Beauty and Black Flies

With the help of my sleep mask and earplugs, I slept in today in my tent. I heard my hosts leave before I got myself around. I called Rachael as I got around in my tent and I was slow to get ready. They left the door unlocked so I was able to go in and use the bathroom, and snag a couple more cookies, before leaving. I didn't have my tent and everything packed (sadly still a little wet with dew), until 8:30.

I made decent time through the day though. I didn't have quite the energy of yesterday after my day of rest, but I was still feeling fairly strong. Though I could feel my lack of a real meal both last night and this morning. As my host recommended, I followed side roads for a time, but I then went into town at Rumford, both to get a glimpse of the waterfall, and also to stop at the convenience store to buy some much needed junk food and bananas to give me fuel for the day.

I followed highway 2, which is the main drive and generally well shouldered, for most of the day, zigging and zagging back and forth, up and down hills. I detoured a bit to spend some time eating my lunch at a beautiful town park in Wilton right along the lake. Then I detoured again to avoid Farmington, which for its name is ironically the biggest town I passed today. This route got me on dirt road for awhile (I have no data and couldn't check satellite view), but it wasn't bad, and the scenery and lack of traffic were well worth the bit of a bumpy ride.

It was generally a good day, cloudy and not too terribly hot. There were plenty of hills, but they were manageable. The thing that got to me were the damn black flies. Any time I would stop, and worse, whenever I was climbing a steep hill at a crawling 5 or 6 mph, I would find myself swarmed by them. I would beg the hills to end not because my legs were giving out, but because I just wanted desperately to be going fast enough gain to escape them. Between them and the mosquitoes, bugs have really been driving me nuts since about the time I hit Maine. I'm hoping when I start southward they will get a little better.

The least safe I felt biking all day was on the well-trafficked but unshouldered road to my hosts. But it wasn't too far before I turned off and arrived for the night around 4ish. I was immediately asked whether I wanted beer or a shower first. I said beer and was told that's what they always say. They're both really great, both of them doctors in family medicine, her with hobbies in plants and birdwatching, him with boat-making and bicycling. It was an evening of good food and good conversation, in the backdrop of a truly unique home (I'm staying in an attic space resembling a cupola!). As has everyone else, they have told me how lovely Acadia is going to be and that I can hardly hope to see it in a day (which is all I fear I can afford to schedule if I am to make it down the coast and then hopefully back to Lincoln before the eclipse). I'm really getting excited for it.