You can go home again......

Howdy, ya'll. This is my first ride report. Back in the day, my motorcycle was my main mode of transport and I put many, many miles on every spring, summer and fall. Then came love, then came marriage, then came my kids in a baby carriage. I'm 100% okay with not being a "true" rider anymore. I had my day and I'll have it again, but my family means more to me than anything and I understand the risk every time I hop on the bike.
I live outside of Denver, CO now. I grew up in Northern Maine and my neice is the 7th generation to have been born in my home town. We've got roots there that are so deep than almost nobody leaves. Except me. Almost all of my family lives within a 5 mile radius.

In 1989, my grandfather and dad bought 100 acres of land for the grand sum of $10,000. Gramp eventaully signed it over to dad and dad to me. I have a right of way to the land that needed to be cleared, so what better excuse to do a run to Maine?

There will be flying involved. All riding was done in Maine.

Some warnings - stop reading if you dislike the following:

1. Mass amounts of weaponry
2. The murder of small, vicious woodchucks
3. Attgatt (or however you spell it) - not me, but others
4. Stuipidity
5. Taxidermy
6. Public drunkeness

That's my disclaimer. Now let's get it started!

This is my best friend Brent.



Brent and I hung out off and on since we were thirteen. He'd sneeked (yes, I know it isn't a word) into being my best friend, always showing up when I had nothing to do and always impressing me with his ability to outrun the cops on a motorcycle. He wasn't my first choice on the friend list. Didn't drink. Didn't smoke. Didn't do drugs. Worst of all, he couldn't have gotten laid in a whorehouse with a fist full of $50 dollar bills and a smile on his face.

Just to give you some history:





In this picture, he's standing in his mobile home. Notice what is behind him. He eventaully swapped the mobile home to my dad for a pistol. No kidding.









Brent's likes, in no particular order:

1. Women
2. Crazy women
3. Guns
4. Motorcycles
5. Guns
6. Motorcycles
7. Beef jerky
8. Red Bull



This is Brent and I back in the college days. I know what you're thinking. Tom Selleck wishes his mustache was as cool as mine. My good friend Jimmy refers to it as my molestache.

I like all the same things.

This is me.



Not really, but it kinda looks like me. Someone found this picture on the internet and sent it to me. Perhaps my dad jumped the fence in some southern trailer park.

Me:

I headed for Denver International Airport at 4pm. Did my usual walk through and was totally creeped out by the big friggin' blue horse they planted outside of the airport.



Seriously?

Google "DIA Conspiracy Theory". Strange stuff.

Anyhizzle, I set off through security and all that crap, got onto my airplane, then had to wait an hour (on the plane) for weather to pass.

Destination, Boston. Arrival time, 1:30am. Suckage. I was going to have to rent a car in Boston and drive to Hudson (near Bangor), Maine. 4.5 hours, according to the nerds at mapquest.

Here is the airport:




Here is my plane:





I arrived in Boston an hour late. Got on the cell to let Brent know I was on the ground.

Me : "93 north to the 95, right?"

Brent : "Sounds right."

I stopped in my tracks. "Its 1:30 in the freakin' a.m. and it sounds right? Aight, dude, go back to bed." I noticed a woman's voice in the background. He's easily distracted.

By that time I was totally wasted from lack of sleep. I looked for the rental car signs. As I walked down the stairs, I saw a dude that looked familiar. Sure enough, Brent.

"Thought you might need a ride! How about jumping in with me? Maybe we'll take 93 North....hahaha!"

I was overjoyed to see him. I had no clue how I was going to stay awake long enough to drive to his house.

We walked to the parking garage and Brent stopped cold.

"Dude, where's my car?"

"Uh.....I dunno. I wasn't here when you parked it."

"No no no no.......it was RIGHT here."

"Uh, okay. Maybe we will get the rental."

"Where is my car?"

"Maybe on another parking level?"

"No, it was right here."

Uh oh........

Oh ... oh ... this is gonna be good.

After going floor to floor in a panic for ten minutes, we found Brent's car.



Relief! In Boston it could've easily been A.) Stolen or B.) Towed. Neither of which anyone wants to deal with at 2am. Especially in frickin' Beantown. You have to understand that being from Northern Maine, we think that there should be at least a week out of the year when we have an open hunting season on people from the Boston area....you know, to like control the population in stuff. Being that generation after generation stays in Northern Maine, it is an unspoken understanding that if you go to a place like boston and get lost, you might remain lost forever.

We set out heading for 93 North and were quickly rerouted due to an accident or construction - not sure which. Our detour landed us in the middle of Boston with no signs. Luckily, Brent-o had himself one of those new-fangled GPS things. I'd never used one before. He set it up on his dash and said the equvalent of watch this. In no time the GPS had us back on 93 North, headed for home.

Boston:





Portland, ME:





We got to Brent's place around 6:30am an promptly crashed.

I was up by 10:00am and figured I'd check the status of the bikes.

This is Brent's place. He almost bought it last year. The owner showed up at the closing and owed way more than he offered to sell it to Brent for, so the bank wouldn't close. The seller promptly disappeared. Brent has been living there for nearly a year......rent free. He refers to himself as a "squatter". The bank still hasn't foreclosed. Too bad for Brent. It's the perfect bachelor pad.

Where I slept:



True bachelor pad randomness:











The outside:



To the left:



To the right:



Across the road:





I sold my last real motorcycle in 2002 after I got married. I sold it to Brent's brother, Chris. I sold it to Chris with 23,000 miles on it, most of them done by me. When I found her in the garage, she didn't look much different than when I left her, save the torn seat. I looked on the clock - 26,000 miles. Brent claimed to have put more than half of those on her.



I bought this bike in 1998 and rode the daylights out of it until I sold it to Chris. No major journeys, but lots of small road trips. She's a 1991 Honda Nighthawk. Heavey? Yes. Underpowered? Yes. Reliable? Stone. I looked around Brent's garage an saw his TL1000 and an xs400 cafe racer he's working on.





The tl1000 will suck the eyeballs outta yer head and impail mosquitos into your teeth. Probably one of the fastest bikes I've ridden.

I fired up the nighthawk. Started same as she did when I sold her. I cruised down the road trying both my new riding jacket (hey, vents are NICE!) and the bike. I could tell that the chain needed tightening. I'm not sure I could've figured that out riding a strange bike, but I know her. She is familiar to me. It really is like an old girlfriend. You have fond memories, but within minutes, you remember why you got rid of her. I spent the rest of the morning adjusting the chain and doing odds and ends, waiting for Brent-o to wake up.

Maybe you two are brothers!

Brent-o got up and fired up some breakfast. Within an hour we were on bikes and headed for Bangor in search of lunch. We eat a lot. There is a bakery in Bangot that is run by Fransiscan (I know I probably spelled that wrong) Monks. Great stuff. That's where we were headed, but they close at 2pm. Bummer. If you're cruising through Bangor and aren't completely anti-Catholic, check it out.

I used to think Bangor was a slum with a mall. Brent, over the past few years, has shown me that it actually has a rich historical heritage and a cool old down town area.

We bumbled around Bangor a bit:















Then we went to the base. Brent works in the Jet Engine Troop working on, well, jet engines. I can't believe the government trusts this dude with jet engines. The again, look at who el presidente is.

When we got to the base, brent's bike started to pee.



Silly puppy!

The radiator leak seems to have happened because Brent just had the radiator repaired and maybe overfilled the tank. It kept doing it all through our travels, but the heat guage said it was okay and it ran great. Who knows.
We stopped by the base and Brent showed me around.











There was a honda shadow in the parking lot of Brent's building. He told me that the guy who rides it low sides it all the time and regularly wipes out. Wouldn't you stop riding?

Brent introduced me to the guy inside and when he smiled, he had summer teeth (summer there, sum aren't). No kidding.

After the base, we decided to run down the coast to Rockland. It is following route one and possibly one of my favorite rides ever.

Frankfort:











I love this field. It looks like God just sprinkled stones like salt. I think there are bluberry plants there, too.



At last....the Atlantic....way off on the horizon.

keep it coming

Bringing back some memories here. I lived in Boston for several years & made many spur of the moment trips to Maine. Civilization ended at Bangor when we got on the Airline (Rt. 9?) and headed for St. Stephen N.B. If memory serves it was about 128 miles of woods from Bangor to Calais. Would be a great ride on a bike.

That's some hard drinkin' sons a bitches up there son. Lots of stories from those trips.

That's a crazy stretch of road, for sure. And Calais......man, what the heck is there in Calais? I had two buddies who went to tech school thee. They came home to visit every weekend because they were tired of getting drunk!

We finally started riding beside the ocean. I've been in Colorado for more than a few years now and if there is one thing I miss, it is the water. I'm an ocean guy, for sure. As we wound through Searsport and Belfast, a flood of memories came back to me. I met my wife in 2000. We were both doing volunteer years in Americorps, her in Rockland, me in Presque Isle. After a night of drinking and guitar playing in Waterville at one of our district meetings, we emailed each other every day for three months. I was engaged at the time and she was doing her best to play the gypsy. In March we couldn't hold back any longer. I dumped the fiancee and started trecking back and forth to Rockland every weekend on my motorcycle. Every Friday afternoon, I'd load my saddle bags, don my leathers and run for the I-95 to the curves of Route 1.

Here I was, seven years later, on my old bike, taking this route that I loved so much back then. All I could think about was her.

Every time I arrived in Rockland back then, she had a Guiness and a smoke waiting for me on her balcony. What a woman. I married her six months after we got together, a year after meeting her. It'll be seven years in September. No regrets.

It was good to see all of the little flea markets alive and kicking. They're a sign of true summer. While Route 1 is a happening place in the summer, it is practically a ghostly corridor in the winter. Lots of shops close, the flea markets disappear and traffic is just a suggestion.





Proof to my wife that I was wearing my helmet, just like I promised....











We stopped in Lincolnville to get fresh batteries for the camera and stretch our legs.



Cool little drive through town, under rated in comparrison with other coastal towns. There is a pub there (The Whale's Tooth) where on Friday nights they have a guy at the piano (or used to, this was years ago) that would take requests all night. Yell out any classic song and he'd play it. He actually did a Disney montage that would blow your mind.

We looked into Monroe Salt works, which is like an independently owned Pottery Barn type store. Blows my mind that stores like this actually work on the coast. Awesome store, the kind I love to spend money at, but it would tank her in Colorado.



The Islesboro Ferry....John Travolta and Kirstie Alley had places on Islesboro for awhile. Not sure if they still do. The Denny's in Rockland used to be open all night. Ruor was it was because Travolta got a speeding ticket on time trying to get there before closing.







Pondering life....



Oh, hi!



Say Wha.....?



Brently parked nose-down on a hill. Push, boy, push!



Off and running again...

A little Brent-o in the rearview...



Camden by the sea, Rockland by the smell!



I actually worked in Camden for a year. They had highschool kids killing themselves like lemmings off a cliff. Beautiful town, but some real deep issues. I always wondered if it was the mercury in the fish?

Tide out in Rockland:



Our first aparment. We lived on the third floor. The guy who owned it bought it in the 1990's for $200k. Eight units. $500.00 a month for each unit. You do the math.

There was a guy and his wife who lived on the first floor. They had lived there since the 1940's, renting the whole time. He told me he had a chance to buy the building one time for $9,000. I asked him why he didn't......"Too damn expensive for me, son!"

I think regret was a bitter pill.

We also had religious neighbors. They humped loudly. It was embarassing.

Brent and I stopped at Waterworks. This is where I had my first date with my wife. I had no clue she was into me until that point. I walked into the pub, she stood to greet me. We sit down to order. I look at her hand and see her thumb shaking. I thought to myself, "Either she's got Parkinsens, or I'm in!





Our waitress was cool. Typical Mainer in her 20's. She asked me if I was "from away." It's a Maine thing. Much like Sonofawhores and dooryards.

Some shots from around town:









They rebuilt the Strand a few years back. They show mostly indies and have live performances. Today they were showing "Son of Rambow". Looks funny.





I think Brent-o was full!



And we hit the road again.....

This is a great report.

Thanks!