Day 15-17 – Acadia, Maine

Yes, it’s pretty awesome to be able to spend a whole week in this place. It’s odd, but very cool to see sunsets from our beach on the East Coast. But we’ve had some nice ones…

Had a great hike at Cadillac Mountain up from Bar Harbor. It’s the first place in the US to see the sunrise (but we didn’t get up early enough for that by a long shot). Still, a great 360 degree view all around though…

Down from Cadillac, but still within Acadia National Park is this famous old restaurant the Jordan Pond House that looks out over, not surprisingly, Jordan Pond. Unlike most places I’ve been to before, the lobster bisque here is mostly lobster…

After the bisque, we decided to do the the 3.6 mile hike around the lake. We weren’t quite up for hiking “the bubbles”, those two hills in the back center of the pic below, but it was still a brisk post-bisque walk.

Lots of hikes and interesting places in our week here. I got some good editing done on my book and Linda finished reading 4 books… the downtime was just delicious. And we literally had lobster every day so our meals weren’t too bad either.

But it’s time to start the big drive back. Booker was like, “I don’t understand… we have to leave this place and ride in the van for hours again?” Unfortunately we do, my four -legged friend, it’s a long way back home.

We’ll head straight across and cut thru Vermont and New Hampshire then head down to Massachusetts and crash in Connecticut somewhere. The one more camping night, a final stop in Cincinnati to see Linda’s son Sam at school, then home… almost 4000 miles total!

 

Day 9 – Gulf Hagas trail Northern Maine

Rested after a fine night of camping at our beautiful and quite remote site, we were ready to tackle the “Little Grand Canyon” of Maine, Gulf Hagas. The trail followed the Pleasant River, which was aptly named. We had to put on our water shoes to cross it not long after starting.

The Gulf Hagas trail briefly joins, then offshoots the 2200 mile long Appalachian Trail. The famous “AT” goes along much of the East Coast, finally ending not too far north of us.

For the first 5 miles we followed the river and saw lots of waterfalls like Buttermilk Falls below.

Those first 5 miles were pretty rugged, lots of tree roots and rocks and climbing and not a whole lot of easy walking.

We were pretty tired by the halfway point where the trail leaves the river and heads back through the woods. Luckily it was a much easier hike on the way back, even if we did have to walk the plank for much of it, and we did the last 5 miles a lot faster than the first 5.

10 miles was a little long for my tastes with that kind of terrain, but it darn pretty. And you can imagine how good a couple of Manhattans back at our camp, a light dinner and Sprinty’s comfy bed felt.

Next up, the Maine coast.

Day 8 – Quebec to North Maine Woods

Before we left Quebec City, we had to stop at the big waterfall, Montmorency, not far outside of the city. While not near the volume of water, it’s actually a bit taller than Niagara Falls.

Once you climb up a bunch of stairs you can look down from the falls. If you zoom in, you can see Sprinty in the parking lot in upper middle of the pic below.

Not too bad of a drive getting back down across the border and into upper Maine. Once in Maine, we spent a lot of time on unpaved logging roads getting to our campsite below Moosehead Lake. I guess logging companies own most of the land in Maine.

We got this great campsite near the Katahdin Ironworks. Campsite #2 and #4 were about a quarter mile from ours. Mainers like their privacy when they camp.

Here’s a pic looking down river from our camp.

And upriver. Booker gave it a definite 2 paws up.

Each camp had it’s own outhouse across the road.

Tomorrow morning we do the somewhat strenuous, 10 mile Gulf Hagas Trail.

Day 7 – Quebec City

Since it wasn’t too far, we got off the big highway and took the shoreline up the St. Lawrence to Quebec City for part of the way. Lots of little river towns. Mostly flat, with the occasional hill or a giant freighter for interest.

Just one night in another Air BnB, three story flat somewhat like the one in Montreal. The neighborhood wasn’t quite as hip, a bit more industrial, but it was only a few minutes to Old Quebec. The old part of the city with its grand views of the St. Lawrence was smaller, but even more impressive than Montreal.

We took the dog and the van over to the Old City and found it to be packed with tourists. But we were extremely lucky and got a great spot right in the middle. It only took me 5 or 10 swings to parallel park the van.

Some cool Salvador Dali inspired sculpture near the grand old hotel that dominates the old city, Le Chateau Frontenac.

You can see part of Le Chateau on the left and the wide St. Lawrence on the horizon. To get this view we had to walk up a long flight of stairs to the old fort that overlooks the harbor and the Old City.

The street and our shadows were long.

We take another long street down to the riverfront.

What goes down, must come up and, after wandering around down at the riverfront, we find another very old, narrow street filled with restaurants and cool shops to take us back up to the center of town again.

Booker however, had to give the city two paws down as we left him in the van this time for most of our exploring. And no dogs in the very French coffee shop we walked to in the morning either.

Next stop, Northern Maine Woods. (Between the lack of internet everywhere, doing lots of hikes, and crappy T-Mobile coverage, our 9 days in Maine is over, yes it was awesome, and we are working our way back. But I’ll still post pics and update here)

 

Day 3-4, Pinery Park, Ontario

The showers were warm but the air got a little chilly last night, down to 46… we slept great. It was Booker’s first time at a large body of water… he rather enjoyed it.

The website promised the best sunsets around and they weren’t kidding, this place was really pretty.

Next up, a long drive up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal.

Day 1 – work – Indianapolis

Not too exciting of a first day. We both had to work a full day then hit the road,,, right at rush hour. Throw in some construction along the way and you have 5 hours of boringness to a little campground north of Indy in Anderson, IN. We came, we slept, we left. But we got 5 hours under our belts, which definitely helps.

This year’s adVanture… Canada & Maine

It’s been over a year since our last big Sprinty roadtrip – Utah was amazing.

In the meantime, we’ve taken lot’s of short dayhike trips in the van, as well as some longer fun camping weekends. We also flew to Costa Rica for our annual Escape the Crappy Midwest Winter trip. (Booker was not happy the he wasn’t invited on that one). But we only get so much vacation per year, and it’s finally time to use up a good chunk of it getting back on the road.

This Tuesday after work we head the opposite direction from last year’s Southwest trip and are off to the Northeast. Week 1 takes us to Montreal and Quebec city. Week 2 has some camping in Maine’s interior and then a nice Air BnB in Acadia National Park. Week 3 we make our way back, stopping to see some friends and family along the way in upstate New York and Ohio. Should be a blast!

Day 21 – Grand Junction, CO

Work… haven’t done that in awhile. Haven’t missed it one little bit either.

Lalinda went to yoga, got some groceries and explored the little downtown. I much preferred her day over mine, but at least I’ll have a couple of vacation days left when we get back. Once I finished that work thing, we  found a trail along a river outside of town a bit for a nice hike.

On the way back from the hike, gleaming in the sun, Sprinty looked like it belonged in a Mercedes commercial.

The house we’re staying at has a tandem bike. It was in pretty good shape… and so was I after three margaritas. We took it out for a spin for some ice cream downtown and feeling confident (yea, that kind of confidence) I went to show off my mad bicycle skillz.

There was a curb in front of the ice cream shop and I decided I was going to do something I did hundreds of times as a kid, pop a wheelie and get the front tire on the curb. However, doing this for the first time on a tandem bike, I unfortunately came to realize later that my grasp of physics was rather lacking in that moment – specifically the fulcrum point of a lever.

I got up a little speed, and jerked up mightily on the handlebars. The front wheel came off the ground, oh, I’d say about, maybe a millionth of an inch. The front wheel slammed into the curb and once again physics took over – the bike stopped, but my inertia did not. I face-planted on the concrete sidewalk. I guess I was bleeding pretty good there for a bit, but it eventually stopped.

I was lucky with a number things:  it didn’t really hurt (yay tequila); Lalinda was not on the bike; I didn’t break a tooth or need stitches; and having ice cream close at hand helps most things. Guess that’s why I ride motorcycles instead of bicycles.

Day 20 – Grand Junction, Colorado

The weather channel shows us that it wasn’t just here, but that much of the central band of the United States has been covered by clouds and storms this week. But its finally moving on and so are we. We’ve covered a good chunk of the state, and what a beautiful state is too. But our three weeks is winding down and we have to begin the trek eastward.

Driving through mountains is so cool. That little strip down there in the valley is a continuation of this road, South 139.

I wanted to save at least a few of my vacation days for the rest of the year, and had planned on working 3 days this week (I work remotely). Welllll, it’s just too pretty to do that. So I called in and said, let’s just make it two instead. And for these two I , needed good wifi all day, so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice little AirBnB place not too far inside of Colorado border in the pretty little town of Junction City.

We unloaded some of our stuff from Sprinty in the very quaint and artsy little place, then hit the trails outside of town. Booker found the hiking here quite acceptable.

One nice thing about the rain lately… lots of desert wildflowers on all of our hikes. Lalinda has captured at least a dozen or two different kinds and one day we’ll find time to post the best ones, but here’s a couple samples.

Sprinty has been awesome, but it is nice to have full amenities and a real home too. And Utah was amazing, but Colorado isn’t exactly New Jersey either. Cooler towns and people, and more alpinelike than high rugged desert.

 

 

Day 19 – Flaming Gorge

Now we’re talking… rain stopping, breathtaking views, boating. It was a tiring drive but we woke up at Flaming Gorge. The visitors center wasn’t open for the season yet, but there were some nice views from the grounds.

We hiked a little farther and got more great views. Can’t wait to get down on the water.

We are the first boat rental customers of the year. Not much of a pontoon boat, and still a bit chilly, but hey, we’re boating in Flaming Gorge, UT!

No people, no rain, sheer cliffs and a boat… not a bad day.

A bit of a setback when we ran into some mechanical issues about 5 miles in. Surprisingly, and luckily, we were just able to get a text message off to the marina saying we were having trouble – but we weren’t sure they received it before we lost service. The sun was out but the wind was blowing pretty good – it pushed against some rocks in a little cove. I climbed part way up the desolate and quite tall cliff to see if I get could service, but no go. Luckily they got my text and they fixed the fuel line for us and we made our way back.

And just as we got to the dock it started raining hard. Perfect timing!