Year 1 - Ride Day 0 - We are here!












In Calais, ME that is! I told my wife that my follow my dot will not go any further northeast than it is right now!

Our wonderful West Transportation driver Erica, got us right to the motel before 5 p.m. And that was even after we stopped for a few minutes to pick up her daughter who stays after school with her mother in law. They met us on the road to Calais (Route 9) a few miles out of town. She was grateful that she did not have to backtrack to pick her up for their school open house. She saved us an hour of riding time, so we really could not have any issue!

Motel is old, but clean. Lots of working people staying here. Should not be an issue on a work night. I’ll bet it gets a little wild here on a Friday night!

Rode to the US/Canada border and spoke to border control officer who took our photo at the same place as the W-A-Y folks took their group photo some 10 years ago!

Then rode the first mile of the ECG back to the motel. Will probably do that again in the morning. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Year 4 - Prologue

We had arrived in Key West on Wednesday. Thursday morning, we rode our completely stripped bikes to the "We Cycle" bike shop in downtown Key West. "We Cycle" Bike shop packs bikes in Key West for $75 each.  I should have known there would be issues when I announced to the older gentleman in the shop that we were there to have our bikes packed for shipment and he gave me the deer in the headlights stare! A younger worker came to his rescue and helped take our bikes. When I contacted them earlier in the year to ensure we did not need reservations, etc. I was not informed that even though they had two shops, one in actual "downtown" Key West, it was their other location a slight distance away (about 3 miles) in New Town that actually packs the bikes. We were given the option to take the bikes there or leave them in downtown and downtown would have the bikes transferred to the other location. Not a problem, but it will potentially require extra time. We left t...
Read more

Year 4 - Ride Day 1 - Jacksonville to St Augustine FL

Image
Our path today Very little elevation gain, only about 14 feet per mile.  The train really rocks and rolls all night long. I find it difficult to sleep well, but must have dozed many times for an adequate period as I had plenty of energy all day today.  Amtrak breakfast was not like a Lancaster County breakfast. The scrambled eggs were not cooked adequately, my potato’s had black spots in them, the bacon was good and the biscuit was okay.  We arrived Jacksonville about 20 minutes late, about 7:30 a.m.  Picked our bikes from the baggage car and then collected our other checked luggage.  It took us about 45 minutes to get entirely ready and take the obligatory photo in front of the Jacksonville train station.  As you will probably note, Dan has decided due to his shoulder condition, not ride this year. So we have a SAG vehicle to carry our bags and to take us to meals etc. He is also our designated photographer. Jacksonville is a very large city as far as land...
Read more

Year 4 - PA ECG Team getting ready for departure

Image
 Greetings, The PA ECG Team is preparing to complete our four-year adventure from Callis ME to Key West FL.  This year we will be taking Amtrak Keystone service from Mount Joy, PA to Philadelphia PA, then catching the Silver Meteor to Jacksonville FL. We will be departing Sunday Nov 3 at approx. 9:38 a.m. and arriving in Jacksonville on Monday, November 4 at approx. 7 a.m. We utilize the Roomette feature of Amtrak.  It is a seating cabin during the day and after dinner, the conductor turns it into a sleeping cabin by changing the seats into a bed and lowering the upper bunk. I find the bed very hard and sleeping in a moving rail car difficult, but I do manage to get a little sleep. Hopefully, enough to fuel me from Jacksonville to St Augustine FL. as we will begin riding once we hit Florida soil. This is the map of our adventure for this year. The ECG provides two options for this year's course. Because most of the trip is along the coast, we have elected to travel the al...
Read more