Day 8.130: Peddling his pedaling

E5N1 was very keen for me to take a video of him cycling and post it on the blog so that you can see how much better he is now than a year ago.

For reference - here he was on Day 7.150 (on Day 7.130 it would have been rather less impressive!)

And this was yesterday (including the still above):

Day 7.228: Cycling Piscataquis

Today didn't go quite as planned thanks to Exile #4 and, to a lesser extent, E5N1 coming down with what Americans tend to call "stomach flu".

Anyway, rather than dwelling on that, Here's the last part of our vacation recap.

On our last day (a week ago), we packed up the car, checked out of our chalet-motel by the lake in Greenville Junction (Piscataquis County) and went out to use the bikes we'd been carting around for the last five days.

We cycled along part of a rail trail very close to where we'd been staying. The views in a couple of spots were stunning. Wildlife sightings were limited to a few birds (including this belted kingfisher) and a few insects (including this spectacular white-marked tussock moth caterpillar). Eventually, the trail became rather big stones which were probably better for standing up to the rigours of the ATVs that use the trail than for the comfort of cyclists so we decided to turn around.

In all, we cycled about six miles, then we packed the bikes back into/onto the car and started our journey home. Although it was not much cycling, I'm glad we got organised to carry the bikes, it gives us new options and we proved to ourselves that it works out pretty well.

Day 7.205: Exile #2's Sunday Column #16

Exile #2 writes...

We never meant it to happen but our years in upstate NY made us a little more sedentary than we were in the UK. The age of the children, the sheer scale of things and for at least some of the year, the weather, made us rely on our cars. We could no longer easily walk to the dentist, to school or the shops. Nor could Exile #1 bike to work any more. We hiked plenty, of course and eventually Exile #1 became The Running Man but for the everyday stuff we drove.

Apart from the weather, things are a little different here in Maine and we are beginning to stretch our legs again. In particular, with E5N1 now being happy on two wheels, new opportunities present themselves. We biked over to his school playground on Friday and met up with a new friend of Exile #4. We can walk or bike to the local shops and today we discovered a new excitement, the Eastern Trail. This is an old railway line that is being gradually restored to provide an off road hiking/biking trail from Kittery to Portland. Parts of it are fully functional now and one of those begins not too far from where we live.

We weren't sure how it was going to go, it being the first time the whole lot of us had taken to two wheels together and barring one friendly entanglement with a couple of other cyclists, we had a great time. We rode some miles to a local preserve, explored the falls and cycled back.

I think we might finally have found a way to use up E5N1's energy as he looked ready to drop this evening. Still, it could be because, unlike the rest of us, he celebrated getting home by eating lunch and then...going to ride his bike.