Saturday, June 6th

Inland

A host of clouds had arrived over night. Now they were shrouding the peaks and forest in gloomy mist. Much like nature, I was in a sad, gloomy mood, too. It was time to leave the buzz of the coast behind and hunt for both sun and solace inland.

The road off the island was already busy at ten on this Saturday morning. Perhaps more people were trying to flee. Yet again through Ellsworth. There, several people were jogging along the main highway. Surely, there must be better paths even here. Out of town towards the north I followed an RV with Californian plates. Someone else was a long way away from home.

Away from the coast, civilization quickly disappeared. For a while, only the dark grey band of asphalt remained. But not for long and there was Lucerne, a few houses, Lucerne Station, Lucerne Inn, and, most importantly, Lucerne Golf Club. Beyond farmland slowly returned.

I circumnavigated Bangor quickly on the motorway and turn north-west again. I had arrived in farm country for good. Even though I couldn’t see and fields yet, tractors were parked everywhere as a certain sign. As the number of properties shrunk, their purpose became ever so more clearly farming. Each had at least one large barn. Tractors and worse things were peeking through the open doors.

This changed only for a series of little villages. Exeter was first. Some homes, some—farm-related—businesses, two surprise turns for the highway, and back to farmland. The next village sat by a river-cum-lake. The one after had a blue factory with a covered walkway across the street.

And so it continued. Forests, farms, bushland, lakes, rivers. The sun had come out a while ago, but the shadows of clouds were still chasing along the empty road. The world was at peace here, probably would forever be.

Ahead towards the west a range of mountains slowly began to rise. First, though, Madison, a slightly bigger town with an actual red-brick main street. One of its buildings had been converted into an event and music hall. Main Street ended down the hill by a river. To its left was a stubby concrete smokestack of a factory, abandoned or alive. Beyond the river crossing, the road turned north for a while before turning west again.

It climbed up a hill and, up top, the landscape opened for a wonderful view of what was to come: mountains, quite tall and covered in dark-green, almost black trees. The White Mountains, perhaps, but the map, a road atlas by nature, wasn’t entirely trustworthy on these matters.

But first down again, into another river valley, to follow that river for a while. I stopped at a designated scenic river-view, which once again proved that the term scenic is being used rather liberally by the highway authorities. Some people used the lookout as access to the river instead and were out swimming. That surely must have been rather cold.

Then river and road started their ascend into the mountains. The tallest of these was Sugarloaf Mountain, 4237 feet tall. Rather free standing, it rose to the left of the road, bare headed yet decorated with some antennas and what looked like ski lifts. Sugarloaf Center further hinted at some tender winter sports activities.

The closeness of the Canadian border, a mere thirty-seven miles away, was asserted by a moose warning sign.

Only a little more climbing was necessary to reach a pass and with it an entrance to the Appalachian Trail. I had crossed it a week or so ago near its southern start and here I was very close to its northern end. It had been finished close to here, too, in 1937. I considered hiking it a bit. The weather was quite excellent for once. But the next four-thousand feet mountain was a good six miles away, too far to start a round trip well past noon.

A leaflet at the information panel advised hikers to look out for clues regarding the disappearance of Geraldine Largay. A picture showed her, happy and proud with her large backpack, unaware of her fate. The picture was two years old by now. Her disappearance was still a mystery.

West of the Appalachian main ridge, the trees turned from dominantly deciduous to pine. There was fewer of them, too, more bushland and meadows. Down again, after Stratton, I left the Canada-bound highway: West! West!

Up again onto a plateau, this was a properly lonely mountain road. Twenty miles before the next village. The map showed a named dot in between, but reality didn’t much care. The river to the left was called the Dead River, surely with reason.

Eventually, another highway came up from the south and together the two roads enjoyed a valley full of lakes, always a good excuse for human activity, before returning to a wilderness of trees and bushes.

This, to my mind, was what this country had been made for: rolling along an empty straight road, cruise control set to nearly sixty miles per hour, through an endless landscape that couldn’t care less whether people called it boring. At the end of the day, there waited soft sheets and terrible TV and, mysteriously, a chat with people thousands of miles away.

The suggestion to perish if living freely wasn’t an option, disturbed my thoughts. I had indeed crossed back into New Hampshire and was quickly approaching Errol, a tiny village with a large store selling everything one could possibly need out here: warm cloths, fishing gear, guns, beer mugs and little statuettes of moose in silly poses.

Outside, a wide array of ATVs was parked, all-terrain vehicles, the love child of a motorbike and a snow mobile. The area was littered with ATV trails. Noising around the mountains in these things had become a rather popular pastime with the outdoorsy.

The next mountain ridge featured a number of wind turbines. They indeed completely ruined the farms in the valley.

There were more moose warning signs, too, but sadly New Hampshire had chickened out of the task to draw a moose and instead just spelled out the name. There were more warning signs, suggesting that a hellish piece of road was to follow. It indeed entered into a steep vee-shaped valley. A little climb, a roller-coaster crest, down again. That was it. One more warning sign obviously had been missing: Anticlimax ahead.

Down was another river. Both road signs and map agreed that this was in fact the Connecticut River. Up here it was a mere ten metre or so wide, but it still wound lazily along a valley floor and through green bushland. For perhaps three thirds of its journey it also served as the border between New Hampshire and its western neighbour. So, as I crossed it I ventured into this journey’s seventeenth state, Vermont. It called itself the Green Mountain State and consequently everything from highway shields to license plates was green.

The westbound road had to climb into mountains again, since the valley floor was already Quebec. It decided it couldn’t keep up with that and, after the next border station, decided to head south. It was joined by a railway line that had arrived from Canada. Together they travelled through grassland hills and along many a lake. Off in the distance another mountain range arose.

Their destination was Newport which brought the return of something I hadn’t seen for hours: traffic lights. To ease me in, the first few lights were green but closer to the centre the serial red returned, too.

The city had a slightly odd arrangement. After town had gone for quite some time, a lake appeared with a lovely park at its shore. Downtown finally emerged after the street crossed the lake and moved one block to the left. It had a rather mangled appearance since two or three of its buildings were missing and replaced by something that looked suspiciously like a archaeological dig. Onwards, Main Street climbed up a hill to meet with a large grey-stone church that had not one but two bell towers.

Beyond dig and lights was grassland again. A little stream wound madly along the floor of a wide valley that aimed towards the mountain range. The valley remained wide all the way up to the pass. Down again into another, equally wide valley. This its own river, too, though it was rather wide. The road was joined by the alignment of a former railway that had been converted into a trail. Frequently it crossed the highway, making it perhaps not the most fun bike trail. At each crossing, signs warned that no motor vehicles were allowed on the trail and that the speed limit was thirty-five, quite a feat for cyclists, hikers, or riders.

Eonsburg Falls, another dot on the map, turned out to be both rather big and rather busy. Cars were humming around and turned on and off the highway everywhere. That highway had been fenced off for a stretch in the centre for some kind of festivity. Unfortunately, the committee had forgotten to sign a detour, perhaps not anticipating that strangers would wander into their town. I took a guess and built my own detour and indeed came out correctly at the other side of town.

The landscape had gotten flatter and flatter. It wasn’t yet prairie-flat, but a formidable collection of grain silos assured that it was at least flat enough for large scale farming. But soon enough new mountains hazily appeared far off in the distance. A little before finishing the distance countdown to St. Albans, I arrived at a southbound motorway. Under the watchful eye of an observatory atop a lone mountain, I turned onto this very road. Twenty-odd miles to the south was Burlington, largest city of Vermont, chosen as today’s destination. Unfortunately, Vermont didn’t believe in posting the names of available hotels before Interstate exit but merely hinted mysteriously that services were available at the next four exits. Eventually, I found a roof for the night.

The evening was still lovely. The sun set over the mountains in the west and evening turned into starry night. While I had managed to shake the clouds, my heart was still heavy. But it had been a good day. And, really, what more can you ask?