Bangor, Maine

 

There were nine cars ahead of me on the bridge over the Saint Croix River from St. Stephen in Canada to Calais awaiting to enter the US.   I checked my watch to see how long of a wait it would be.  It was 5:17, soon to be 4:17 when I crossed into Eastern time, forty-five minutes before sunset.  And I’d have to set my watch back another hour the next day with daylight savings, forcing me to stop riding two hours earlier than I had been for the past two weeks.  I had done well to arrive in time to get into the US  and out into the countryside to camp before dark.  If the headwind of the day before had persisted I would have had one more night in Canada.

It was taking over a minute for each car to be let in.  After the second the official in the guard house noticed me.  He stepped out and waved me forward, saying I could go inside and be taken care of there.  Three uniformed officers, two women and a guy, sat behind two counters, each facing a computer.  They too were as cordial and welcoming as the officer outside, not a grim, authoritarian face among them.

As one of the woman entered information from my passport into her computer, she engaged me in conversation rather than interrogation, as one is generally subjected to at border crossings.  She wondered how long I had been a touring cyclist, not how long I had been in Canada or what had drawn me there or if I had a criminal record or what I might be bringing back into the US. I would have been happy to tell her I wasn’t bringing back anything I had bought, just two license plates from Nova Scotia and two from New Brunswick and a Canadian flag attached to a car window antenna that I had found along the road.

The woman commented that I reminded her of an Irish guy who had run around the world pulling a cart who had passed through a few years ago.  She had followed his travels and wondered if she could do the same with mine.  She was nice enough to have been Canadian.

I asked if many Canadians came over to shop at the Walmart in Calais. She said lots do especially for milk and eggs.  I said I had been surprised how expensive milk had been in Canada and wondered why.  None of the three officials could provide an answer other than it might be because they put less hormones in their milk.  I said my first stop in the US would be at the Walmart for half a gallon of chocolate milk, and hoped it wasn’t sold out.  

The parking lot of the Walmart was half-filled with cars with New Brunswick license plates.  The shelves were still well-stocked and there was lots of milk and not at an inflated price.  A half gallon of chocolate milk was still $2.12, quite a difference from the $5.58 I had been paying in Canada.  I was happy to see an eighteen-ounce jar of peanut butter was $1.84, the first time I had seen it under two dollars on this trip, and back to what it had been in pre-inflationary times.  Maybe inflation had finally ebbed during my time away.  The best find was a rack of mini-sweet potato pies on sale for forty-four cents, marked down thirty cents.  Before inflation hit they had been fifty cents, a remarkable price for 270 calories of tasty eating.

My final seventy miles in Canada included a short stretch along the Bay of Funday.  I had to take a minor detour from the only road connecting St. John to Calais to ride along the water, enticed by a sign that promised much more than it delivered.  

The road only included three miles of shoreline, the rest just more forest.  I was about the only one making the detour, so that was its best benefit, fifteen miles of no traffic. It was low tide, so I could see evidence of its legendary biggest tide on the planet.

My final Tim Hortons came forty miles from the border.  I was hoping to spend the last of my Canadian change.  I knew I had a two dollar and one dollar coins and a few quarters and nickels.  My change had been supplemented by the first coins I had seen on the road in St. John and afterwards.  I thought I might have collected enough for two muffins.  I was thirty-five cents short, so had to settle on a muffin and a cookie.  I didn’t realize the cookie I selected was deluxe and cost a dollar more than the ordinary, so I had to change my choice.  I told the cashier I was leaving the country and trying to spend the last of my change. He charged me for the cheaper cookie, but gave me the more expensive one, a final act of Canadian kindness.

The ninety-five miles from Calais to Bangor was much like my riding the past two weeks in Canada through thick forests and undulating terrain with just small dots of civilization, except there was a lot more climbing, with 4,735 feet for the day, the most of the trip, ten per cent more than the previous high.  There were no service stations, just a lone diner attached to a motel and campground after fifty miles where I was the only patron.  I stopped at the diner hoping it would have Wi-Fi, as I hadn’t encountered any all day.  The waitress confirmed there was Wi-Fi, so I ordered a burger.  After I sat down and spent several minutes trying to connect, she said it didn't always work.  It was the first time in the month of these travels I went a day without Wi-Fi.  The satellites must not hone on this area, as when I set out in the morning it took my Garmin a mile to pick up a signal, the longest by far I’ve experienced just about anywhere.

On the outskirts of Calais came the official welcome to Maine sign with the state motto of “Welcome Home.”  I was feeling it without having to be told.  I felt as if I were in the home stretch of these travels, although I could be on the road a couple more weeks getting to Schenectady with twelve Carnegies to gather in Maine, seven in New Hampshire, one in Vermont and four in New York. Back on home turf I could start looking forward to movies with Janina and time in the forest with Jan, Chris and Kurt cutting out honeysuckle and buckthorn and riding with Tom, Mark, John, Julie and the rest of the gang and hiking with Marj and Jeff and catching up with others.