May 10, 2021
Day 5: Brunswick to Naples
More of the Same is a Good Thing
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Climbing Today; 3,000 ft Climbing to Date; 13,596 ft
More of the same can be a good thing. Today we had more sunshine, more scenic route, more hills to climb, more friendly people, and generally just more of what makes Maine good. The only downer is me; I came down with Doc's cold last night and it was a real struggle for me to get through the day. I'm going to try and power through one more day and then take a rest day in Conway, NH.
The alarm went off at 06:30, but I turned it off and lay in bed another 20 minutes or so. We enjoyed the breakfast at the Quality Inn in Brunswick, then hit the road at 08:30. That isn't exactly early, but we are getting a bit earlier start every day as we adjust to eastern time. The riding was beautiful on low traffic secondary roads, and when we were on a highway there was almost always a shoulder for comfort. Following are some photos taken along today's route;
We stopped at a store for lunch and I had a slice of pizza and a chocolate milk. The milk felt good on my throat, which is becoming sore from the drainage caused by this nagging cold. The store was popular with the locals and they actually had a kitchen with 2 folks working - so I didn't just have greasy pizza from a box, this was a slice of quality hand-made pizza (ok, it was still a bit greasy).
My earlier attempts at the GoPro videos were done using 30 frames/second to create smaller files for upload (GoPro defaults to 60 frames/second). However, the 30 frames/second just wasn't producing very clear videos, so I went back to 60 frames/second and I think you will notice a difference in clarity in today's video snippets. The video segments are joined together using software to create the continuous clip you see, and when the segments are exported to write the final video file the software does some reductions that affect the clarity - and then when I upload the file to my youtube channel it goes through another reduction by youtube - so the point is that the final product is better if I film at 60 frames/second. I'm very much a novice at this film stuff, so lower your expectations and perhaps it won't be so disappointing.
We saw snow-capped mountains in the distance today! That would be New Hampshire, and the mountains were taunting us feeble old guys and telling us that we were idiots to even consider that we can bike across them. They may be right, we'll see soon enough.
Doc says that the backwoods of Maine are similar to the backwoods of Arkansas in many ways, one of which being that some of the areas are heavily logged. We have been passed by several log trucks in Maine, and yesterday's video had a brief snippet of one of them loading felled trees. As we entered Naples today, the yard at Hancock lumber was well stocked with freshly cut trees.
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The name "Hancock" has been prominent along our route. We started in Bar Harbor, which is in Hancock County. Hancock County was named for John Hancock, and the Hancock name is common in Maine. For your reading elucidation see --> Hancock County
The "Found Money" pot jumped big-time today when I spotted a battered quarter as we approached Naples; the fund now stands at $0.56, and I'm feeling hopeful that I will have enough for that celebratory coffee at the end of the ride. Maine must be a very wealthy state; in Oklahoma people only lose nickels and pennies, in Maine they lose quarters.
How about some totally random snippets of video from today's ride - who is up for another amateurish video? OK then, here you go;
I control the gopro with voice commands. I mount it on my head and speak loudly to command it when biking, and it usually responds quite well. But now my voice is raspy and hoarse from this cold, and the gopro didn't always respond as I asked. So then, gee whiz, I'm whining about imperfect voice-activated control of a movie camera - I'm becoming a bit of a whiner these days. Hopefully none of you are whiners, because if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a whiner. Good night everyone, and no whining please...
Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 232 miles (373 km)
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