Maine to Georgia- 2015

Before I get to my post, just a quick note --  I knew this was coming, but didn't realized that as of Jan , 2016 Live Writer would not work with Blogspot.  (At least that's what I read on-line and appears to be the case when I tried to pubish my blog!).  So of course I wrote my catchup blog on LiveWriter and had to copy it to Blogger to post. So it will not look like I originally wrote it.   I will be on the lookout for a replacement ( I just saw that there is now an Open Live Writer that appears to be Live Writer but no longer associated with Microsoft) .  If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

 Back to my Travel blog---

I am always late with my blog, but not usually this far behind.  Since much of what I did on my drive from Maine to Georgia I have done before I am going to do a catchup blog (or 2) that will cover the middle of September to the end of the year.

After leaving Canada, I stopped back in Bar Harbor, ME to do a bit of hiking, biking and get my hair cut by the same person who cut it in May!

A shot from one of my favorite trails, Beech Cliff trail -


I spent more time in the Schoodic District this time -


I walked several miles along the loop road a couple of days.  Below is a shot from one of my rest stops during those walks.

After leaving Bar Harbor, I headed to Boothbay, ME.  I stayed at Shore Hills Campground, Sept 26 – 28 (nice private cmpgrnd).  While there I visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.  I would like to see this garden in the Spring.







 

In addition to flowers and plants, they had several trails.  On one of them you pass Fairy House Village where kids (or kids at heart!) can build homes for the fairies that live there.



From here, I headed back to Littleton, Mass to stay at the Boston Minuteman campground.  I had planned on biking the nearby bike trail but the weather did not cooperate.  I ended up walking one day for an hour or so.

Heading south, I stopped in Berwick, PA and stayed at Bodnarosa Motel and campground.  A very interesting place to stay as long as you don’t mind the neighboring business.



Yep, a nuclear power plant next door!
While there I biked on the D&L trail in Lehigh Gorge State Park.  I took the shuttle from Jim Thorpe to the northern point in White Haven and then biked the 26 miles back to Jim Thorpe.

Continuing my trip south, I stopped at Max Meadow, VA Oct 7 – 14.   While there I biked 2 trails.  The first was the popular Virginia Creeper trail (a rails to trails path).  This trail is 34 miles long, but most people (including me) take a shuttle to Whitetop station and ride downhill for 17 miles.  Out of 17 miles, the first 14 or so you barely need to pedal, just need good brakes.  The last 2 – 3 miles you do need to pedal as the trail becomes more flat.  I ended up biking a bit further and then back tracking to where my car was parked.


 



I also visited the New River Gorge State Park Trail.  I have done a spur trail of this a while back when I was staying in Galax, VA.  This time I took the trail from the Austinville trailhead, which was maybe a 10 –15 minute drive from my RV Park – Fort Chiswell RV Park (ok park, sites too close together, but I wasn’t there for the park!).  I ended up biking it 3 times and walking twice.


The scenery was great on all the above rides.  But my favorite was probably the last one, the New River Gorge State Park trail. I will probably return to this area just to ride the trail again.   While the scenery was great and the ride was fun, I enjoyed the VA creeper trail the least as I do like to feel like I am getting some exercise when I am riding my bike!  You don’t get much exercise on this trail except for using your hand brakes!! Also, while these trails are all dirt, the VA creeper trail was quite rough in some places (mostly roots) which made the fast downhill trip a bit scary in a few spots.

When I got back to Georgia, I went to Jekyll Island to go to the SouthEast Lazy Daze get together.  After that I had a few issues that caused me to change my December plans and my plans for 2016.  More on that on my next blog.