AnnMarie + Jordan's Maine Bicycle Tour 2007

We woke at 7 a.m. and called Vermont Transit to confirm our 9:45 a.m. bus from Bar Harbor to Portland. Surprise! That bus stopped running after Labor Day, but Greyhound/Vermont Transit decided to make things interesting by selling us seats on it anyway. We made arrangements to take the 1 p.m. shuttle from Bar Harbor to Bangor instead, where we could catch a 3:15 Concord Trailways bus to Portland.

Woke at 7:30 a.m. and headed to Jeannie's Breakfast to fuel up for our assault of Cadillac Mountain (elevation 1532 feet). Jordan consumed the “Maine Breakfast,” which included 3 eggs, toast and jam, home fries, ham, baked beans, and a buttermilk pancake. (He ate the entire thing.) AM had some yummy blueberry pancakes.

We awoke at 7:15 a.m. And enjoyed yet another continental breakfast on yet another motel deck. Then we headed out for our ride to Bar Harbor. Along the way we saw more cows, rode up and down some more hills, and arrived in Bar Harbor in about two and a half hours. We briefly entered Acadia National Park -- enough to get a view of Frenchman's Bay and a couple of ginormous cruise ships.

We were rudely awakened by our alarm at 7 a.m. The morning was cool and windy. We enjoyed a continental breakfast on the deck and AM dried some now clean bike clothes in the dryer. We set off down Route 1 until we arrived at the newly built Penobscot Narrows Bridge. We stopped for a photo op and then rode another mile or so to Fort Knox for some military history. Inside the fort, we visited the office of the Pulitzer prize-winning Powder Magazine, checked out the green rooftop, and noted that the soldiers must have been about 4 feet tall to fit into their bunks.

We slept in until 7:30 (!) because we had been entranced by an episode of Iron Chef America: Citrus Challenge the night before (spoiler alert: Bobby Flay wins). Headed back down the hill to Moody's Diner for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon. AM decided against a slice of blueberry pie for "dessert."

Woke at 7 a.m. and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of nectarines and blueberry bread that AM had purchased from the folks at Want-Not Farm the night before at the bluegrass festival.

We rode to Bath, took pictures of the Bath Iron Works from the bridge over the Kennebec River and rode through some pretty winding forest roads to Wiscasset. Believe it or not, we waited in line for almost an hour and a half at Red's Eats for the #1 lobster roll in Maine. It was worth it.

Woke up at 7 a.m., showered, had continental breakfast, and set off for Percy's Cycles, a nearby bike shop. We arrived at 9 and were met by Percy himself. Turns out the shop was closed—they had gone out of business the previous day! Percy was great and trued AM's wheel anyway—we were off!

We took the scenic route out of Portland (around Back Cove), took a slight detour on Veranda Street, and pedaled onto Route 1 North through Falmouth. We took a short break in Yarmouth for coffee, Vitamin water, and a few handfuls of trail mix.

We woke up at 7 a.m. and started putting Jordan's bike into its bike box. We'd managed to get most of AnnMarie's bike into her box by about 3 a.m. the night before -- well, except for one of the wheels. AM's spatial relations abilities came in incredibly handy. She figured out how to fit a 4-sq. ft. wheel into a 4.003-sq. ft. space. But Jordan was a bit nervous about the fit so we decided to box her two wheels separately.

At 9 a.m., a friendly guy let us into the shipping store on Smith Street early and agreed to build a custom box for AM's two wheels. By 10:30 a.m., our custom-made box-o'-wheels was ready to go!