Chapter the final.

Sorry for such the cliff hanger, guys... The moment we hit the Atlantic shore we quickly became side tracked from our blogging ritual and spent time doing other cools stuff like eating lobster, sea kayaking, bochi ball, and other non-bike oriented activities. We spent an amazing six days on Mount Desert Island, camping behind a farm house some six miles NW of Bar Harbor. We, in all honesty, don't have much of an excuse for leaving ya'll hanging without a final conclusion to the trip -- but what we do have is one heck of an explanation, and it is probably one of the finer examples of human kindness we have thus far witnessed in our lives...

Below is the thank you note we wrote to newspaper for the small village of Camden, a fishing town on the coast of Maine.

To the community of Camden,

Today we completed a bicycling journey from Anacortes, WA to Bar Harbor, ME. In this trip we rode 4,903 miles, fixed 31 flat tires, journeyed for 89 days, encountered 5 complete jerks, and witnessed unending acts of kindness. Of all the acts of kindness we have both witnessed and experienced, the treatment we received from the Camden community was by far more extreme, generous, and unexpected than we could ever imagine.

In the two years of planning and saving for this trip, we could never prepare for such a loss. For the past three months we have lived from our four respective small saddle bags; we live a minimalist lifestyle, and when much of what we own is taken, we felt a deep sense of loss. We felt absolutely sick to our stomachs.

Miraculously, only six hours later, we received a phone call from Jeff Hunter of the Camden Police Dept. with word that the Downtown Camden Business Group wanted replace some of the lost gear. We were beside ourselves with joy and disbelief when we arrived to Maine Sport Outfitters and everything was replaced. What an amazing community.

Thank you, Camden, for everything. Also, thank you to David Jackson of the DCBG, Jeff Hunter of the Camden PD, Holly Anderson of the Village Soup, John Hugh of the Bayview Restaurant, and Harbormaster Steve Pixley for their immediate concern, help, and swift acts of generosity. Thank you so much to the town that "just wanted to make things right."

Back on our bikes and riding with warmed hearts,

Kelly Fulton, Elizabeth White, and Caleb Buecksler


It all took place on a dark and quite full-mooned evening aboard a schooner known as the Appledore. Earlier in the day we met a cyclist, Tim , who had completed the cross-country trek a few days before us. He showed us around town, and we met the crew on this 87-foot schooner, who Tim had befriended. We decided it would be a good idea to enjoy a few drinks with Tim and the the sailors. Trouble begins here. We then decide that instead of a five mile pedal session in the middle of the night, we could just chill on the boat until evening and take care of any remaining chores, like finding a campsite, the following morning. Great idea. Even better of an idea, on top of this all, was to hop off the boat and grab our money, passports, and phones, from the bikes and then lock our rides up for the evening. You know, just to keep the honest people honest.

Well the locks did their work just great, however the bags didn't remain locked or closed at all.
Here is the link to the newspaper article written about us --

first this --
http://www.villagesoup.com//Government/story.cfm?storyid=76859

then this --

http://www.villagesoup.com//Community/story.cfm?storyid=76898

then this too --

http://www.villagesoup.com//Government/story.cfm?storyid=77026

Not every day you get to be in the middle of a crime spree, watch it all unfold, and then have all your stuff replaced, huh? We still can't believe it.

We do want to note that while in Camden, when not dealing with/worring about stolen stuff, we did do many enjoyable things. We spent alot of time sitting in the harbor looking at the Atlantic (because, we just biked to it!!!! from the Pacific!!!!). We met John, a man who owns his a lobster restaurant (Bayview, if anyone will travel through the area), who taught us about lobsters, and made a fabulous lobster sushimi for us. That was amazing. We swam, picked blueberries, and stayed the night at 200 year old house (thanks Kerry!). So, we do have good memories of the town, and certainly the people.

The following day we rode, most definitely with lighter hearts, all the way to Bar Harbor, completing our three month adventure. Upon our arrival to Mount Desert Island we decided it would be a good idea for a bit of a Lobster dinner. 4 orders of French Fries, 2 orders of onion rings, 3 cobs of corn, 3 rolls, and 5 lobsters later, we sat quite happy, with butter dripping down our chins, and felt a wonderful sensation of contentment.

We stayed with a couple named Sarah and Steve, friends of a friend of a graduate student, who happened have some extra room in their huge backyard for a tent or two. And so we went "tenting," as the easterners say it, next to a large red barn and hung out with this awesome crowd for the final stretch of our time in Lobsta Land. Before our arrival we felt a bit concerned that we may wear out our welcome by camping in the same spot for next five evenings. Turns out our worries were much ado about nothing, and as you can tell by the photo, Sarah and Steve are a very high-maintainance crowd. Needless to say, it wasn't a problem.
Sarah works for National Park Sea Kayak Tours, a group based in Bar Harbor, and Steve works for the Maine conversation Corps. Sarah gave us the super hook-up and sent us out on a free tour one beautiful Sunday morning. We spent the better part of a morning paddling around the NW side of the island, otherwise known as the "quite side of Mount Desert Island," and saw some pretty awesome wildlife -- like seals, eagles, starfish, muscles, and the such.

Later that afternoon Liz and Kelly went to check out the Patagonia store downtown and found a cute shirt for Liz. Kelly asked about a discount for bikers who used exclusively Patagonia gear for three months and then showed them one of the two shirts Liz's wore every day for 89 days(in otherwords, this shirt was disgusting). The two thumbs up by Liz indicates her happiness over a free (!) new shirt thanks to the Cadillac Patagonia store.

The following days were spent eating seafood (!!) and resting up. We'd ride the free (!) bus around the island. We hung out in the beautiful downtown of Bar Harbor, took a trip to the beach, and then spent the final day packing everything up into bike boxes and started our trip home. Four hours of bike packing pretty much amounted to fitting 5 lbs. of crap into a 3 lb. bag. It took quite a bit of doing, but the final packed box went through UPS no problem and in the next few days our respective steeds should be arriving home. At the public library we found a great deal on postcards. When it was all said and done we had purchased and posted some 84 cards. Of those cards, 51 were sent to the wonderful people who helped us along the way. Contrary to prior belief, our country is jam-packed with wonderfully kind people, and we felt that the least we could do was send a post card in thanks to the crowd that helped us along the way. Without their help we would be completely lost. Thank you so much.

Acadia National Park is amazing and we most definitely recommend a visit. After five days of enjoying good food, company of new friends, and a great town, we hopped onto the Grey Hound bus and rode to Portland, ME. From there the three of us checked into the Comfort Inn at the Airport and had our final meal together at a great Thai restraunt. The following morning our journey arrived to the absolute and final hour, and as if it had never happened at all, we loaded the plane and effectively canceled our three month effort in slightly less than nine hours in the air.

What an amazing journey it has been. Hopefully all ya'll out there have enjoyed following along as much as we have enjoyed writing and riding. If you ever have three months on your hands and are really craving a bit of a jump start in your life, we totally recommend getting yourself a bicycle .... we wouldn't do it any other way.

Until we meet again --

Kelly, Elizabeth, and Caleb

The Maine Event...

Are ya'll ready for a double post? Here is the most recent one but be sure to catch second post -- heaven forbid you miss out on a White family reunion...

Well, folks, we are now back to the core three, Caleb, Kelly and Elizabeth, and carrying all of our gear on our bikes. It took awhile to get used to the weight and balance of the bike with the panniers on, but we managed, as old habits don't die easily (thankfully in this case.) That morning a few miles into our ride we said goodbye to Vermont and entered into New Hampshire. It was a shorter day of riding as that afternoon we spent doing laundry. Thanks to the rain and humidity of the past few days, our clothes remained in a perpetual state of dampness. Our clothes had definitley settled into the permafunk stage -- something nobody should have to live with, let alone wear, carry, sleep in, or share with others in the supermarket.

After our clothes were washed, people were no longer afraid to approach us. Robert, a guy who in the past had toured from Portland, Maine, to Detroit, Michigan, came up and asked us about our trip and where we were camping. The truth was we weren't really sure as it was a Saturday night and all local camping spots were full. So, we were expecting to find a nice spot on US Forest Land, which is legal by the way, and enjoy a minimal resources night (where did you put the t.p., Liz?!). But, that was unnecessary as Robert invited us to spend the night at the Tufts Mountain Center a few miles south of Lincoln, NH, where he was the caretaker. We graciously accepted and enjoyed the company of a half dozen past and current Tufts Univeristy of Boston, MA, folk. They had a sweet place in the mountains and we were left wondering why St. Olaf doesn't have an equivalent. It was great.

The next day we tackled our last mountain pass, New Hampshire's Kancamangus Pass, a 2,855 foot jobber nestled in the White Mountains. We had heard it was a difficult climb, even some horror stories, and so we weren't exactly super excited about it. But, it turned out it wasn't bad at all; we even found it somewhat easy. It was a beautiful ride and we enjoyed every minute of it. Late that afternoon we left New Hampsire and entered into Maine. For this whole trip, Maine was something so far away we never even thought about it. And now, here we were! It was a peciluar feeling. We were so slow in getting there it seemed as if it snuck up on us. Yet it was about time. It was quite the dichotomy of emotions.

That night we didn't have many camping options so late in the afternoon we planned on pushing on another twenty some miles to a campground on a lake. But, along the way we came across Camp Tapawingo, an all-girls summer camp near Sweden, Maine. So, we stopped in and asked if we could pitch a tent there. Although they had an end of the summer ceremony taking place that night, they took us in a placed us in a more remote place of the camp. The site was a great one, right on a lake which we love. There we enjoyed a quiet evening and camped for the first time with no modern services, i.e. without a picnic table, running water, or toilet let alone an outhouse, but who's keeping track? We even undomesticated Elizabeth and made her cook over fire. She was too impatient and we all chewed on charred on the outside/undercooked on the inside chicken. Surprisingly this was our first time "tenting" and we enjoyed the change of pace.


While searching for a place to stay, two days away from the coast, we luckily stumbled upon the nicest lady in the world -- Mary Ann. She gladly told us directions to her home, drove off and then showed us a place to pitch the tents, along the river in Green, Maine. We promptly jumped into the river, cooled ourselves off, and then went inside for a great taco salad. Thanks Caleb for the idea, his mother for the recipe, Mary Ann for the cooking, and the dogs for moral support. They have a standard poodle named Ritz and a Chiwawa (!) named Salsa (!). Salsa rules the nest, in all her glory, while Ritz gets petted. His life is definitely controlled by something 1/10 his size. Poor guy. Thanks so much to such a wonderful family. A post card or two for this croud, for sure...

So, I guess this brings us to the present. We are finally in Maine and only have about 200 miles to go until we hit Bar Harbor. We are so close we are beginning to lick our lips in anticipation of all the fresh lobster we are going to eat, which we have decided we are going to have it every night. It's going to be great!

Lastly, we would like to wish a very HAPPY 50th (50! FIFTY!) Wedding Anniversary to Bob and Audrey Bohlman, Caleb's grandparents. You two rock!

Still Pedaling Along and so darn close,

Caleb, Kelly and Elizabeth

Bike.

A rockin' family vacation...

After many, many miles of traveling apart from the rest of the world and all by our lonesome selves, we finally had a crowd larger, older and wiser than us. We were no longer held the majority among the expedition crowd as for five fun-filled days we shared our adventure with quite possibly the coolest crowd around. Elizabeth's family -- her mom and dad (Donna and Larry) and aunt and uncle (Kathy and Dick Hitchcock) and ultimately cousin (Whitney) and small fur-ball (Holly) joined us in taking on upstate New York and Vermont.

They didn't just load up their saddle bags like a normal tourist on bike would do -- nope, they filled up the sweetest camper-van ever made by man. A Dodge 3500 chassis built up by Westfalia and Streamline created a home away from home for four people and the pup. In short it was a a super Euro-trendy van/rv. We all camped as usual; the only difference is that we didn't have to lug our heavy baggage around. For a full six days we rode uninhibited by our bags and oh, sweet lord, it was amazing. We experienced speeds, stability, and acceleration we hadn't seen since we test-rode our Trek 520's at the shop some four months earlier. Call it cheating if you wish; we prefer to call it taking advantage of our resources. Moreover, it was quite well-timed as the East method of traversing a mountain is much different than that of the West. While the way of the West entails switchbacking up and down a mountain thereby keeping the grade to a reasonable 6-7% max the East way is to go straight up and over throwing the max grade right out the window. 12 or 13% is no big deal in these parts. We think they just like to torture loaded down bicycle tourists. Ha, we showed them!

Now for a little backpedaling here: When we last wrote we had just reentered the US in Lewiston, NY. A ton of stuff has happened since then. So, here goes...

Although we had a great time in Canada, it was nice to be back in the good 'ol U. S. of A. We promptly began pedaling our way to Rochester, NY where we stayed at Kathy and Dick's place. As is always the case, they were very welcoming, as they rolled out the red carpet for us. That night we had fresh, home-smoked turkey and sweet corn; it was delicious. The rest of the night was spent relaxing and watching the movie Munich. The next day we decided we were long due a day off and spent the day doing well, nothing and we loved it. That evening we were treated to dinner at the best barbeque place ever, Dinosaur BBQ.

That night a storm moved in and we woke up to rain. We hardly felt like pedaling and tried our best to delay it but we did eventually work up the courage and take off. We rode about 70 miles to Lake Skaneateles, one of New York's famous Finger Lakes, and stayed at the cottage of Charlie and Barb Cote, friends of the Hitchcocks. Holy cow, it was an absolutely beautiful area. The water was crystal clear, which incredibly is by no means an exaggeration. It was truly phenomenal. In fact, it was so nice we decided we had better take another day off to spend there. So, we took another rest day and loved it. We went swimming multiple times during the day and got to take out the canoe. The evening before, Charlie Cote took us out on the boat and gave us a grand tour of the lake. We saw some pretty amazing homes, including one that Bill Clinton stayed at, and then visited the shore side of town, where there was an anitque wooden boat show. There was a band playing marches in the gazebo and just as Stars and Stripes finished playing, the sun set perfectly over the horizon, leaving an orange tint to the scene. As you can tell by the pictures, we were leading a very high-stress life on the lake. Charlie, Barb, Alex, and Nick, thank you so much for sharing your incredible place on the lake. We had the most wonderful time.

The next morning the whole family met up with us at Lake Skaneateles. The van arrived with aunt, uncle, mom, dad, and fur-ball all in toe. We unstrapped the bikes from rear rack and headed north to a state park near Fulton, New York. We were sad to say goodbye to the Cotes and Skaneateles but absolutely loved the new company. We all sat down for a gourmet meal of steak and chicken fajitas, chocolate, and mead wine that we had hauled all the way from a honey farm back in Ontario. It was an occasion worth remembering as Elizabeth happily announced an engagement. Yup, Kelly and Liz, while fussing about who got to paddle on the left side of the canoe, in Lake Skineatalas, decided to get married. It was a good night.

The following evening we landed in Booneville, and found another great campground. At first the establishment looked like one from eastern Montana -- no trees, and just an open grass field with a few hook ups next to the highway. What we found only moments later around the corner was a perfect spot to plop the Silver Bullet of a camper and then a beautiful creek complete with large, flat slabs of rock and cool shallow water to sit in. All while sipping on a Coore's Light and crunching on parmasean-flavored gold fish crackers. Holly, the team cocker spaniel, liked it quite a bit too.

From there we headed east to Long Lake (one of perhaps a gazallion Long Lakes we have seen on the trip) and climbed Blue Mountain. The road, while not passing through the Rockies, definitely had us huffing and puffing. All day we battled the Adirondack's long, rolling hill (steep) after rolling hill (steep), but this one really put us to the test. Needless to say, Dick, our fine guide and driver, had stocked the cooler with a large supply of Diet Coke and Busch Beer. We sat on the dock of the lake (and in the hammock) and truely enjoyed our time together.

Day three we got lost. Well, Kelly knew exactly where we were going, but no one else wanted to listen to him, and decided a 20-mile detour would be a better idea. He isn't bitter in the least though, not one little bit. Not bitter at all. To remedy our momentary act of perdition, we found a beautiful, very remote, road that passed through huge stands of old-growth cedars, winding up and down hills and around lakes. The sun shot through in small patches on road and for the twenty miles we hardly spoke a word as we soaked in the beauty. Once we finally caught up with Kathy, Dick, Whitney, and the twelve-pound sock robber, we made our way into Ticonderoga. The fort was super cool -- too bad the weather wasn't. We found a great state campground, right on St. George Lake and then managed to eat the equivilant of six large pizzas, eight salads, twelve beers, and seven double-decker ice cream cones. The lake was cool (in both ways) and we found a nice spot to swim where large slabs of flat rock extended into the deep lake. That evening was warm; we baked and sweated, and when we finally cooled off enough to fall asleep in the heat, the good Lord gave us a solid inch of rain.

The next morning we crossed the Mighty Lake Champlain, via ferry, and headed into an amazingly welcoming state of Vermont. The lower portion of the state is only two day's ride wide. We pulled into Middlebury for a super-sandwich lunch in the van, and then down the way to spend a few hours in the cute, overpriced town. It was a short day as we headed south and completed a grand total of 39 miles. We finally parked it at a campground on Lake Dunmore and promptly found a spaghetti feed, "Thursdays only," of which we took full advantage. For the the fourth day in a row, we had a cool lake to dip our hot little feet (and also to rinse out our biking shorts). That evening we all drank beer around the campfire and roasted (more like burned) marshmellows, and enjoyed our last evening with the family together.

After MiddleBury Pass, and some of the finest riding of this trip, we ended the family vacation in Vermont with lunch in the van. The ride was beautiful and we all left wondering how Vermont could fit so much beauty in such a small state.

Well, that about does it for now.

Still alive and pedaling along,

Caleb, Kelly and Elizabeth

Bike.

More Family Photos

More photos added by Aunt Kathy:



lunch in the RV









happy engaged people: sunset on Long Lake:


Photos added by Aunt Kathy