The delays have been necessary, but it’s still a relief to have gotten into New Brunswick, Canada. The weather is most welcome, the fuel prices least. It’s time to slow down and get off the main roads though, so fuel economy will go up. The trip is finally in the “trip” phase and not the 2,000 mile commute phase. And I’ve been able to see a lot.
The road has been more or less kind to me so far. I took extra days to get from Austin TX to Lexington KY. I saw 4th o’ July fireworks from the parking lot of a derelict motel that tried to overcharge me, so some days have been mixed, but overall I’ve been able to avoid breaking out the rainsuit (well, mostly). I’ve had no breakdowns or tire trouble. My only proper complaint is the atrocious fuel economy I’m getting while pulling this trailer at 80-mph.
Munson, Maine.
But I know the solve for that is to slow down, so I’m still blessed in that I can choose what to complain about (I’m not slowing down, no, but it is an option). I was in Lexington longer than expected, but managed to make the most of it by servicing the bike and doing a lot of sleeping. Not sure why I’m so exhausted, but I have the ability to sleep, so I have been taking it. When you’re camping, the sun will eventually make up your mind for you that it’s time to rise n’ shine.
But let’s not ramble about this year’s ramble. I’ll cut to the chase.
Getting through the States.
My only bout with rain has been in Oklahoma and briefly in West Virginia, and both seem like a distant memory. Since I got rid of Kenda tires both front and rear, I no longer need to fear sudden and terrifying slides when the road is even a little damp. I can tell though in these early phases that my heart isn’t really with me on this trip (yet).
I have bagged a few small town post offices as well as a lighthouse or two, but this is covered bridge country.
I keep booking extra days at motels so I can sleep. I look at the map and simply refuse to plan the 500-mile days needed to get to Canada. Fortunately, through some of Pennsylvania and New York, routing took me off the interstate, which allowed me some respit. I could actually amble, letting the bike do what it is truly comfortable doing, which is going 60-65-mph for hours on end. Less attention needs paid at those speeds, and my thoughts could wander since I was letting the GPS point me in the right direction.
Bridges over still water
I got to see my first covered bridges of the year, tackling four in Indiana county, Pennsylvania alone. Well, the 4th one was actually gone — disassembled and undergoing a restoration. I also learned that not only are most of these bridges fully refurbished (and often more than once), some are outright replica’s. Also, they were rarely painted. Most of the red/white bridges gained that color during the 1960’s.
Of course their roofs are always new: the whole point of a covered bridge is so the sun and snow and ice can rot the roof and not the road bed or truss beams. A big giveaway is often the steel. Wrought iron doesn’t last 150-years, but when it was replaced can be guessed at. Square bolts instead of hex-heads are a major giveaway, as are the rust of old steel vs galvanized steel.
No matter what the current state, they are still interesting engineering (all bridges are, really), because many of the patents used for covered bridges are based on guesswork or being able to use the same shaped board, so local carpenters didn’t need much skill. Only one (and some derivatives) was actually made using engineering principles in the modern sense. But of course you have to be able to actually find trees big enough to make the massive timbers needed, or you end up having to compress several smaller ones together, and they need precise fit into a corresponding notch. Not easy work.
The tiny variations, adaptations, and the abutments on each river bank are easy to geek out on, but you also have the location itself Some cross small creeks filled with smooth stone. Some will span a deep and still looking river. Some are in swampy areas and surrounded by reeds and cattails and birds hunting for frogs and small fish.
And of course some can be ridden over, while others have been bypassed and now only allow foot traffic. Many that have been bypassed have their replacement only a few yards away, and you can tell how our machining and transportation systems have grown, along with our engineering knowledge.
At the border
And yet again, crossing the border into Canada got me pulled into secondary inspection. I am two-for-two. I don’t know what it is about me, but I get it even when entering Mexico. Everyone has a bone to pick with me. Well, in this case that’s not true, as everyone I dealt with was cheerful and kind. This time I could also tell what the problem was: I didn’t have an exit date.
I told the truth: the weather was going to tell me when to leave. The standard visa for an American tourist is 6-months: they don’t even bother with a stamp. With me being on a motorcycle, it sure seems like that’s a solid enough answer: I won’t be this far north in six months, no way no how. At least this time the agents searching my trailer were able to put it back together (take that, Vancouver).
Once I explained why I had no itinerary and no solid answers, they just ran my name to make sure I hadn’t been put on a banned list and sent me on my way. I was in the Maritimes officially. The first step was obvious: the Hartfield bridge. It’s the longest covered bridge in the world still standing, and its more than 1800-foot span still takes car traffic through its single lane of bitumen-covered planks.
It crossed the St John river which is absolutely massive in its breadth despite having a pretty narrow and placid current in that section. I grabbed some post cards and an ice cream, spend awhile looking at the under-structure and the piers holding it up, and more or less marveled that people could do all this with hand tools and some horses and pulleys.
After that I backtracked because I forgot about the world’s smallest covered bridge. It sits in a Burger King parking lot by some gas pumps. At 24′ it looks a bit like a shed that someone pulled two sides off of so it could act as a bridge over a small trench. Clearly someone’s idea for a kitschy tourist trap, I got my photos, grabbed a burger (I know, what a lame first meal in Canada), and worked my way over the river on the modern bridge upstream.
Proper country
I was instantly happy because even the bigger interstate-style roads felt peaceful now. Off the big roads and on the 2-lane, things were pretty rough. Asphalt patches abounded, though some miracle of engineering meant the roads felt smoother than they looked. There were rollers and heaves, but not the sharp-edged bumps that slam through every bolt and bearing in a motorcycle. I scored a few more covered bridges and found an RV campground with four tent sites. At $40CAD a night this wasn’t cheap, but wasn’t expensive either, for this area. Most important was it had morning shade.
I took my time packing up, found an Airbnb for only $50CAD/night, and went bridge hunting. From Millville to Mactaquac and then into Fredericton went quickly, and I found a microbrewery there with an amazing Mexican lager (no really, in Canada, best Mexican style lager I’ve ever had) and an on-point cider as well. I enjoyed a Lebanese-style donair for lunch before skirting around the Army base to see the Hoyt Station covered bridge.
The road then reconnected me with the St John river and I kept following it to the Pleasant View Inn. I should have photographed this house that felt straight out of the Waltons TV series, but I was busy chatting up the hosts and looking around at the wonderful balcony views of the river. Part of being authentic is not “doing it for the ‘gram” and being in the moment, but you can always just look up online: there’s only one Pleasant View Inn in Hatfield Point.
That’s a lotta saints
Not surprisingly, the St John river leads to the town of St. John. I moved up and around on 124 to 855, snagging more covered bridges, which involved some gravel roads and a lot of bumpy asphalt. But the weather was perfect, with full sun that was a touch warm when stopped and wearing riding gear, but was cool and clean as I moved along at 20-kph over the limit.
Sorry Canada, it’s just that your limits are almost 10-mph below what the US would have, and since you list in kph, people don’t want to go more than 10-over, which is only 6-mph over, which is not a lot in much of the USA. But Canada keeps you on your toes. Unlike the US, who put up more signs and blinking lights every time there’s an accident, Canada expects you to figure out how to stay on the pavement by actually paying attention. No warning signs, or maybe one arrow pointing left or right, and suddenly I’m scraping the kickstand on the ground, heeled over and hoping I’ll make it.
Fortunately, that only needs to happen once for me, and it’s stored in my mind for future use.
After arriving in St John I met up with a Bunk-a-Biker group who are letting me stay in their RV trailer out back. There I finally dropped my own trailer and went into town unencumbered. I got to ride a few ferries hunting down more bridges and a few lighthouses, then found another brewery, but one that served food that didn’t come out of a deep fryer.
A damn good house salad and a chicken wrap later and I was off the the supermarket, literally called Atlantic Superstore. I have fun learning the lay of foreign markets, so I was inside for at least 30-minutes grabbing important things like cheap seafood to cook and some apples, and frivolous stuff like local beers and cheesy poofs and praline & maple roasted peanuts.
With the flow
I came outside to find a car show had sprung up while I was inside. Not being one to miss a party, I rode the bike over and parked it like it was a show piece. Though mostly stock, Indian Motorcycles aren’t common in Canada, and I was sporting a Texas license plate to add to the “exotic” factor. The bug splatters and road grime were probably the big different compared to the show cars filling the back lot.
After roaming around and chatting folks up (and taking 100 pictures), I walked back to the bike and ran into some kids who were keen on asking questions. They seemed to think my groceries were like a prop, or some sort of display. The engine was cool enough that when one asked to climb on I could safely say yes.
When they asked me to start it and rev it I complied, even though the exhaust is stock and doesn’t really do anything for me personally. They were clearly enamored, and when I let both the young boys give the throttle a twist themselves, I may have just created two future bikers. I remember that exact feeling of amazement that was in their eyes the first time I heard a motorcycle rip down the street.
What’s next you ask?
Well, always hard to answer when I’m on the road. The plan remains the same though. I’ll get to the far end of Newfoundland quick-as-I-can, then meander back. But I will loop Nova Scotia before I take the ferry, just in case an early winter kicks me out of the region. The Maritimes are packed with coastline. There are so many peninsulas and bays, I bet if you added up miles of coastline, it would stretch most of the US’s Atlantic coast.
No pictures of the coast yet, but the St John river is wide enough to need several ferries, as bridges we get pretty expensive to build every 5-10 miles.
While on the mainland I’ll do the usual. For me that means finding views, covered bridges, small town post offices, and the little museums put together by hyper-local communities that teach about their region’s history. I’m of course always on the lookout for good tacos too, and a good beer, so expect some of that. The world’s biggest XYZ is always fun to find, too, and I’m only about 30-min from the world’s biggest axe, so yes, expect that and more on an Instagram or Facebook post.
Also, remember to follow @projectRER too, as I share food-related posts there instead of here. As Ride>Eat>Repeat grows, it will also have philosophical posts. It’s about the intersection of food and identity… a sort of food anthropology website. The world of Johnny Killmore is more broad, since it’s about travel and learning yes, but also about the specifics of writing, racing, photography, storytelling, and also just plain old “look at me, hire me” work. RER can get more specific, more fun, while also being more focused.
So, up next, the short answer is: follow the RER site, Facebook, and Instagram. Do the same thing for my personal pages if you haven’t already, and then stay tuned for more updates from the road. I’m working on some collaborations, I’m waiting for an article I wrote to go live, I’m planning a huge life-changing project (if funding goes through, I’ll find out more today), and I’ve got plenty going on in my personal life too. It’s wild and crazy times, so, even though things look tranquil from a webpage, there’s a lot going on…
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