Our planned departure is Tuesday, It's Saturday and the Bay Line Ferry posted that they would be cancelling the Monday trip to Yarmouth due to high winds and seas from hurricane Hermine, The Tuesday ferry is still scheduled to run, as of Monday evening. The ferry leaves Portland at 2:00 PM, so we plan to leave home around 11:30.
Tuesday morning is overcast, with drizzle and a few showers, no big deal, an hour's ride and we are on the ferry. yeah, like I said, 'so much for plans' at about 8:30 AM we get an e-mail, an e-mail mind you, not even a phone call! from the Bay Lines Ferry Terminal, telling us the ferry is cancelled for today... Back to square one...
The Hell with it, pack up, we'll drive up to Calais, Maine, and wing it.
The rain has stopped for the moment, we finish packing, opt not to don our rain gear and hit the road. We still have a few stops to make in town and eventually get rolling about 11:00. An hour into the ride I get a warning light telling me my front tire pressure is low, great... Somehow I checked everything on the bike except the tires. The tires are brand new, but I had a problem with the rear tire loosing air just a week earlier. The tubeless tire had not sealed properly. My motorcycle riding partner amigo Paul was able to figure out the problem and get it fixed. Now I'm thinking I have the same issue with the front tire. We pull over, the pressure is down, but not real low. I get my little compressor out and bring it up. We'll have to keep and eye on it. Luckily my KTM has tire pressure sensors that I can check easily while we are riding. another 50 miles and everything looks good.
We encounter a bit a drizzle, a few quick showers, but nothing yet that requires rain gear. After a few boring hours on the Maine Turnpike we exit in Bangor and head up route 9 to Calais. At Calais, we cross into Sint Stephen, Canada, eh. It's 4:30 our time, but we realize that New Brunswick is on Atlantic time, so we loose an hour. 5 hours in the saddle, time to find a room for the night. The GPS tells us of a few motels and two B&B's close by. We stop at the Blair House B&B and find the owner out back stacking firewood, (a reminder of what we don't have to do anymore!). He has one room left, only problem two twin beds, We ask about other places in the area, the other Inn is full, he tells us, as is the 'nice' motel, the other motel has rooms, but "you may want to look at a room before you commit!" he says with a dry British accent. We opt for the twin beds. The Inn is a beautiful old Victorian home built by a young widow of a sea captain back in 1860.
The town of area that is the town of Saint Stephen lies on the St. Croix river and was home to the native Passamaquoddy. In 1600's they were unceremoniously removed from their land by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain. The town is known for it's Chocolate Festival and has a Chocolate Museum. Other than that, it doesn't appear to be a major tourist destination. Restaurants are in short supply, so we were left eating pizza and salad at the Pizza Delight...no seafood in sight.
David, our host came over from England in 1975 and met his with Judy. Judy is an local art teacher and David runs the Inn. David served us a superb breakfast of fresh fruit, blueberry pancakes, eggs, bacon and homemade bread.
We decide, since accommodations might be trickier than we thought, to try and book something on-line for Wednesday night before we hit the road. The small town of Alma, on the Bay of Fundy, looks like a reasonable destination. We book a room at the Parkview Village Inn, overlooking the water, looks nice on the internet.
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