The Fourth Corner - Maine

[Vagabird]

In ÔÇÖ03 my wife and I did the Iron Butt National Parks Tour, riding together on our RT. That turned out to be the last long ride she could make. She got sick after that and died last year. This year, as part of the process of learning to ride and live without a partner, I redid the tour. I went to some of the same parks and some different parks. Earlier, IÔÇÖd been to Florida, California, and Alaska. This last trip was to fill in the last corner ÔÇô Maine ÔÇô and pick up parks in some of the states IÔÇÖd missed.

I started out all on two-lanes through NebraskaÔÇÖs Sand Hills,

<img src="http://vagabird.smugmug.com/photos/369097136_BLtSf-M.jpg" width="600" height="450">


and the farms of South Dakota.

<img src="http://vagabird.smugmug.com/photos/369097145_xaAQw-M.jpg" width="600" height="450">



At Minneapolis, I got on the interstate, but got off at Cloquet to look in the rain at the only gas station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

<img src="http://vagabird.smugmug.com/photos/369097016_sMaYC-M.jpg" width="600" height="450">


Then it was on to the Very Boring Rally in Duluth.

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After the rally, I headed east through Wisconsin and Michigan, through the woods and along the lakeshore, waving to the hordes of Harleys headed to their big anniversary in Milwaukee.

<img src="http://vagabird.smugmug.com/photos/369097808_3tixQ-M.jpg" width="600" height="450">


I crossed into Ontario at Sault Ste. Marie and rode along Lake Huron. I took the ferry across the mouth of Georgian Bay to Tobermory.

<img src="http://vagabird.smugmug.com/photos/369097756_rW3fp-M.jpg" width="600" height="450">


Tobermory is a lovely small resort town. I found it was interesting that evidently it has no chains or franchises. Even the motels and gas stations are independents. (How un-American! )

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Then it was through the tidy farms and past Amish buggies to Guelph, where I got back on the multi-lane highways. I fought traffic madness through the mess west of Toronto, across at Niagara Falls, and east of Buffalo. Things calmed down a bit once on the NY Thruway.

In Troy NY I again got on the two-lanes. Vermont was lovely, with beautiful roads through beautiful country. I can see why the residents are so protective of it.

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At one point I had to slow to let a moose cross the road in front of me. I crossed from Windsor into New Hampshire on the longest covered bridge in the US.

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And through NH and Maine to Bar Harbor. It was just before Labor Day, so the place was mobbed and the tow-lanes choked with slowpokes and gawkers. I got back on the interstate at Augusta and rode through Tollbooth Land to the Boston area. Having lived in the open spaces for a while, it was interesting to see the jumble of towns and farms and industry and 200 year-old houses and mobile homes and lakes and hills and bogs all mixed together and surrounded by trees in the northeast. You can get a lot of variety in a small area.

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And then through RI, CT, NY, and NJ. I got off the super-slab at Allentown PA and took smaller roads through fields and industry to Gettysburg.

<img src="http://vagabird.smugmug.com/photos/369099087_sDkDn-M.jpg" width="600" height="450">


Then it was big highways with lots of traffic through Maryland to DC and to Harpers Ferry WV, and small roads to Skyline Drive in Virginia. It was now after Labor Day, during the week, so traffic was light. And it seemed that half the traffic that was there was motorcycles.

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Because of construction and time constraints, I didnÔÇÖt ride the entire Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway, but I spent some lovely hours on those roads.

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Im not sure why they call them the Blue Ridge Mountains

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After taking the Blue Ridge from Virginia into North Carolina, I wound my way over some very twisty roads to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

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Going through the park I had to stop at one point to let a black bear cross the road. I could see a little face in the brush, so I waited for a while and finally a cub followed the larger bear.

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Once in Tennessee, I skirted Johnson City and wound my way through the hills to Cumberland Gap, where I crossed into Kentucky, at one point passing a flock of wild turkeys pecking in a meadow. The tobacco fields gave way to horse farms as I headed north, slowly entering Cincinnati in a rainy morning rush hour.

From there I headed west on the two-lanes, through the small towns and farms of southern Indiana and Illinois to Springfield, where I got on the interstate for the ride home.

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My last stop of the tour was at Herbert Hoover NHS in Iowa. I was a little melancholy, since my quest was over. As I rode past the seemingly endless rolling cornfields of Iowa, I began thinking of all the things I wanted to do at home ÔÇô including planning my next trip.

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ThereÔÇÖs always a new day dawning.

 

[sheridesabeemer]

I can not imagine how difficult it would be for you to revisit the places you and your wife visited. It's a big country with too many long roads for just you and your thoughts. I hope you accomplished what you set out to do with trip, and thank you for sharing your journey with us.

 

[Vagabird]

Thanks. As probably anyone who has been through this will tell you, it is surprisingly uneven. For instance, Mount Desert Island, where we spent a lot of time together when we lived in Rhode Island, carried little emotional weight. The Lancaster-York area of Pennsylvania, where we would take day-rides together on our Harley when we lived in Maryland, hit me unexpectedly.

The trip was partly to build new memories to blend with the old, and in that respect it worked well. It was a good trip. The next trip will be to open new doors. Newfoundland? Mexico? Johnson City?

 

[jimfastcar]

Tour

Thanks for sharing with us

 

[tourunigo]

I want to thank you for sharing this. As I read I have a sense of sadness because of the way you describe things. You are a man of courage to retrace this 'touch stone' path. Maybe your new journeys will include our part of the world some day. Alway a welcome here. -Bob

 

[hcmiller52]

Thank you for such a heartfelt rendering - and beautiful photographs - of your trip. I've traveled most of the same areas during the past year but your personal description is far more eloquent.

...and that's what adds to our thirst for our next trip.

Curt