Monday June 29, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy
I hear the shower and check Kitty’s cell phone clock. It’s 6:10 AM.
“Uh, honey, we were gonna sleep in till 7:00. You couldn’t sleep?”
“Oh, bummer, I looked at my watch and thought we overslept,” Kitty says. “Look outside.”
I step to the glass door and see that fog has retreated overnight and the spectacular rock is fully visible this morning. It has rained overnight but is not raining now and the fog seems to have receded farther out to sea than since we got here.
Nevertheless, we nap for another hour, pack up our stuff, load the trailer, and have breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We say au revoir to the lovely and friendly staff of Hotel la Normandie, plug in Kitty’s electric vest, and head out into the chilly 53F (12F) morning air.
Kitty’s only complaint wearing the electric suit was the cool air around her neck. The “still air” bubble created by the big Tulsa windshield puts me right in the middle of the bubble, but it starts to collapse around Kitty’s helmet and she always gets more wind than I do. She solves this by wearing her balaclava, kind of a ski-mask silk scarf thing that always makes me laugh because I think she looks like a monk until she puts on her helmet and looks just like a normal biker. This does the trick nicely for her this morning, and she is toasty and content in the chill damp air.
The weather, threatening to spit rain at any moment and sometimes filling the air with a mist that clings to my windshield and to my bones, is not conducive for much picture-taking and wandering around; nevertheless I manage to get several pictures.We’ve ridden eastward from Montreal and Quebec for days, but now we have passed Lands’s End and are riding westward along the Bay de Chaluers for a time until the coast turns eastward once again. The wind is strongly at our back, and we ride in a strangely silent cocoon of still air that is very unusual. There seems to be no wind noise, no wind flapping my flags; it’s almost like riding in a vacuum. When I stop for a picture or two and walk back the way we came, the wind is strong and filled with a cold mist that fogs my camera lens and my helmet shield. We ride through some wet pavement and a few little rain squalls that never cause us to consider rain gear in spite of the gray skies.
At the town of Pasébiac, we stop for a fuel break. At every break, I have a routine where I check the trailer. I yank on the trailer hitch to make sure it’s intact; I push on both trailer wheels to make sure the wheel bearings are ok; and I compress the edge of the tires to make sure tire feels like the air pressure is ok (I only carry 20 psi in the trailer tires). This morning I perform my little check and… hello, is the right trailer tire a little soft? I check both tires and I’m convinced the right tire is a little low. I’ve been watching the tires because this will be their last trip. They will be down on the wear bars by the time I get home.
“We just passed a Canadian Tire place a kilometer back,” I tell Kitty. “I’m going back there to see if they can check it out.” So we backtrack and find Sylvain at the tire place. Sylvain speaks exactly as much English as I speak French but we figure out what the problem is and he asks me to ride my bike and trailer into a bay, first making sure I’ll be able to back it out after it’s in there.
I go one better and back it into the bay using the Wing’s reverse gear. Kitty later says his widen with surprise as he stammers something about “motorcycle… back up!??”
I help the mechanic find a piece of wood to keep the jack from damaging the bottom of the trailer, and we jack up the rear of the trailer, remove the wheel, and inspect it. He paints it with some soapy water but no bubbles (evidence of a leak) are visible. Of course, I only carry 20 psi in those tires so there’s not much pressure. I make a snap decision.
“You have these?” I ask. “I buy two – duex!” I say. I’m thinking that these tires are nearing end of life and rather than fight with a repair and then have to replace them anyway as soon as I get home, let’s just replace them. Here I am in a large store well-equipped to do the job, and it’s a lot easier here than somewhere in wilderness of Maine when I discover we really didn’t fix the leak after all. I will check the mileage when I get home, but I think I have only about 6,000 miles on these tires.
So the mechanic mounts two new tires and in an hour we are off again into the darkening skies. About 50 miles (80 km) the temperature rises 10 degrees F but it starts to rain in earnest. Kitty convinces me that it’s time to put on our rain gear so we stop and do the Dance of the Rain Suit as we have done so many times before.This is a little more complicated because Kitty’s electric suit has to be unplugged and secured, as there is no opening in our one-piece rain suits to allow the cable to connect. So she’ll have to ride the rest of this day without the electric suit that has kept her toasty and warm.
I’d originally sketched out a stop in Campbellton, New Brunswick, just across the provincial border from Quebec province, but since there have been no slow-down backtracking and slow rides through villages for pictures, we arrive early and decide to just keep riding. This will put us out of sync with the places I’ve researched for Internet access and close-by restaurants, but we’ll wing it.
Unlike this morning, because of the undulating coastline, we are now riding into the wind, then quartering to the wind from our left, and I finally decide I’ve had enough of the fierce wind and heavy rain on the slow coastal route (Rt. 134 in New Brunswick), so I duck onto Rt. 11 south to Bathhurst, New Brunswick, where I’ve selected a motel at random using the GPS. The rain is torrential and the wind, now from our left, is seriously affecting the bike’s lean angle on the highway, which has standing water in both right and left tracks, so I have to make an exception and run right down the middle of the highway. Even in this heavy rain, though, the Tulsa windshield is clearing beautifully and visibility is not a problem except for the two seconds after passing oncoming trucks on this two-lane, limited-access route. It takes about two seconds for the windshield to clear after each such adventure.
By shortly after 3:30 PM we reach Bathurst and as we get off the exit, Kitty sees a sign for Atlantic Host Hotel. “It has a restaurant,” she offers.
“Works for me,” I say. Kitty has been on the bike for nearly four hours without a break other than to put on our rain gear. This would have never happened in the old days, and I’m astonished that she’s been completely settled and apparently comfortable during our dash through the driving rain.
We pull in and we are warm and dry in our rain suits and the rain is pouring down and the wind is whipping my flags even while sitting in the parking lot and there’s not even a canopy to unload and I’m wondering if this is a good hotel after all. With the torrential downpour coupled with the vicious wind from the side, this has been one of the most intense 50-mile segments I can remember ever riding with Kitty. We walk dripping into the lobby and I try to communicate with the desk clerk in French, and then realize that in New Brunswick, a truly bilingual province with two official languages, everyone basically speaks English and French. They do have a room, and I say “Ok, now that we know we have a room, I’ll take off my helmet.”
“Hi there!” says Julie, laughing from behind the counter.
“Do you have a shelter for my motorcycle?” I ask Julie.
We haven’t listened to the radio or any other music for a week, but I can’t help but think of Jo Dee Messina and Bring on the Rain:
It’s almost like the hard times circle ‘round
A couple drops and they all start coming down
Yeah, I might feel defeated,
I might hang my head
I might be barely breathing - but I’m not dead
Tomorrow’s another day
And I’m thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain
I’m not gonna let it get me down
I’m not gonna cry
And I’m not gonna lose any sleep tonight
Julie offers their garage for the night, and the manager happily runs out into the pouring rain to unlock the doors. I pull around the back and find a large three-bay garage, heated and dry, into which I pull the Wing and trailer. I’m startled for a second because in the bay next to mine sits a two-tone green 1998 50th Anniversary Honda Gold Wing. It looks exactly like my buddy Ray’s bike, complete with a mascot that looks very much like his Twinken, and my first thought is “How in the world did he know we’d be here?” We’ve found each other in so many other places that it wouldn’t have surprised me. Then with a jolt I’m saddened to realize it’s just a generic bike, not Ray’s bike at all, because Ray has retired and it will never again be his bike that finds me in some place I’d never expect. But what a blessing to have this warm and dry garage to park my bike for the night!
At dinner in the hotel restaurant, I pass up dessert this evening. Last evening at Hotel la Normandie Kitty had a goat cheese appetizer in honor of her brother, Norman, who once raised goats and has a great affinity for goat cheese. However, I won the dessert battle with the maple cheesecake, but have now sworn off desserts for the rest of the trip. Kitty apparently hasn’t, and orders an apple-berry kind of pie. The waitress slyly brings two forks and I have to admit I scarf up a few bites of Kitty’s dessert.
Looking at the Weather Network, it appears there’s a rather stationary rain system that will be in the area for quite a few days, but I think perhaps as we head south tomorrow after our final flirtation with the slow-down coastal roads, we might run out of it. But I expect more rain tomorrow, especially in the morning. The only hard stop for us on this trip is Cook’s Lobster House in Bailey Island, Maine because we just always do that when we’re in New England. We seem to have two major riding options: We can try to make the 580 miles (930 km) to Cook’s in two days and then take three days to ride through the White Mountains and the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire, or we can take three days to get to Cook’s and then take two days to ride the approximately 700 miles (1,125 km) home.
Today’s ride was 358 km (222 miles), for a total of 2,559 km (1,590 miles). Although we've discovered that we crossed into Atlantic Time Zone when we entered New Brunswick and it's an hour later than we thought, Kitty says at the moment she’s in favor of Option 1, Cook’s in two days, so we’ll see how that works out. We’re not finished with the slow roads yet! As most of our tomorrows on this trip, the story of this one will only be revealed as it arrives. We’ll see how it works out.
See you then.
At dinner in the hotel restaurant, I pass up dessert this evening. Last evening at Hotel la Normandie Kitty had a goat cheese appetizer in honor of her brother, Norman, who once raised goats and has a great affinity for goat cheese. However, I won the dessert battle with the maple cheesecake, but have now sworn off desserts for the rest of the trip. Kitty apparently hasn’t, and orders an apple-berry kind of pie. The waitress slyly brings two forks and I have to admit I scarf up a few bites of Kitty’s dessert.
Looking at the Weather Network, it appears there’s a rather stationary rain system that will be in the area for quite a few days, but I think perhaps as we head south tomorrow after our final flirtation with the slow-down coastal roads, we might run out of it. But I expect more rain tomorrow, especially in the morning. The only hard stop for us on this trip is Cook’s Lobster House in Bailey Island, Maine because we just always do that when we’re in New England. We seem to have two major riding options: We can try to make the 580 miles (930 km) to Cook’s in two days and then take three days to ride through the White Mountains and the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire, or we can take three days to get to Cook’s and then take two days to ride the approximately 700 miles (1,125 km) home.
Today’s ride was 358 km (222 miles), for a total of 2,559 km (1,590 miles). Although we've discovered that we crossed into Atlantic Time Zone when we entered New Brunswick and it's an hour later than we thought, Kitty says at the moment she’s in favor of Option 1, Cook’s in two days, so we’ll see how that works out. We’re not finished with the slow roads yet! As most of our tomorrows on this trip, the story of this one will only be revealed as it arrives. We’ll see how it works out.
See you then.
GPS Track Log (Yellow)
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