This camp—the “Hovel,” we call it—is about 130 miles one-way, from our home. And another 130 miles the other way, of course. But fewer miles, returning home, if my wife picked me up with the truck, should I phone to say I’m out of flatus. I calculated it would be two days of pedaling to the Hovel and could be two days biking back.
The first 35 miles of the mini-tour found me at one daughter’s house some distance northeast of Bangor, where I was greeted as if I were the body at a wake. I was pausing for a light lunch. Her husband was there, also, observing me behind hooded eyes, like a snake
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“Seen any monster logging trucks yet?” he asked.
I pretended I didn’t hear. Everyone suspects I’m hearing-impaired. But I’m not.
My daughter, holding a grandchild-baby (mashed carrots smearing its face) addressed me: “Daddy, today is hot, 90°, and humid. Worse than it was last week. When you fainted. Mommy told me she took you to the emergency room and the doctor said you had low blood sugar. What are you going to do about that?”
Well, I had been on the bike and been aggravated by a soft tire, a poor brake, a missing screw, a worn cable, and maybe I needed a new toe strap. The day was very hot and very humid—an example of global warming, the TV news said. I should have had water with me, and bananas. Then I got dizzy. Prudently, though, instead of falling left, I directed myself right and fell into soft sand.
Meeting my wife later, in the city of Belfast, before we got groceries and because I seemed confused, she took me to the hospital. I have Medicare with Option F, so the advice and treatment I received in the
hospital was free.
“Daddy,” my daughter continued, “Your other daughter—Caroline—she and I have been discussing if we shouldn’t ask the state police to check on you from time to time while you’re biking in this heat . . . ”
I did not tell her that I’d fixed the bike so it was working perfectly; I even put new tubes in the tires. On tours, now, I’ll have three water bottles and I intend to stop where I can to refill them. I’ll stop, also, where I can, to buy orange juice, and bananas and raisins and sardines. Can’t hurt to have salty sardines, even if they have a fishy scent and some brands stink strongly. I like sardines. Sardine cans are hard and compact. They don’t squish and get gooey like bananas.
I finished my light lunch. My daughter yelled her goodbyes, and I got on the road.
Later, heading slowly, at 10 mph, toward the city of Lincoln, I did not run out of gas, but I did begin to run out of daylight. Nor had I seen a restaurant. Just occasional houses. Men, shirts off, mowing lawns. Once a woman, topless, weeding a garden. Wouldn’t have been polite to stop and watch. Trees. More trees and then forest. The banks of a river: the west side black, the shallow east side brightly rippling. I might have seen a fish jump and twist. Yes, I surely did. Where appropriate, I stopped, about every five miles, to drink and eat and wipe my sweating face and hands.
As the sun went down, the heat abated.
Where to camp?
I halted by the entrance to an electric power station, landscaped on both sides by sturdy, bushy pines. I picked growth where I thought tent space possible, and hidden from easy view. In the tent, my supper was smashed bananas, sardines, and water. After my sweat dried, I listened to the radio, and then slept.
I dreamed of swimming in the lake by the Hovel.
The next day, reaching Lincoln, I breakfasted and resupplied; then I rested and pedaled and rested and pedaled—finally, arriving at the head of the difficult road leading to the Hovel. Eighteen miles more. I changed from bike shoes into sneakers. Likely I would be walking up hills now. Then I ate the next-to-last banana and the next-to-last can of sardines.
The biking was more difficult than I had imagined. That is, experiencing the road to the Hovel from the seat of my bicycle wasn’t like seeing it from inside a pickup. The following stuff was in the way: sand, crushed stone, placed here and there to fill washouts, pebbles, round rocks, medium-to-large boulders, some fixed and some ready to roll, beaver debris in shallow pools of water, and piles of moose dung, lots of which was rather fresh.
Five miles to go. I finished the last banana. And the final raisin, the final gulp from the third water bottle, and the last can of sardines. Opening that savory item, though, I spilled smelly oil and most of the little fishes over my shorts, socks, and sneakers.
And so my acquaintanceship with Bear began. By coincidence, he had been crossing the road 20 steps in front of me, when the heat of the day and a breeze delivered the smelly sardine oil to his nose.
Bear vision is not good. Glasses might help, but bear don’t wear them. Bear hear well and smell well, though.
The bear poked its nose in the air, sniffing.
I hollered.
The bear turned and crashed away. The adrenaline helped me, I’m sure, make those last five miles.
Finally, at the Hovel, the door and windows opened, chores done, the whiskey bottle open, I jumped in the lake.
A few laps later, sitting on a boulder with my bottle, I observed the tranquil scene: There was the Bear, about 100 yards out, leisurely dog-paddling in circles.
Although I had a dog once that enjoyed red wine, what I had with me just then was bourbon. I held up the bottle.
“COME ON OVER!” I shouted.
