Robert's Ride 2010, Day 10, Monday, August 30, 2010, Kingfield, MA to Sussex, NB

We were up for a 7:30 AM breakfast at our evening's lodging, Mountain View Farm B&B Inn, in Kingfield, MA, with our host Lisa Standish serving scrambled organic eggs from her farm.  (BTW, they were the most delicious scrambled eggs I've ever eaten....)  Lisa has a super farm house with a very large barn, on 17 acres.  She has 3 dogs, and from time to time has had all sorts of farm animals, but currently has only chickens and geese.  It was obvious to us that she works very hard at both her farm and B&B. 

Last night and this morning Philip and I chatted and shared stories with the B&B's other guests, Mary and her husband Jeff who live near Atlanta.  They're probably in their mid-to-late 50s, and apparently are avid hikers.  They were in the area for a hiking trip organized by REI to hike a part of the Appalachian Trail that goes to Mount Washington, which is the highest peak in the northeastern U.S.  Their 3-day hike sounded more rigorous than I could have survived. 

The B&B building itself is sprawling and neat....and complete with spiders, which are just about my least favorite thing.  One not-so-small one dropped out of nowhere near my head while I was in the bathroom last night, and could be the same one that I felt crawling on my neck this morning!  Philip completely ignored my momentary hysteria, but not knowing the whereabouts of the spider after I flicked it off me hastened my packing and departure.  The night before I dreamed about a big snake.  I'd love to know what that means....

We left the B&B at 9 AM, and headed to Bangor, ME, and ME Rte. 9, via a Starbucks.  On the road to Rte. 9, on U.S. Hwy 2, is Philip''s favorite thing to photograph on the trip between Baton Rouge and Peggy's Cove, which is the window on a small dilapidated shed on the side of the road. The window is like a mirror, so from the road it looks a bit like a framed picture. We have at least one photograph of that window from 2 or 3 of Philip's previous cycling trips to Nova Scotia, and today is no exception.

Philip has ridden Rte. 9 on 3 of his previous cycling trips to Peggy's Cove, and really likes this road. I could tell from our map that Rte. 9 is very hilly, and I remember this hilly part of the Robert's Ride route from 2000 when I supported Philip from Virginia to Halifax. The map also showed another series of roads to the Canadian border, which were marked as scenic routes, and appeared on the map to be less hilly, but would have added 1-2 hours to our trip. I tried to convince Philip to take the other route instead of Rte. 9, but he really wanted to ride Rte. 9.

I was supposed to ride first today, but after driving the first few miles of Rte. 9, which had very long and steep ups and downs, I told Philip that he should ride first, and I would think about riding later. Rte. 9 runs about 95 miles between Bangor and Calais, ME, and Philip had planned for both of us to ride sections of Rte. 9 for today's cycling mileage.
 

Philip started his ride at about 12:45 in the afternoon. The sky was clear, and the temperature was a scorching 91 degrees, which rose to 95 degrees before Philip finished his ride. The hills on Rte. 9 are big and long, and well beyond what I felt I could handle, especially on a really hot day. Philip completed 40 miles of Rte. 9 (he's got mojo back!!) just short of the apex of the route. If he had climbed those last ugly double hill he would have sailed mostly downhill for quite a few more miles, but still with some more less-challenging hills to climb. I never felt comfortable enough with the terrain to get on my bike today, so I fell back to my old role as ace aide-to-cyclist.

We crossed the border into Canada at about 4:30 PM.  The roadway between the border and Sussex had been nicely built-up since Philip's last trip to Canada in 2005, so our drive to Sussex was a lot more efficient than it would have been 5 years ago.  We crossed into another time-zone on the drive, and arrived at our night's lodging at Jonah Place B&B in Sussex at about 7:45 PM.  After freshening up we walked to dinner at a locally-run restaurant one block away.

Today we drove 312 miles, and Philip rode 41.3 miles.  We were on the road for almost 11 hours.