Not yet! We stopped just a few miles short of our goal.
We were planning to meet our friend Mindy, her little boy Russell, and her friend Bonnie this afternoon, so we tried to get an early start from N. Conway, NH. We also knew it was going to be another HOT day, so we wanted to get as far as possible in the morning.
So we left our hotel and started through the town. As we rode, a cyclist came up behind me--apparently someone out for an early morning ride. He asked me about our trip, and I said we were just getting ready for the last leg into Portland. He then asked about how we might get home when we were done with the ride. I told him we were thinking of taking the train since we live in Colorado and it comes within 4 miles of our house. He said "Oh, where in Colorado do you live?" and I told him. He asked if Winter Park is near Granby and I said "yes." Then, unbelievably, he asked "Do you know Tim and Tina?" I immediately knew that he was talking about our good friends Tim Carter and Tina Wilson! How funny and amazing! His name is Paul Degliangelo and he knew Tim & Tina when they lived in NH! They used to ride and ski together. Paul was a great guy and is also the road engineer for N. Conway. So he gave us some great directions to avoid traffic on the way into Maine. How random to meet him--and if we had left even 5 minutes later, I'm sure our paths would never have crossed!
So we took those backroads and climbed our way out of New Hampshire. It was not as extreme as the day before, but we sure did a lot of climbing! We celebrated at the state line of Maine by taking a few pictures and having a high-five and a smooch! That's why it's so fun to travel with your sweetie...
Anyway, Paul had told us we would know when we hit the state line because we would be able to tell an immediate difference in the road conditions. Boy, was he right! He obviously does a fantastic job in NH because the roads and shoulders there were very good. As soon as we crossed into Maine, however, the situation changed. There were times when the only place to ride was the middle of the road! They evidently have a big problem with frost heaves in Maine, and the roads really reflect that.
Somehow, we naively expected that once we did all that climbing into Maine, our path would become slightly downhill. After all, weren't we heading toward the Atlantic Ocean? Well, once again, we were wrong about that. David figured we may have gotten as much vertical today as we did yesterday on the BIG hills. But today, we went up about 200 or 300 feet at a time, and then back down. The downhills were a bit more than the uphills, but David said that if you do 100 hills at 300 feet, you're still gaining 3,000 feet of vertical! True. So the massive sweating continued (I probably have the cleanest pores on earth) and we climbed and descended our way toward the ocean.
We made it to Gorham by lunch time, and since it's getting pretty close to the water, decided to search out some lobster for lunch! At first all we saw were pizza and Italian places. We love those, but had our hearts set on lobstah! Finally, outside Gorham, we found a little restaurant called the Ocean's Garden Restaurant, which had big lobsters displayed all over the outside, This gave us a clue as to their menu! In we went, and as soon as the waitress saw us, she just put a pitcher of water on our table because we looked so miserable! This particular waitress was just wonderful, and gave us great directions for the rest of our day's trip. In addition, we had great lobster rolls for lunch! If you're ever in this part of Maine, go to this restaurant because you could get THREE lobsters for $24.95! That's the best price we saw--and usually the price you pay for ONE lobster. So find this place and eat up!
After we left the restaurant, we followed the directions to Bonnie's parents' house in Portland--on the north end of town, but still in the right city. You can only imagine our excitement when we hit the Portland city limits! The road flattened out a little bit (about time) and we were relatively fast in getting to the Ives' house in the early afternoon. And with perfect timing, Mindy and Bonnie drove into the driveway as we were riding down the street.
At the Ives' house, we were treated like royalty! Mindy was quite concerned for our sweatiness and tried to rehydrate us with lots of water. David met Russell for the first time, and they immediately had a great male bonding session--perfect for David to get a little toddler time because we have been missing our grandsons! And Bonnie and her parents were just fantastic. We couldn't have asked for better hosts!
Cliff and Jane Ives have lived in Portland for awhile and you can tell how much they like their home city. Cliff was very knowledgeable about the history and how to get around, and advised us about the best route to the bike path that would take us to the Atlantic Ocean the next morning. We took showers and tried to stop sweating in the humidity, and then I made the mistake of trying to handle the logistics of our trip home. After about 45 minutes (seemed like hours) on the phone with Amtrak, I determined that it was almost impossible to get home--the best they could do was for us to leave on Saturday evening and arrive home on TUESDAY! The person from Amtrak informed me that the trains are not REALLY designed for long distance travel! That could be a whole different blog, in my opinion. So, although in our imagination the train trip sounded fun, we decided that we didn't want to sleep sitting up for three nights! So I called our trusty friend Anna at Winter Park Travel and as usual, she found us the best available airline tickets to get us home on Saturday. Yeah for Anna--she's a real gem!
We headed into the Old Port area to have dinner and check out our options for things like shipping our bikes and to ensure we understood the route Cliff had suggested for our final ride the next day. If you haven't been to Portland, it is also a must-see! We just loved walking around the city--lots of fun shops and places to eat, and it's just gorgeous sitting right there on the water. We had lobster for dinner (what else?) and really had a fun time just hanging out with Mindy and Bonnie and Russell. It was just great to have Mindy there to celebrate our trip's ending! She really worked hard to get there at the right time, and we loved having our friends there to cheer us on! Her timing was much better than when I tried to be in MD for Russell's birth (was too early by 3 days)! Ha!
Mindy's final present was a bottle of champagne which we shared when we returned home to the Ives house. What a fun night, and a great way to spend our last evening on the route!
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