Spending a Night with Local Law

Never in a million years would I have imagined spending a night like this. I'd been relatively successful up to this point in my life at avoiding any kind of interaction with any kind of law enforcement (even while I was a door-to-door solicitor as a college student I'd only had one blue light special in 30,000+ knocks), but after knocking on only 4 doors and talking to only 2 people, here we were: the 3 Amigos lined up at the Searsport Public Safety Building.

"Hey there... ummm... this is gonna sound kinda weird so I'll just ask," the EMT was just staring at me with this confused but somewhat sympathetic look on his face. I suppose he was just trying to figure me out as I hadn't really given him much info up to this point so I spit it out, "Myself and these dudes, well... we're looking for a place to stay tonight. We'd spoke to someone in the neighborhood that recommended we stop here and ask about setting up shop here for the night. All we have is two tents. The only thing we'd need to figure out is where to go to the bathroom".

"So let me get this straight, you're bicycling somewhere... where are you going by the way?"

"Maine to Miami" we all chimed in

"Maine to Miami... you've got a ways to go" he rebutted

(golly gee, ya don't say)

He continued, "well I don't think it'd be a problem, we do have plenty of space out there. I do have to clear this with chief LaHaye though. I'll see if I can get ahold of him; be right back".

I turned around to Steve and Adam and gave 'em the "holy crap can you believe this?! this is awesome I hope this works out I just wanna crash and call it a day" face.

"You're good to go". We learned our new EMT friend's name was Mark and shortly thereafter Roger emerged from the building. I solicited them for a photograph and had them walk me around the corner and show me where to plop shop with the tents for the evening. Then they led us inside the station to relieve ourselves and fill up our bottles with water.

But within those 10 minutes spent indoors, it was nearly pitch black; I'm not really sure if it was a lack of daylight or whether it was the pit of mosquitos swarming us. I started digging for the Deet haphazardly, Steve started setting up the tents, and Adam called his mom to let her know where we were staying so she could drop off our second trailer before she and grandma retired to their comfy cozy motel room for the evening.

She arrived seconds later as she was only around the corner (and cars are faster than bikes). "I seriously can't believe you guys! This is great!" cheered Margo. I agreed.

The dudes were pretty stoked too. However, the hills had gotten our best that day and we were wiped. Steve and Adam each ate a cold Hungry Man Beef Stew that night for dinner and I slathered a chocolate coated chocolate chip granola bar with peanut butter. I quickly washed my face (soap and all) with the icey cold water from my water bottle... just one more realization what "we were really doing this, huh?". I jumped into my most expensive piece of equipment, my sleeping bag, and scribbled down some notes about the day... really really terrible scribbles:

     1. Woke up sick
     2. Did not go to ^catholic church (even with Adam)
     3. Rode to Cadilac sports the wrong way on a 1-way and fell over while strapped in (lost balance)
     ...
     ....

There was nothing left, not even enough to beat Adam in a game of his uncle "Tim's Game" of cards... Sleep good tonight!

                                                                    Mark and Roger

Door-to-Door Homeless Solicitation

It was 5:00 and we'd pulled over for the night in Searsport, ME. Steve had been dropped off the hour before and finished the last 8 miles of the day with us, we were now confronted with in an all too familiar mental and physical location: homelessness.

So we did what any sane person would do and headed a few blocks east toward the ocean where the homes and the yards progressively grew in size. We noticed a park... thought about it for a second, but our common sense told us we'd have better luck knocking on doors for a place to camp that night than taking on the local law enforcement and wildlife next to the city merry-go-round.

To our right was a gorgeous home, something large and victorian with an equally spacious yard. We peddled a few rotations before we landed in their gravel driveway, and looking at one another I could see what all of our eyes were asking, "who's going to knock?". I volunteered. I figured I was the most non-threatening in appearance (not to say that pretty boy Floyd wasn't pretty). I waved at all the windows as I walked up. Knocked. Took three steps back. Turned side-profile. Waited. Rang the doorbell. Took three steps back. Turned side-profile. Waited... waited... knocked. Turned around and looked at the guys, "?"

"on to the next one then huh?" said Steve.

We looked across the street, but didn't see a car in the driveway, so we decided to knock on the neighbor's home next door. It was a small ranch styled home, but they had a yard, and there was indeed a car in the driveway. As we scooted across the sidewalk up to their walkway, I noticed them both sitting their in the window so I threw up my arm indicating an exclaimed, "hello!". She looked confused, so was I, and so I told her when she opened the door, "Heyyyy... you must be the homeowner?" I asked

"Yeeeees?" she replied

"Well, this is gonna sound funny, so I'll just tell ya. Myself and these two guys behind me, we're all from the midwest..."

"The midwest?! Where from? I lived in MN."(awesome, I thought, time for rapport)

"MN!?" I exclaimed, "Me too! But I'm from SD. Adams from WI, and Steve is from IL."

"Ya don't say, well what are you doing way out here in MAINE of all places???" She wondered

"Well, I imagine you see a lot of this through here, but we're obviously cycling... across America. We just finished our first day and we've planned to camp. Soooo we're wondering if maybe you know someone that wouldn't mind us staying in their yard for the night. We've got everything we need to take care of ourselves and we're leaving early in the morning... possibly even yourself?"

"Oh no, not me. That wouldn't be fair to my tenant. You see he enters through the backyard and that just wouldn't work."

I asked if she knew of anyone.

"Well, there's Marge across the street, she'd probably love to! Got a big yard, a hose, I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem... she's just not home right now."

Anyone else? A pastor?

"Yes! You might try the presbyterian church and Pastor Graves, his home is actually right next to the church, you know, right on Main St"

"Well thanks for the help, it was nice to meet a fellow midwesterner" I said, and off we strolled.

On our way to the church, we biked past Adam's mom, Margo. As we slowed down nearing her car her eyebrows raised as if to ask, "any luck??"

"Nothing yet, but we're going to go check out a church. We'll keep you posted."

"I can't believe you guys" Margo laughed. I agreed.

...or so it seemed

At the base of the parade, less than an 1/8 of a mile into our true route (literally in those last two hours we'd made it all the way nowhere... and yet I wouldn't have had it any other way... because look at the pages of information and feeling we would have missed out on!), we found ourselves at the base of the 7th or 8th steepest & longest... most intense... hill of the entire trip (I was going to say it was the second... but then I remember we biked through the entire state of Connecticut. Damn she's as beautiful as she is painful).

"So we're really doin' this huh?" Adam shouted again with a smirk on his face. It was then that we discovered our new tag-line for the next two months; almost as if to say: "this is crazy shit, but so are we... and since we have no better common sense let's get to it".

I committed to the hill *ahem* I committed to the first 2/3 of the hill. This biatch came out of nowhere! What are you thinking Maine?! The lactic acid built up in my thighs so tight I couldn't figure another way to make it to the peak than to pull to the right and take a breather. That's when a car full of mangey teenagers drove toward us and passed us from the oncoming traffic lane shouting, "get on the sidewalk idiots!".

Didn't they know?! We are on road bikes, excuse me, we don't take these on the sidewalk... hence ROADbike. Mind you, I would have loved to be on the sidewalk. I would have felt MUCH more comfortable with the curb protecting me... we were traveling quite slowly. But as I believe I've already mentioned, I, and by "I" I mean "we" all had some naive version of protection clouding our minds that made us able to ride inches close to cars... and semis... and turtles. (I'll save the turtle story for later)

For every uphill there's a downhill... well except this one (and 6 others in Connecticut). This hill, however, leveled off. and we continued.

mile.
after mile.
inch.
after inch.

Adam and I pulled over for a break at the top of a hill to rest. We had no food, so we just chatted. All I remember is that I needed the restroom... but there was nothing, just a parking lot and some public forest building that was closed on a Sunday. We just chilled for a moment and it was back on the saddle.

I had fun chasing the hills, believe me there were plenty of them. I also enjoyed watching Adam shake ruthlessly each time he coasted past me due to the extra 100 lbs he was trailing. Each downhill Brah Perrier shook like a leaf. Each time we hit the downhill I expected him to barrel-roll 100 times over (if you would have seen him you would have thought the same), and if this were to happen he'd take me out with him like Bowzer and Princess Peach in Mario Kart, but we were relentless. Relentless and dumb. Exactly what we needed to be.

That whole afternoon I thought about the conversation Adam and I had had the night before we embarked on this trip. I remember sitting in Adam's garage in Marshfield, WI; looking at him straight in the eyes, "There's nothing that's going to stop me on this trip", Adam agreedm "Oh absolutely, nothing". I'd already accepted what obvious toils we may encounter: I imagined we'd get sick, I imagined we'd fall, I imagined someone would end up in the hospital, and everyone told us we were going to get hit by cars, kids up to no good would come searching for our camp at night to ransack us, I figured we'd knock on a few creeps doors, and we also found out we were trailing the wake of a hurricane (I don't know how we missed that bit of news, must have been delivery week or something). These things we accepted... must have been that cloud of naivety.

But hills? Duh. No brainer... we KNEW there'd be hills. Keep on and carry on my friend. One more hill. One more mile. That motto got us 39 miles that first day. By the end of our trip that was peanuts, but to someone that'd never exceeded 21 miles... those were 18 very literal milestones.

15 Seconds of Fame

So we did what any good-hearted, unbreakable, and determined kids would do. We kept on and carried on. I started to notice things though… people… everywhere.

“There’s something going on here”… with the use of a little common sense I determined that the crowds

lining the street of 1A on September 11^th must indicate some sort of town gathering; some sort of celebration, something like a parade.  I thought we’d be in the clear once we got off 1A and back on the right track, but as we hung a Ricky onto US1 (YES. Heading the right direction SOUTH), we realized… we were IN it. Men and women in uniform lined the street with the presentation of the American flag. We didn’t know what to do but we sure as heck didn’t want to stop so Adam quickly shouted, “can we bike here??” and the servicemen shouted back, “sure! But you’ll be leading it!” So we did. And although no one would probably remember the weirdo pulling a wobbly yellow trailer and an awkward looking girl in an orange neon jacket, that didn’t stop us from playing the part. This seemed like the REAL perfect start to a very crazy trip.

Surprising Signs

The essence of Floyd started to wear off, his body was shrinking in the distance. We left him there, left him there to rot… well actually no not at all. Margo (Adam's mom) was on her way to pick up Floyd, she was halfway to the bike shop to snag our second and new trailer that was waiting for us, but had to turn around. We were proud problem solvers and this almost appeared to be the easy way out, but it was indeed the most efficient, and it was however the reason (to trail) Margo and G-ma were still in Maine… so save our sorry asses… at least for the first 2 days.

So then there were two. Adam in front now with the trailer while I followed. 

I don’t know why we stopped, but we did… in fact it may have been because I saw the highway sign for 1A. “Uh Adam”,  I had no idea truthfully where we were going, there was no plotted destination for the evening… we just wanted to get as far as possible while we had the light to do so… however, I had a sneaking suspicion and a decent memory that reminded me, "you’re on the wrong road dumbass".

That put us seven miles outside of Ellsworth in the wrong direction, and three miles beyond Floyd. “Well shit, guess we’re just gonna have to turn around then aren’t we?” I thought and wondered if Steve is still there. We crossed the road and the dividing lines in order to head back due East, back to Steve, back to Ellsworth, back to highway one. Back to the drawing board as they say (has anyone ever figured out who "they" are anyway?). Backtracking to our start.

Rotting? What, Steve? No. Not rotting, rather sitting rather confidently right where we left him, Floyd was pounding his face with a hoagie. “You holding out on me Steve!” Adam yelled and haphazardly wobbled across the highway to go taunt Steve. My stomach was consuming itself, it was 2:30 and I hadn’t eaten since my bowl of oatmeal at 9:00 AM… I was wishing I had a plate of bacon. Totally perplexed and wondering where in the “H” Floyd had landed such a feast (in the middle of nowhere!) I waited… Adam jumped back over the highway to take back his lead and we headed back toward town. He explained that the owner of the steel building of the parking lot that Floyd was occupying came to his rescue. Floyd refused the offer of the man’s truck to get back to town, but made use of his toilet and the buffet inside his warehouse. Mother F’er! Now I was hungrier than ever. I guess that’s what you get for leaving your friends behind.

                               

                                              This is where we left Steve/ FLoyd

Adam, probably not even looking to oogle Steve

Steve and his delicious hoagie