A lane of her own

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Priscilla stumbled upon the mother of all bike lanes. She was riding along a highway with a fairly large shoulder, which was rather nice and all, when she (and the cars-- boo, cars!) encountered some road construction. The cars all jammed up, and after a few minutes the active construction ended but the left lane (freshly resurfaced) was still blocked off for a several miles. As Priscilla passed the final construction worker (a flag lady), she gave a jaunty wave (maybe) and the flag lady motioned for her to ride in the left lane (definitely for real)! Oh, yes, she had that whole perfect lane all to herself before all the cars could come and scuff it up and leak toxic fluids on it. And you know how newly resurfaced roads have a bit of leftover tarry grit that kicks up and makes a prickly rain sound on your car? Can you imagine the sort of mess that must have made on Priscilla's gear? Except... when she set out that morning, the road ahead looked misty and drizzly, so she wrapped everything in plastic. It turns out it wasn't misty at all, but the plastic kept everything clean. So hooray for all that.

Today Priscilla might not have enjoyed a lane all to herself, but she did enjoy a thoroughly lovely day. She started a little late (11:45 or so-- she didn't say why, but we could pretend she was watching the soaps-- ha! What kind of friend am I? Spreading rumors about her watching soap operas... tsk tsk tsk). Her route was mostly along back roads, through woods, along rivers, under trees that are turning all sorts of colors. After a while she started to see signs that said "USA 10 kilometers" and then "USA 5 kilometers" and then "USA 600 meters" and then "USA 100 meters" and she got inexplicably excited. So much so that she even took pictures of the signs! Unfortunately, once she crossed the border (and that went fine-- unlike the ushers at the movies, the border guards were totally cool with her bringing in her own food), her phone lost all signal and hasn't had any since, so she can't share said pictures with us. Canada, she said, was positively swarming with signal. But Maine, not so much.

She carried on biking and eventually arrived at Lambert Lake, where she is spending the night with some very nice people who gave her dinner and use of their land line (thanks, people!). Tomorrow she plans to head out along Rte 6, through much more densely inhabited areas than originally planned (the original route had included a stay in a "town" that appears to consist of one road crossing another, but no actual houses or buildings or indications of human habitation), aiming to reach LaGrange tomorrow night.