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Thursday, October 16, 2008, St. Mark's United Methodist Church, Kittery, Maine
Today we wanted to go far, maybe all the way to Portland if we had a good day. Becky's knees have been hurting lately, so Sarah couldn't ride, unfortunately. We rode on a road that paralleled the coast and was lined with old beach style houses. Every day is more fun now that we realize the end is approaching...fast. It's been fun for me. Every day I like to ride and I cherish the moments together on this epic adventure, knowing that such a time will probably never happen again. So, for me, I soak it all in and appreciate it more as time goes on. The kids are very talkative along the way. When we arrived in New Hampshire, we stopped to walk along the beach and collect rocks. We saw lobster for sale at only $3.99 a pound. We saw some gorgeous houses along the coast and took a picture by one of them. Vicky had developed a slow leak in her tire, so we had to stop and refill it at regular intervals, but it had been a while and it was getting low, so the others took a break while Vicky and I rode a mile out of the way to a gas station to fix it. It turned out to be a cracked valve stem, so the repair was faulty at best. But we did manage to pump it up. By then, Mom had arrived and used the time we were repairing the tire to see about fixing the license plate lights which had been out for some time, I guess, because a policeman stopped us the night we went to the Chinese Buffet and told us they were out. He asked for my driver's license, which is the normal procedure, and I discovered it was missing. Where? I don't know. Fortunately, he didn't give me a ticket for not having it but just told us to have the lights fixed. Thank God! I need to find it or get a replacement. So, back to the original story, it was very nice to find out that the mechanic had figured out the problem, a grounded out trailer wire, and had not charged us a cent. Just a kind man. So fortunate. Finally we were on the road again. We saw a recently killed beaver on the way back, a first for me. After awhile it began to rain. We put on our rain gear and continued. As we were crossing over a metal bridge the front wheel slid out from under us and Adriana and I had our first real fall of the trip, a painful one. We both landed on our left thighs and got good bruises and Charley horses. The fall broke my mirror and bent both the pedals on the left side. Fortunately, we could still pedal and no mechanical problems resulted. We were very careful after that. Finally we crossed the border into Kittery, Maine, our last state. The rain was starting to get pretty hard, so we stopped in a library. I updated the blog a little, but we still hadn't found a place to pitch the tent, so we left in search of finding one. We ended up asking a guy at the fire station if we could leave our bikes there over night and slept at the St. Mark's United Methodist Church. Pastor William Humphreys and the leaders of the church were very gracious and generous with us and let us use the facilities and funded our dinner and brought us breakfast donuts and orange juice in the morning. Great people. We took a picture in front of the church bell before leaving.
25 miles.