Scotty's Ride: Running from the Rain!

Sunday August 3rd

We have to back up a bit...... to last evening. One thing I failed to mention... and also failed to get a picture of.. was the "Ninja Star of Death"!

This is what I called the radar image on the weather channel hanging over southern Maine. It was rotating clockwise and moving slowly north. We were north of it but I was sure it would catch up to us while we slept.

We were all concerned about getting on the road. The bikers needed to stay dry and the drivers going south needed to be on time for a party. So we chugged some coffee and packed up.

We said our goodbyes in front of the motel. Took some pictures. Hugs and kisses and all that.

Heather was kind enough to give us instructions as to where to cross over into Canada. We planned to cross at the Maine town of Calais. There are two places to cross, one known to the locals and the other for tourists and trucks. The lines are way shorter at the local crossing.

For anyone making the crossing at Calais, as you come into town on Route 9 (or North Street) turn left onto South Main. You cant miss it. If you follow signs for the other crossing.. you will wait a lot longer.

All Heather wanted in exchange for this tip was for Ed to take a picture of her and Jimmy.

You'll know why when you look at this one i took from the door of the hotel room.

Thanks Heather, We love you!

(Especially Jimmy)

We grabbed some coffee from the Hotel Lobby and said our final farewells to Heather, Ed, and the girls, and then pointed the Motorbikes northward on 95. Headed for Bangor and praying for no rain.

This is Peters Lucky Rain Suit.

As long as he was wearing it... no rain. It did serve other purposes. Like making him easy to spot in your rear view mirrors and an easy target for jokes. We kept telling people we met that he was looking for work on a fishing boat. Almost got him a job once or twice.

At Bangor we headed off on Route 9.. or the "Airline". The magic of the Internet reveals the reason for its name. "The leg of Route 9 from Bangor to Calais is often referred to as "The Airline" due to its shorter route than the older US 1. (Before the coming of air travel, the term airline often referred to such a shortcut.)

Fog and Mist and some light precipitation but no real rain on the Airline.

I guess the lucky suit was doing its job.

The Crossing

We finally got to the town of Calais after one short argument about which way to turn. I was wrong as usual. We motored up to the border station and waited on a fairly short line.

This picture was taken from the US side of the bridge and shows the fairly small and uncomfortable booth that the customs people sit in.

Here are some pics that were taken while we waited in line to supply correct answers to questions like: Do you have any firearms, explosives, or alcohol with you?

I was tempted to answer... "No, I left all the fun stuff at home." But the young lady that was asking the questions looked kinda mean so I behaved myself and was granted access to the nation of Canada.

Good thing too. I was the first one across, so I stopped and waited for Jimmy to provide correct answers. I had my camera ready because I was sure that he would mistakenly tell the truth about something and get hauled off to jail and I wanted to get it all documented for the big law suit against Canada. Turns out I was the one who got in trouble. Another customs agent came and made me erase all my border crossing shots. I guess he was right, after all, he said, "You might be a terrorist that wants to attack this installation". I just didn't realize that the border crossing from a small Maine town was high on the list of terrorist targets.

So now we were all officially "American Tourists in Canada", and as such we did the logical thing and stopped at the first Visitor Center we saw.

The nice lady gave us lots of Maps and stuff and was very friendly. There was a dish of Dulse on the counter so we brought some out for Jimmy who was thrilled to receive it.

Here are some action shots of the gang heading East on Route 1.

Having skipped breakfast to run ahead of the rain, we were all thinking pretty seriously about lunch. We stopped at a nice roadside place somewhere near St. George Parish. They had nice covered picnic tables and we could eat right near our bikes so we didn't have to worry about the Canadian terrorists stealing our stuff.

The specialty was "Fish and Chips", so that's what we ordered. Here are the obligatory food pictures.

Jimmy at the window.

Fish n' Chips and Jeffie's Dessert.

Which he shared with the whole crew so no one of us had to consume all those calories. It was good though!

We saw this guy with a ventriloquist puppet.

My son Alex is has a real interest in Ventriloquism. This reminded me of how much I was missing him and Donna.

After lunch we headed East again on Route 1.

Through St. John and Moncton and then we see the "Welcome to Nova Scotia" sign and the official NS Visitors center. It was getting a bit late in the day so we stopped to get some more maps and some help finding a place to stay. We met some Harley riders in the parking lot who traveled about 15 minutes ahead of us and got soaked! All the concern about rain proved to be nothing. Pete's lucky rain suit to the rescue!

Inside the Visitors Center we met Becky who got us reservations at the Wandlyn Inn and gave us directions to get there. She also gave us an 800 phone number that we could use to get hotel info and reservations throughout our trip. We found out later that using that number usually gets you premium rates as well. Advice to those that follow: Use the number to find where you want to stay and then make the reservations at the hotel's desk.