Bangor ME
Took care of the admin things before riding out of Madawaska; gas receipt, photo at PO, mail the SCMA form, and then a visit to the 4 Corners Park monument (very nicely done). At the Post Ofice Riding thru the town I could see why my ride in at 9pm in the rain was swishy….Main St is grooved with car tire tracks! Each side of the rode is perfectly grooved from what appears to be either a long time of a lot of heavy traffic (morning commute of 300 families??) or a weak sublayer….I vote for the latter. At nite I couldn’t see the grooves but could feel the bike handling weird as it wanted to follow the groove. Also saw more of the road outa town that I drove thru last night and some of the stuff I couldn’t see….damn scary at nite. Moose warning signs were posted along the way at the marshes/swamps where they like to hang out…..glad I didn’t see any last night!
While riding past “The Sled Shed” in Van Buren I honked my horn to say hi/g’bye to Greg the gracious trucker.
Coming out of Van Buren I missed the sign to hang a right for Caribou and continued straight on what became US-1A..same distance as US-1 but a beautiful scenic route (on the Harley mapbook) along the St John River that separates northern ME from Canada. The bad news was travel time…took 3 hrs to reach Houlton and I-95. The culprits -Small town speed limits of 25 to 15 for schools, to huge wide Harvesters on the road (didn’t want to play chicken with them), and surprisingly various construction that slowed or stopped me. But I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the ride while contemplating the storm conditions that are developing along my route to Niagara Falls.
Lunched on Subway sandwich at Houlton ….getting all my veggies J….and called Sis to let her know it may be another day or two before I arrive at her place near Niagara Falls. The ride to Bangor was about 120 miles and started out nice….maybe 10 cars were seen before reaching Bangor. Then the rain came down…am glad I was already wearing the raingear to keep warm…and tis a lot easier riding rain in the daylight.
While doing the ride down to Bangor I did some reflecting. First off, I need to get on a decent schedule…not more riding ‘til the dark hours. I need to pay attention to my body and to the weather. I woke up after 7 hrs sleep but still felt tired and sore despite my being in shape and also doing a stretching routine each night and morning. The travel plan I have laid out to hit 48 states while doing the USA4CornersX is appearing to be unrealistic and needs to be revisited.
Last night I pulled off at 6:30p in Bangor and got a motel room…the wx was cool, cloudy and some sprinkles, I did get rained on again about 15 miles outside of town. Unloaded Sophia and put all gear in the room then treated myself to a meat lasagna dinner with salad…I was famished. While surfing the WxChannel on TV and internet the wx for Thursday is miserable all along my route to NF. I zonked out at 11p, totally tired, to sleep on my decision as to what my course of action will be tomorrow.
Woke up this am after 8 hrs of sleep but still feeling tired. The WxChannel initially showed clear from Bangor to MA if I decide to not go thru NH/VT but rain and TS by 10am with the same thru the mountains to NH/VT. But I need to keep my primary goal in focus….completing the 4Corners thru Xing Lebanon KS. Next thing on the news was the foggy conditions…So with that, I decided to be a wuss, drop the goal of 48 and stay put in this motel for one more day.
Now to do a replan and determine if I can even do the 4 corners in view of the weather changes that are happening in the northwest and midwest.... It’s a lotta work being a wuss :(
Gonzotwitter: @GonzoCrossUSA
email: GonzoCrossUSA@gmail.com
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