July 20, 2013.

We woke up after a pretty warm and sticky night at the Naples Campground. The campground has breakfast at 7, so we were all packed and ready to roll when breakfast opened up. The breakfast is very reasonably priced and pretty darn good. This campground is 8 years old, and is going to have a great future if they keep being so awesome.

Laura wants me to put down a special note that the blueberry muffin was awesome.

We started out on highway 302 and 11, both very heavy traffic. 302 had a great shoulder. 11 did not. 11 is not safe to bicycle on. We have learned that while the people of Maine are very friendly face-to-face, they are complete jerks behind the wheel of a vehicle. Their driving styles have a total disregard for the safety of themselves, pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists. They drive similar to those in Missouri or Montana. It makes me miss the drivers in West Michigan. The problem is that a third of them are terrible drivers, and then another 50% simply drive by tailgating the person in front of them and mirroring their actions, totally unaware of the reasons for the lead cars movements. Terrible drivers. Just horrible. I have never seen such tailgating, and at such high speed on curvy hilly roads. I can honestly say that in Wisconsin (or most states), drivers would not even consider following another driver with only a 30 foot gap, on a crazy backcountry road. If the lead car swerves to avoid a rock in the road (which they seem to just pave over), then the other cars mirror it, unaware of the reason for the swerve. Just nuts.

We moved off onto some quieter roads, where we got a full helping of the Maine rollers. Two of the hills were over 15% in grade, I think one would have measured 20% if i would have been able to keep a pace that my bike computer would register. It crested 17% and I had to drop to 1mph.

We hopped back and forth again onto major highways and then backroads. All of the roads had "hill" or "ridge" in the name. That is usually a bad sign.

We saw quite a few turkeys today, usually with chicks.

We stopped at Subway at around 2pm for our first stop. We had 48 miles in already and we were starving yet not hungry. The heat was less than the previous two days, but we were still needing to cool down. Subway in Maine is not as nice as other states. No subway points, no Discover card, no military discount, no pizza, and no croutons.

Roger even had a Salad. Weird.

At Subway we continued our lodging research. The only camping we could find was many miles off route, and was more expensive than most of the hotels on the trip. We found 2 hotels. The Hampton wanted $259 per night. Another wanted $159....but included no breakfast. We decided to keep looking at found Whitney's Cabins on the Adventure Cycling map. http://home.gwi.net/~awhitney/ We called ahead and they had a cabin open, so we booked it.

Usually we don't like bike trails. They are too dangerous. There is a good one here, although it is short. It went from Brunswick to about halfway to Bath. Pretty nice! Efficient and safely done.

When almost to Bath, we could sense a bit of ocean smell in the air. Katie told me to taste the water in some of the waterways to see if it was salty. I declined....figured it would taste like "Bath" water. Nobody laughed. Tough crowd these days.

Soon we noticed some missed calls on my phone. The ladies from Whitneys Cabins were calling to check up on us and to make sure we didn't need any help. I guess we bike too slow.

Maine seems to have a lot of silly signs. They warn you about everything, and start begging you to slow down. I have a little tip for the Maine Department of Transportation.....instead of having 42 signs on each road which point out 42 reasons to slowly drive more carefully, maybe you could do what other states do. Lower the speed limit. Main has crazy backroads with a 55mph limit, peppered in warning signs for every bump, driveway, animal crossing, area with children, area with a church, an old person, a truck, a cross street, everything. Why not just lower the limit? So odd. Some signs make me feel embarrassed for Maine.

We stopped in Woolworth and got some groceries for the cabin (big grocery store, no restrooms), and were soon looking for the proper driveway. Up ahead we saw a woman in an electric wheelchair riding in circles in the road waving at us. We got to her and she was the owner of Whitneys, just making sure we found the place. Of course, Maine had a sign warning us that she would be there.

The cabins were a bit off the beaten path. Katie yelled something about "we should have bought a squirrel" in reference to the movie Rat Race (as we skid down a long gravel hill to the cabin).

So, we are in our cabin, bellies full of spaghetti, and everyone is already asleep I think. Great day. Bike computer never went over 95F, and it should be cooler tomorrow. Wahoo.

The beds are just about as soft as can be while still being a bed. Laura preferred the floor and air mattress with Katie. After this photo, they saw a giant spider (turned out to be a dead ant) and they are now in the same spot, but inside their tent that they have setup which takes up the entire cabin. Oh well, they are happy. I don't know know of a tougher pair of girls on earth....a bit of arachnophobia is acceptable.