “Gee Dad, you should’ve been here yesterday, my numbers were great.”
I hope you have good weather on your dream tour through the rest of New England so you can enjoy the sights and take more good pictures. I will be reading your daily postings and stay in touch. Good luck and take care.
Florian
July 1st, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Hi Florian!
The last three weeks have been very busy for us. In early June we had the ADA Scientific Sessions conference in Washington D.C. and last week, we had four events to attend in the space of six days. Oh yes, did I mention that I’m riding 300 miles a week during that time too? I think I noted in some of my entries during that time that I would be doing shorter entries because of our schedule. Now that all those events are done, I’ll get back to posting some of that extra information, including occasional reports on blood sugars.
My camera is hanging in there. I’ve taken about 1600 photos and video clips with it during our tour. I think I’ve dropped it three times, but only once from a moving bicycle and only once with the camera case off. It is showing some signs of wear. It’s got some scratches from when I dropped it and it occasionally gets a “LENS ERROR” when I turn the thing on.
Cellphone service? Don’t get me started about cellphone service! We’ve had a lot of troubles with service recently. Our service provider told us that most of the northeast is analog cellphone service and I’ve got a digital-only cellphone. That probably accounts for most of problems we’re having. Pat and I have started sending text messages because it seems more reliable than the voice service. We’re hoping that all these problems go away as we move west out of the northeast.