Return Mile 0: BROOKLIN, MAINE
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| Bar Harbor with Cruiser |
The biking portion of our journey is really, truly
over. Yesterday, we drove our car to Bar
Harbor (or as they might say here “drove th’ cah t’ Bah Hahbah”), where we had
our bikes and Bobs boxed, and ate the most astonishing and delicious meal. After wandering the tourist town which was
full of German tourists who had just disembarked from a cruise ship, we looked
at a variety of restaurants, but nothing appealed. We asked one of the guys at the bike shop where
we could get “some real food for real people.”
He thought for a moment, then leaned in as if to tell us a secret. “Well,”
he whispered, “if you go down the driveway next to the shop, and go a little
ways further, you’ll find a bagel shop.
You have to be nice to the German lady there, and you can get some of
the best food you will ever eat.”
We walked down the dirt alley, past a big fellow woodworking
in the warm fall sun, into a rough courtyard, where there was a small, rather
rundown building marked Bagel Factory.
Inside, there were two tiny tables, and one woman working the ovens. We ask what kind of bagels she has, and she
replies, “None.” We were taken
aback. “But if you wait 4 minutes, I’ll
have the next batch right out of the oven.”
Great. I order poppy seed and Wes
orders sesame. We ask about the beans
and rice scrawled on the chalkboard menu.
“That’s gone. The only thing I’ve
got is chili.” That’s fine. “If you want
something to drink, I have coffee, tea, and some hot spiced cider that has some
hard cider in it, but I think all the alcohol has burnt off.” We’ll
have some cider too.
The fresh, hot bagels were the best I have ever tasted. The vegie chili with tofu, dried tomatoes,
and bits of fresh rosemary was deeply savory, and the cider crackling without
being overly sweet. While we are oohing
and aahing over the simple, great food, while visiting with the proprietor/chef
Agnes, another fellow comes in, tries to order the beans and rice, only to be
steered to the chili by Agnes, with our enthusiastic endorsement. Why the beans and rice dish is not erased
from the board, I can’t say. When we go
to pay the bill, Agnes tots the charge and says $8.60. Back at the bike shop, when we tell of our
experience in this “only the locals know” diner, the bike guys nod. “Agnes is a
treasure…and a master chef…you’ll never get better.” We would have to agree.
But back in the story of our journey
across the continent, we are still on the North Shore of Lake Erie, about to
meet some of the most memorable people of the trip…..
The back and forth cycling from the highway to the shore and
back again has made for a very long day.
When we finally arrive in the town of Dunnville, the sun is glowing red
on the horizon. The town, with its
crooked High Street and the Queen’s Gate Pub right on the corner, looks like it
was lifted from Britain’s Midlands and plopped down in Canada’s flat farmlands. We make our way up the river road to the one
and only motel in this town of about 5,000 people. The Riverview looks quite typical when we
pull in and we think we are in for another night in plastic-land. The room, however, was such a pleasant surprise. Not only was it big, clean, and well-equipped
(as well as reasonably priced), it has a really beautiful view of the lush and
lovely Grand River not 30 feet out the window.
We open the curtains as wide as possible and watch the shimmering river
turn red, then orange, then pink, then purple as the sun slips away. We see geese, swans, and ducks. In the distance, we hear the clattering of
cranes.
Instead of walking into the quaint downtown, as recommended
by our hosts Zina and George, we choose to go the Chinese restaurant next
door. The hostess is a very tiny, round
faced woman with softly curled hair and a frightened expression. Her English is quite limited and she seems new
to her job, and perhaps to this continent.
She tries to steer us to the buffet, but that is more food than we want,
so she seats us alone in a separate dining room away from the other
guests. This particular Chinese
restaurant has a full bar, and lists a martini on the menu, which Wes decides
to order. The hostess had heard of a
martini. She runs into the next room
and grabs the lone Anglo waitress, who comes back and asks, “What did you order?” A gin martini, Wes replies. The waitress says, “Well, I’ve never made one
before, but I’ll give it a try.”
Less brave souls would have rescinded their order at this
point, but not Wes. It takes several
minutes and two more stops at our table, “What’s the other alcohol that goes in
the drink?” Vermouth. “I don’t know if we have any vermouth…” In the end, Wes got a chilled shot of gin
with no vermouth and no olive or twist in whiskey glass. Then the hostess forgot to put the drink on
our bill, and ended up chasing us down in the parking lot as we walked back to
the motel. “Mister, mister…you need to pay for drink!”
Up the next morning, we have to satisfy Wes’ latte
addiction, so we make our way to the teeming Tim Horton’s. While enjoying our yogurt and coffee, a
fellow comes up to us and asks if we are the owners of the bikes outside. When we confirm we are, he launches into a
big disquisition about how we need to get electric motors on those bikes. “Sure does make goin’ up those hills easier. But you want to know the best part?” Sure, why not? “You can go as fast as motorcycle with them
motors, but you don’t have to get ‘em licensed like a motorcycle. When I was living up by Toronto and had my license
taken away, that’s what I did. I got me
an electric bike and I could go everywhere and didn’t think nuthin’ of it.”
The fellow is a bit of a blatherskite and in the next few
minutes, we find out that he is pro-windmill, anti-gun, thinks Canadian
politicians are as crooked as American, calls his wife “The Boss”, and has a
son in prison. When we are leaving, he
and “The Boss” are having a noisy confrontation over her desire to buy an ice
cream birthday cake a week in advance. “But,
Honey, if you buy it now, you will just eat now and we’ll have to buy it again.”
Our powers of observation are not so keen, however, when we
return to the highway. Some miles later,
when we haven’t returned to the lakeshore, and certain expected landmarks haven’t
appeared, it finally dawns on us that the road sign has a crown on it, meaning
we have been following Canada National Highway 3 instead Haldimand County 3. We finally come to an intersection where we
are faced with a choice: leave the national highway and take the long scenic
way to Port Colborne, or take the short busy way to town. Long scenic wins.
We have just turned the corner to return to the lake when
another cyclist pulls up beside us. He
is a tall, lean, older man riding a mountain bike. He asks about our trip and we begin a long
conversation that takes us nearly to Port Colburne, where he lives in a
beautiful house on the shores of Lake Erie.
His name is Chris. He was raised
in the wilds of Quebec 400 miles north of Montreal, in the French speaking outback
near Hudson Bay. He had come to this area
at the age of 19. He was 70 now,
although he had the body and the bearing of a much younger man. He had worked for years at the Nanticoke
Generating Station, the continent’s largest coal powered power plant.
We had cycled past this enormous—and shuttered-- edifice the
day before and were shocked by the 20 foot tall pipes bringing water from the
lake to plant. When Wes asks Chris about
the wind turbines, he responds by talking about how much he disagreed with
closing the power plant. He insisted
that it was possible to use coal cleanly.
He also talked about the huge disruption created by closing the plant. Not only were many thousands of union power
plant workers released, but it affected all sorts of coal shipping jobs,
railroad jobs, and power line transmission jobs. The turbines weren’t adding the local economy
at all, in his view. Still, he was
retired with a good pension and had turned his attention to becoming a wind
surfer. He said that the winds were quite
odd this summer (as we had experienced this summer with our endless southeast
winds). On normal years, he said,
westerly winds raised 20 foot waves on the eastern end of the lake where he
lived. It was considered one of the
prime wind-surfing areas in the world.
When we came to his house, he asked if we wanted any water,
but we demurred. (I wish we had; it
would have been interesting to see his place).
Instead, we asked where was a good place to get something to eat. He immediately mentioned a place we heard as
the Eatery, but soon find out is Eataly. The food is Italian and delicious and we find
ourselves in conversation with a group of bikers both older and more out of
shape than we are. They are immodestly
dressed in bikers’ jerseys and ask all sorts of questions about our trip and
our equipment. An older blonde woman
spent a good bit of time trying to cajole her pudgy husband that THEY needed to
take a bike trip, too.
After all our company leaves, and Wes and I have to make our
way to the bike route which begins at the intersection of the Welland Canal, which connects Lakes Erie and Ontario and
the Erie/Niagara Parkway. We are crabby
as hell. This general malaise has
occurred on and off throughout the trip.
There was not one thing either of us was doing right (according to the
other), and the afternoon promised to be a long slog of sniping at each other
as we pedaled along. We had just made
about 5 miles when a young man with full panniers pulls up beside us, engages
us in conversation and changes that moment and the rest of the day, night, and
next morning…
That is a story for the next installment….
Posted from Des Moines, Iowa
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