The Belgrade Lakes to Calais, Maine including sixty-three miles of gravel on Stud Mill Road.5/31/2019
   Milford to Calais, Maine, 26 August 2018. Most of the route is on Stud Mill Road (elevation profile above). The opening few miles are on County Road in Milford, the last few are on South Princeton Road (dirt) and Route 1 (asphalt) in Princeton and Calais. Note the small boxes, these are the locations where I photographed the bike lying on Stud Mill Road (left) and me with my sunglasses dipped on my nose (right), both images are included in this blog entry.  My route from the Belgrade Lakes Region to Milford (8/25), Maine, then (pink line across the middle of the image) across Stud Mill Road to Calais, Maine (8/26). When the route turns north, I'm almost immediately in New Brunswick, Canada (8/27), starting at the border in Saint Stephen then north to the provincial capital, Fredericton, and eventually (8/28) Stanley at my northern most ascent. I've also included my route from Fredericton to Nova Scotia via a ferry across the Bay of Fundy. As well as a part of my route from 9/22 through Quebec. I'll write about these bonus routes elsewhere, here they are provided only for perspective. Background: In this blog entry, I pick up the story, from my previous entry, at my departure from Messalonskee Lake in the Belgrade Lakes Region of Maine where I stayed for three nights at a friends cabin. This is the third in a series of entries, the first a prologue, that will tell the story of my autumn 2018 cycling tour through the Northeastern United States, Canada's Maritime, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Quebec provinces. I hope to finish the massive writing project before I depart on my next tour, John-O-Groat's, Scotland to Istanbul, Turkey, ca. 20 August 2019. One half of my genetic story, involving a great grandfather of French descent, the other was a Scottish immigrant that settled in Kansas, may have included the nearby town of Waterville, Maine. Henri Breton, his wife, and two children certainly immigrated from France to Canada then, within a couple of years or less, migrated to and settled somewhere in northern Maine ...
 The dock (right) at the end of Keene Neck Road overlooking Hog Island, the narrows, and other points nearby in Muscongus Bay, an enviable location to begin, as I did on 20 August 2018, a long bike tour!  Mid-coast Maine, from Boothbay Harbor to Mount Desert Island, the foundation of Acadia National Park. Colored lines are GPS tracks from my autumn, 2018, tour including exploratory rides on and off the Pemaquid Peninsula, around the Belgrade Lakes, and on "two havens" (see text for details) in Penobscot Bay. Arrows provide direction of travel and dates the day that I completed each section. Background: This blog entry is the first of several parts, currently being written, that follow a prologue to my autumn 2018 bicycle tour. In the prologue, I provide important background info for this entry and subsequent entries. Scroll down to read the prologue which I coined Going Full Tilt to Newfoundland and Labrador.  Favorable conditions for my 20 August 2018 departure from the Nash House, Bremen Township, Maine. From the enviable vantage of the Nash House at the end of Keene Neck Road, I sipped coffee, absorbed sunshine on the front deck overlooking the narrows, and contemplated my commitment. It was the morning of August 20th, 2018, departure day from Bremen township on the Pemaquid Peninsula, part of the middle-coastal region of Maine. What lay ahead I could not say with certainty but my experience on previous adventures suggested that there would be much to overcome over many weeks of touring by bicycle through the United States and Canada including remote areas that, despite their distance from the Arctic Circle, were Arctic in reputation and character. That reputation was of particular significance to a guy riding a bicycle, wearing ...
 The research facilities and tent village on Seal Island (National Wildlife Refuge), Penobscot Bay, Maine, August 2018.  An enviable view from the vantage of a wee cabin many miles off the coast of Maine, August 2018. After my longest and most successful season of training and racing to date, I made my way from Denver International Airport, on August 10th, 2018, to a faraway island, many miles from the mainland, to Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in Penobscot Bay, Maine, where I spent a few days with old and new friends, including many Atlantic Puffins. My idea for this autumn adventure was to reunite with old friends from my days working as an education intern (1993-1994), a seabird conservation biologist (1995-2001), and graduate student (2000-2005) in the Gulf of Maine and also to add a bit of my latest passion to the trip: some sort of bicycle tour, length and exactly where I would go to be negotiated and perhaps finalized as I sipped coffee, socialized, scanned the land and sea for birds, and otherwise decelerated ...
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