Post-Party Depression

Miles today: 317.7 (2,965.3 so far)

Hours in the saddle: 5:39 (69:03 so far)

Theme music: Eminem & Julie’s “shake it” playlist

Cold long-haul day today. 

Shook out all of the maps except for PA and did route planning last night. I’m trying to have things to look forward to on the way home other than interstates and cheap motels. 🤮 Starting to feel a little bit of post-party depression (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3Fterm%3DPost-Party%2520Depression%26amp%3Dtrue) now that our trip is winding down. I’ve spent like 9 months looking forward to it and am already trying to think of the next one. Jaron said we should finish this one first? 

So I found a couple of scenic stretches and we have a couple of stops and we’ll get home by Friday. We have our camping gear, but it takes time to set up and pack up and we have just had a lot of long days so we haven’t camped on this trip. I didn’t ever find a good resource for campgrounds in Canada. We’re picky and want to enjoy it. I do have books and apps for finding the places we want to camp in the US but didn’t have the time to really find camping places we were looking forward to, so we didn’t build it in to our route. 

It was 7 degrees C in our room this morning. That’s 44 F. Jaron turned the heat on at 0600. It got cold last night and the AC was on. Brrrr! 

We layered up under our gear and got going. Jaron needed to top off his rear tire a gas station, apparently the compressor wouldn’t fill it up beyond a certain pressure. Well, we discovered that our tire gauge is shit so we got a new one from an auto parts store and started over on tire pressure. Also, Julie thinks she knows why her check engine light is coming on. The Tigress has TPMS (the Tiger has tube tires and does not) and sometimes it does not display readings for one tire. When the check engine light comes on, I’ve noticed that the symbol associated with the TPMS flashes. So maybe that’s all that is. That would be nice. It’s happened 3x now for a few minutes while I’m riding and does not display an error message. 

Anyway, after all of that we were both sweating so we took off our mid layers and hit the road. It was cold. I didn’t want to believe it was going to be that cold all day! After 1.5 hours we stopped for gas and mid layers and decided to get breakfast at a restaurant attached to the gas station to warm back up. After Jaron filled both bikes up, Julie moved her bike to a space that we could pull thru in in front of the restaurant, like...50 feet from the pump. I went to get us a table and Jaron went in to pay for the gas since their pay at the pump was offline. A long time later he joined me in the restaurant. Apparently when he went to pay — literally less than 3 minutes after moving his bike — our photo was up on their surveillance screen and they were going to call the RCMP in 15 minutes. The cashier severely admonished Jaron for leaving without paying. He explained that we moved out of the way because we were going to eat at the restaurant. She was not having it! She said it ws against the law. (Does this count as reportable criminal activity while abroad? Jesus.) Some pumps even have signs saying “please park your car before enjoying [vendor name].”

It’s funny, several days ago at a smll gas station there were lines at all 4 pumps. And the woman in front of us went inside to pay while we were waiting and then came back out and left. She didn’t move her car so we could use the pump, which I thought was odd since Canadians are so nice and people say “sorrry!” anytime they perceive they might be blocking your view. I chalked it up to the slow pace of life in a small town. But now I see. Simmering under that cheerful demeanor is ripe indignation without the benefit of the doubt, apparently! (With a sample size of one, lol.)

We said goodbye to Canada a couple of hours later and entered Maine at Vanceboro. The US border agents asked both of us to take off our helmets and asked more detailed questions than the Canadian border agents had. There was literally nowhere to stop to stretch and switch all units back to multiples of the King’s foot. We ended up finding only a small gravel lot with a construction trailer where we could stop. 

Oh, and there was lots of construction and waiting on single lane traffic control. Like so much. 3-5x in like 20 miles. 

We finally found a gas station. It was the same brand as in Canada. Inside we both noticed that it was fancier. The section signs were fancy and had blue backlighting and there was a larger selection of cold drinks. ‘Murica. 

There was also a retired gentleman there who was traveling on a big yellow cruiser with a trailer. He had Colorado plates and had just been camping near the Bay of Fundy last night. He’s been on the road since June. He seriously looked happier than a pig in shit. BIG smile on his face telling me about his trip and hearing about ours. He’s also been to Alaska on his bike. 

We picked our lodging out for the night. We lost an hour today when we crossed the border. Another hour or so and there was a rest area with a non-packed gravel loop and some muddy potholes. That’s why we travel on the ADV bikes! 

We had dinner at a Thai restaurant where we were the only guests. They boasted free wifi, but it was locked. Jaron asked for the password and the owner brought over a random business card from a spine doctor in another city with a complex password on it. And she made sure she got it back! As we were leaving, another table came in. 

And praise be, our motel in Skowhegan, Maine has guest laundry. We’ve lucked out on laundry availability this trip and have not had to make an event out of it. 

Here’s the only picture Jaron took today. It’s a motivational sign at the auto parts store.