Our plans were to bike all the way to Portland today but about 10 miles after starting this morning John had a blowout on his bike tire. We were going down a hill into a town about 25 mph and John ran over something and his back tire blew. I was behind him and I heard the tire blow, it sounded like a gun shot, and his tire went flat immediately. I thought for sure that he would wreck but he was able to get the bike stopped quickly and dragged up on the sidewalk. We were crossing a bridge with zero shoulder, and had he wrecked he probably would have been hit by a car. We got across the bridge into a parking lot and spent the next hour working on the tire. It made a pretty big hole in the tire and when he pumped it full of air the tube pooched out so we knew that he needed a new tire. I called Jim, the fellow who hosted us last night, and asked if he could check on his computer and find the closest bike shop for us. He did that and discovered a shop right on our route 11 miles away. We headed off hoping that the tire would last until we got there, and pretty soon a car pulled off the road in front of us, and Jim got out asking if he could take us to the shop. I thought, “Wow, what a nice guy, to drive out where we were and see if we needed help!” His car wasn’t near big enough to hold even one of our bikes so we said we would make it which we did. After getting the new tire on we realized that we didn’t have enough time to make Portland. I called Jim again and asked him if he could locate a cheap motel about 30 miles from Portland. He called back a few minutes later and found a nice and cheap motel in Cornish, Maine so we made that our new goal. We biked 63 miles today and it was a very nice day of biking in spite of our slow start, very few hills and in spite of the forcast we had no rain.

We went to a Resturant next to the motel to eat dinner and found it was a very nice sea food Resturant with a big tub full of  big lobsters. I decided to have my celebration dinner of lobster one night early. It was an incredibly nice dinner with amazingly tasty bread and lots of lobster meat. I probably gained some of my weight back, but it sure was fun!!.

We are going to sleep in until 7 am tomorrow morning and after breakfast head off to Portland which is 27 miles away. We can’t check in until 2 pm, and once we are in our room we will sort through stuff and throw a bunch away and get everything packed into a bag. Friday morning we will be at the bike shop at 10 am per our appointment and then take a cab to the airport and be there around noon, board the plane at 4 pm and land in Portland, Oregon at 11 pm.

At least that is our plan unless we blow a tire!

love you all very much and see you soon 😃 Dee