North to Canada
We packed light.
No special route, no particular timetable. And no saddle bags. Just the bare essentials, and a little money. And lots of hope for good weather.
We finally got organized enough to shove off by Aug. 3, 1978, opting to spend as much time as we could around Chester County, Pa., for a good part of the summer. We had quit our jobs as editors on small suburban newspapers, not that we took out jobs lightly, but we were committed to another job that was to begin in December.
The idea was simple enough: Cross the continent and return in one piece. And do it on the cheap.
I had bought a 1973 BMW R75/5, a red one, with about 17,000 miles on it at the time of the purchase in 1976 for $1,700. I had long since ditched the straight pipes the previous owner had inexplicably put on it and replaced them with quieter, after-market stock pipes that made gave the bike the quieter, machine-like classic hum BMWs are supposed to have.
A note of explanation: The 75 in BMW's R series referred to the cylinder displacement, 745 cc., which at the time was a pretty hefty sized motor even for touring use. The horizontally opposed twin cylinder design was, and still is, classic BMW although the concept has since been borrowed by other makes. What really made the bike different was the lack of a chain. Its shaft drive would turn out to be an object of considerable intrigue to many of the people we would meet along the way.
But back to our preparations: I took it to a shop outside of Downingtown for a tune-up and a new set of Continental tires, changed the oil and filter, installed a set of points, and packed. It wasn't a great chore.
Most of out essentials were show-horned into a black, vinyl tank bag I had found after a considerable search in Wilmington, Del. This consisted of my tools (socket set, allen wrenches, screwdriver and pliers, tire irons, a patch kit and a few other odds and ends). Bet crammed in a sun dress and pair of sandals, her rain suit, a bathing suit and a few personal articles, including her toothbrush. I stuffed in a pair of straw sandals, a bathing suit, toothbrush and maybe an extra pair of underwear, I don't remember. And black, rubber ski goggles.
The only other touring accessories consisted of a metal rack over the rear fender and an acrylic windscreen, an absolute necessity. We wrapped our double sleeping bag in a canvas lean-to -- that is, a half-tent -- that seemed to afford no great protection, but turned out to be of some use.
The whole payload couldn't have added 40 pounds to the bike's stock curb weight of 423 pounds. What we didn't have, we would get along the way.
The Army-surplus lean-to was now our home, having given up our apartment, a cute, little mother-in-law apartment that took up a wing of a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the hilly little farm township of West Bradford that was rapidly being transformed into suburbs. We invited some friends to a little going-away party we threw for ourselves in Bet's brother's apartment in West Chester, and, with good weather predicted, waited eagerly for departure day.
When morning arrived, Bet was sick, and it wasn't from the party the night before. Some sort of virus that had her throwing up and feeling achy. She stayed in bed and rested up while I attended to some last-minute details, which I can't remember but probably boiled down to checking and re-checking the bike 10,000 times.
Bet was back on her feet and eager to leave the following day, Aug. 3. Although I don't recall any great sendoff, I do remember well saying good-buy to Bet's parents. They wished us good luck, and her father looked at me and said, rather sternly, "You be careful." I understood his advice as, "You be careful with my only daughter." I understood well and took his advice to heart.
We also stopped to see my Dad where he worked at Sperry-Univac in Blue Bell, Pa. He walked us to the parking lot where my bike was parked, and said, "Now, where are you going?"
"California," I said. "We'll send post cards along the way."
Start of trip: Aug. 3.
26,951 miles on the odometer.
U.S. 202 east to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, then Route 611 north and over to New Jersey, I-78 east to Route 22 and to the Garden State Parkway. Some big roads, yes, but we knew this part of the country, and the main idea was to get through it fast. As if to hasten our ride, clouds followed us all the way, growing bigger and looming darker as we headed for the George Washington Bridge. The air was growing heavier and I could smell the rain before it finally came down, like a tap in the sky had been opened.
We were grateful to be on the lower deck of the bridge, but that didn't protect us from occasional glops that dripped down from the upper deck and the open sides. The roadway became slightly glazed by the rain mixing with oil on the pavement. We were soon on the open highway cutting across the Bronx, and the rain pelted us relentlessly. We finally found an overpass where there was enough clearance from the highway to pull off and take shelter for a while. We pulled on our rain suits, but there would be of little use since we were fairly wet by now. The downpour subsided, but we decided that we couldn't wait out lighter rain still being wrung out of the clouds.
The storm passed us by and the sun cooked up a late afternoon brew of steamy air as we arrived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where our friends Marie and Jim Callahan, who had worked on newspapers in Pennsylvania with us, waited for us.
We spent the night in their cramped, upstairs apartment at the edge of the rust belt city on Long Island Sound. We mixed dinner with a few beers -- a brand called Gunther, a witches' brew of questionable color that guaranteed a blinding headache if not utter paralysis -- which I have not touched or even seen since.
Aug. 4
Farewells said to Jim and Marie, we hopped back on I-95, still eager to clear megalopolis and head for Cape Cod. We traded the interstate for U.S. Route 1, following it through New London and approached a crossed a towering bridge leading to Newport, Rhode Island. My knees knocked against the chrome of my BMW's "toaster tank" as we drew closer to the span.
It wasn't the height, or even the gentle breeze, that made me nervous, but rather the surface of the superstructure. I had crossed this bridge before, and its surface was steel grids, the kind that makes motorcycle tires shimmy like a hula doll as you buzz along at 55 mph. (Luckily, President Jimmy Carter had dropped maximum highway speeds from 65, otherwise I might have opted for another route.)
I took a deep breath and we wobbled our way across the bridge across Narragansett Bay into Newport. The traffic thinned out as we made our way up the island. It was time to eat and before long we found a drive-in seafood diner, the kind so common in New England, with sun-bleached cedar shingles and old ship ropes and lobster floats tacked to the walls. We pulled into the gravel parking lot, walked toward the water to stretch our legs, and ordered shrimp, clams and fries. The bright morning sun had given way to a haze that gave us second thoughts about motoring on toward Cape Cod. By the time I sloshed my last french fry into the blob of catsup on my plate, we had decided to bear north rather than east.
I suppose the reasoning was that it was better to be caught in rain in Boston than on the Cape. If that was the case, we made the better judgment, because a light rain did begin falling as we drove due north. We somehow wobbled our way out to the infamous Route 128 and stopped at a bar in Waltham before heading into downtown Boston. The rain continued to fall lightly as we made our way through the city, not stopping except for traffic lights, and then back out to I-95 and then Route 1 into Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The rain had subsided and a haze was lifting from the roads as evening began to settle in.
Remember, we were doing this on the cheap, and one way I had prepared to keep costs down was to pack my trusty BMW Owners' Anonymous book. It included a listing of members, by phone number but no names, and codes for how they could help a fellow traveler. That could range from a cup of coffee to a place to stay overnight, to mechanical assistance if needed. I called from Rye Beach and was given directions from a fellow named Mike to Durham, N.H. Mike met us at a crossroads and led us to his Cape-style home. He was a middle-aged guy who had been in the Air Force -- Pease Air Force Base was nearby -- and he and his wife seemed friendly and curious about our trip. We chatted a while before setting out the sleeping bag on top of the lean-to. We were rather exhausted and got to sleep before long.
Aug. 5
We got an early start from Mike's. The weather was clear and sunny as we packed up, and we soon found our way to Route 155 and then Route 4. Riding past old New England farms and through little towns, we soon crossed the state line into Maine, which was then one of the few no-helmet states.
As I recall, we wore our headgear most of the time, law or none, because there was simply no place to store an unused helmet and it does a good job keeping the wind from deafening you while you're cruising along at Jimmy Carter's 55 mph. That's not to mention the help a helmet can be in case of the unthinkable. In some states with stricter laws -- Connecticut comes to mind -- bikers would flaunt the law by strapping on their helmets at their knees, I suppose for thrill of feeling the wind rush through their '70-ish long hair while giving a symbolic finger to the cops.
Heck, maybe I did take mine off for a few miles here and there. It brought to mind a late summer day in 1976 when we joined an estimated 10,000 other bikers in Pennsylvania who massed for a ride-in to the state Capitol in Harrisburg to protest the state's helmet law. The demonstration drew an eclectic melting pot of aficionados from super-clean tourers on Moto-Guzzis and Hondas to the likes of the Wheels of Soul, a band of blacks who mounted nothing but choppers and brought along their Dobermans and women. Bet was amused, but discreet, when she pointed out the shirts worn by the women, which identified them as "Property of Wheels of Soul."
But now we were in Maine, humming along at 55 and making our way for the coast. We skimmed through Portland, then a scrappy city edging toward its gentrification phase, and bore north and east for Rockland, a little coastal city whose ubiquitous stench left no doubt that fish processing was an anchor of the local economy. But the rank odor turned slightly sweeter as we drove past the sign that proclaims Rockland "Lobster Capital of the World."
The annual lobster festival was on. We paid little mind to the fish-guts stink and breezed our way to the big tents along the shore where lobsters, clams and corn on the cob were served on long tables.
Servers pulled nets full of the steaming pink crustaceans from a steam engine-sized kettle mounted to the side of the tents and within site of the harbor. Lest anyone forget this was a world-class event, the big boiler was labeled "Largest Lobster Pot in the World."
I went for the clams and Bet had a $5 lobster dinner.
The rainy weather that had dogged us to the south had blown to sea and conditions were sunny, warm and fine for riding, aside from occasional fingers of fog that reached past the shoreline and gave us a passing chill. We hugged the coast on Route 1 and passed the castle-like Fort Knox, a granite citadel built for an 1800s war against Canada that never happened, which sits on a bluff in Prospect overlooking Penobscot Bay. Crossing the Penobscot, we cut through Bucksport and into Ellsworth, where I had worked for a summer on a weekly based in Ellsworth called "Tuesday."
Memories returned in a rush. "Tuesday" was a fun little gossip sheet where you could write just about anything you wanted when you weren't selling ads, shooting pictures, gossiping with boatbuilders and local artists or buttering up potential advertisers. Part of the job was delivering the tabloid from my old '66 Impala wagon to mom and pop stores from Ellsworth to Mount Desert Island, which happened to be our next destination.
A short causeway connects the mainland to the island, and at a fork in the road just past the bridge nearly about all the traffic bears left, to Bar Harbor, another one of my old haunts. I found John Wert, who had been a cook in a posh hotel at the edge of Frenchman Bay where I washed dishes and bussed tables during the summers of my college years. John, also a biker, had bought a restaurant called the Epicurean, later shortened to Epi, on Cottage Street, the main drag. He had fixed up the restaurant portion downstairs and was in the midst of remodeling the upstairs flat.
"This is camping," John said as he accepted my invitation to invite ourselves to stay there for the night.
We walked through Bar Harbor, a collection of tony shops and restaurants mixed with barber shops, hardware stores and other mainstays of the local trade. Once we stretched our legs, we took a drive through Acadia National Park, passing Thunder Hole, a fissure in the rocks where mid-tide waves crash with an echoing boom to the delight of tourists, and rode the serpentine trail to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the park's natural centerpiece that offers a spectacular vista of the mountains meeting the sea.
The familiar sights and scents brought back memories, of climbing the rocks above Thunder Hole late at night, hiking the all of trails and climbing each of the mountains of Acadia. This was the town where I rode my first bike, a Honda 90 trail bike, which I took for a first test drive in a gravel-strewn alley near by one-room basement apartment. I had never driven a bike when I bought the 90 for $200. It sat unused for weeks in the rain and fof while I worked up the courage to try it out.
I finally tried to fire it up, but when I saw I was getting no spark I asked a friend named Paul Young, who was a cook at the hotel, Paul Young, to take a look at the points. He unscrewed the casing where the points were located and poured out a healthy saucerful of water that had seeped in.We let it dry and soon the 90 was started.
It was time to ride. I straddled the little beast, gave it a little gas and took off. Within the first 20 feet the bike and I were down. I walked away with a few scrapes and renewed determination that I was going to tame the beast.
As the weeks wore on, I the fear turned to joy as I used it more and more, driving it to work, taking frequent jaunts through the national park and occasionally running it across the sandbar that connects Bar Harbor with Bar Island at low tide. The Trail 90 became my buddy, even if it did catch me on fire once.
This episode happened late one night when I was making an emergency run to the park's Jordan Pond House to placate an angry girlfriend. I was pushing the Trail 90 hard as headed out of town into the blackness of the park. The exhaust pipe that curves upward from the cylinder was red hot, and as I gazed straight ahead with the throttle wide open it ignited my bell-bottom pants, which had been flap-flapping in the wind as we trucked along. My eyes were finally drawn to the pants fire in progress. I stopped and patted the flames out, rolled up what was left of the bell bottom up a bit, and resumed the trip.
For some reason, I had removed the front fender, perhaps to give the 90 a meaner, streety look, and rechristened the Trail 90 "The Chopper." John took the gag a step further. One afternoon, after I had arrived at work, he made sure I was distracted and with a couple of other guys hauled The Chopper upstairs into a back room in the hotel where the staff ate. When I came in with my dinner plate, my bike was sitting, like an oversized, mud-splattered trophy, on the table.
The Chopper eventually followed me to Florida, riding the whole way in a carrier bolted to my back bumper.
But back to the travels at hand.
Aug. 6
27,764 miles on the odometer.
John sent us off with hoagies, which are known as Italians in Maine, and we set off as a slight drizzle ended. We headed back off the island on Route 3, and cut across a peninsula to Route 1. The two-lane highway wound us through forests and occasionally opened vistas of the countless bays that stab into Maine's coastline. With the weather getting progressively better, we drove through the Down East towns of Gouldsboro, Milbridge and Machias, over the blueberry barrens where harvesting was getting under way, before we turned off on state Route 190.
This took us past a Passamaquoddy Indian reservation and into Eastport, the country's easternmost city. The old fishing town that used to host a number of sardine canneries and once was the center of a gold-extraction industry that was exposed as a sham, faces Cobscook Bay, known for its huge tides and deep harbor. The dusty little city, still a decade away from redevelopment of its once-bustling port and arrival of aquaculture, had a small-town if remote flavor, with little stores, a downtown Coast Guard station and neatly-kept capes and Victorian homes lining streets beyond the main drag.
We sat on the waterfront, which was littered with rotting logs, rusted chains, broken bottles and other detritus of long-forgotten vessels that plied the local waters. We ate our hoagies and drank a beer, enjoying what was to be our last stop in the United States for a while.
At the edge of town, I drove the bike down a steep, gravelly beach to a ferry that was little more than a small wooden barge with a capacity for four to six vehicles. The flat raft, whose wooden deck rose but a couple of feet from the water, was painted glistening white and roped to a squat little converted squat lobster boat that provided its power. The pilot skillfully maneuvered the vessel into the tide, swung the stern around with the rope tether holding fast at its bow, and pushed us across the bay to Deer Island, New Brunswick, which forms a partial barrier to Passamaquoddy Bay and a natural steppingstone to the Canadian mainland.
We drove up the ramp to the wooded, hilly island, driving through a small where a summer camping area where I had spent a night on a previous solo trip to the Maritimes. We followed a narrow road that led through tiny fishing villages lined at seaside by piers supported by tree-length pilings to account for the enormous tides. At Lord's Cove at the northeast point of the island was the ferry terminal.
Bet counted 40 cars in line waiting to board, accounting for what would have been a three-hour wait to board. Motorcycles have their disadvantages, such as when you have to ride through a sudden rain storm. But in this case, we had an advantage; we rode past the waiting cars, avoiding eye contact with motorists patiently awaiting their turns to board, and made our way right to the front of the line to board a more substantial ferry than the first. As we plowed through the bay's roiling surface of eddies and whirlpools toward St. George, N.B., the slue sky was taking on a violet tinge and pewter strips of clouds stretched lengthwise across the horizon.
The sun was beginning its slow summer descent as we followed the winding Route 770 through places like Bonny River and Rolling Dam. Mesmerized by the ins-and-outs of the drive, I somehow wound us back in a big semicircle to St. Stephen near the Maine border.
It turned out to be a circuitous route, a big crescent whose arc took us almost back to the Maine border, but a pleasant ride through air mixed with the scents of the sea, farm fields and the stretches of pine woods in between.
Perhaps I lost my way as I was recalling my earlier trip, alone on a '72 Honda 350, a bull of an old machine with nice white saddlebags and a will to go on. I had made my way to Prince Edward Island via ferry, still decades before a highway bridge was to mar the seascape, and smelled rain in the air by the time I reached Charlettown.
Someone directed me to a hostel outside of town, where I found a few standing buildings and a collection of tepees where the guests lodged. By the time I arrived, several bodies already sacked out in the shelter were fast asleep, one or two snoring, so I gingerly made my way across the bodies, laid out my sleeping bag in some cranny near the canvas edge and soon fell fast asleep.
I was awakened early the next morning by the sound of water. A small rivulet was a few inches from my nose, carving an arc inside the tepee and soaking the edge of my sleeping bag. Most of the others had arisen and stowed their belongings in backpacks that sat like headstones about the shelter as I scrambled to get my gear together.
My breakfast was coffee and oatmeal, and I made up my mind to plow through the steady rain and make it to St. John. The ferry was some comfort, as I huddled close to a heating vent while I watched the raindrops splatter against the windows. Back on the mainland, I kept on toward Moncton and, invigorated by a letup in the rain, found myself drawn toward Fundy National Park at New Brunswick's southern shore. I was cold and soaked. The rain had penetrated my boots, my leather pants hung on my like a cold dishrag and rain had found its way down my back clear to my seat. I shivered as I rode.
On the access road to the Fundy park, I spotted the most welcome of sights, a small general store. I parked by bike and walked in, unzipping my leather jacket in hopes of drying out at least partway. Slowly as I could, I sauntered up and down the two aisles, past the snacks and canned goods and souvenirs, stopping to read a can of soup or hash now and then, trying to soak in the warmth. I was there several minutes before I spoke to the woman behind the counter.
"I'm not here to rob you," I said, conjecturing in my mind that she was suspicious about my lengthy perusal of her stocks. "I'm just trying to dry off."
The woman smiled.
"Do you want something to eat? Come back here."
Within a few minutes, I was sitting at a table that seemed to be part of her home, in a room just behind the cash counter. Her husband sat down with me. A plate of beans and brown bread and a glass of milk were soon in front of me. Politely as I could, I gulped everything down. They asked where I was from and where I was headed. St. John, I told them.
The husband said he knew a shortcut, right through the woods on a logging road, but it would cut miles off the trip back up to Route 2 and get me back to St. John.
I took out my map and asked where it was.
Not on the map, he told me. But he took a ball-point pen and drew a line where it cut through the forest. I looked up, hoping for a sign of reassurance in his eyes. Just stay straight ahead, he said, and pushed the map back toward me. The road's all cut through.
I said I'd best be going then, and rose from the chair.
The rain had let up and some sun was even peeking through the clouds. A thin haze formed about the woods across the road. I felt mostly dry as I got back on the bike and fired it up. Across the macadam road I saw the turnoff my host had described, and the dirt road led straight into the woods. The surface was still wet but it was certainly passable, so long as I kept my speed to under 30 m.p.h.
A few miles up it narrowed out and got bumpier, so I dropped the speed. I looked back once or twice, trying to convince myself I'd gone too far to turn back. Miles farther, the road turned even narrower, a path wide enough for a skidder, and crisscrossed with gouges cut by rain. The bike rumbled across small streams that were carrying off the last of the day's rain. I looked around -- nothing but forest -- and remembered the man's words, just stay straight.
The old tote road led to what appeared to be an abandoned logging village, long in ruin. Its shanties' roofs were caved in, windows were broken and some of the doors hung sideways, held by a single rusted hinge that stubbornly refused to let go. Vines and branches grabbed at the roofs and walls of the cottages and young trees blocked pathways leading to the entry ways. A crossroads appeared near the gathering of decaying buildings, and a rotting signpost still held on to wooden arrows whose painted names were all but obliterated by the elements.
I stopped, squinted at the signpost in hopes of finding a clue as to where I was, but the harsh weather had erased most of the painted lettering. Prodded by the setting sun, I revved the engine and moved on. Looking ahead, I noticed the speedometer had stopped working. Cable's rattled loose, I told myself. In the next breath, I told myself aloud I'd just been through a ghost town. Ghosts, I can handle, I said, continuing the monologue. But what kinds of animals are in these woods? I stopped the bike for a moment to listen, but the forest was silent.
At long last, the road flattened and newly poured gravel appeared under my tires. Dim lights glinted off in the distance. I heard a car, and then some men's voices. The gravel gave way to tarmac. I was overcome with joy. I spotted a car stopped by the roadside and pulled up next to it. It was a group of Canadian boys, evidently out for the night putting away some beers for lack of anything else to do. Breathlessly, I told them my story. They seemed friendly enough, and handed me a can of beer. I popped it open and kept driving, taking sips as I motored along toward the town of Sussex, and placing the can in my crotch as I shifted gears.
I'm not sure I saved any time by taking the logging road, but what was the difference? When it comes down to it, all motorcycle trips turn out to be big circles. It's what you see along the way that counts.
Just as night was closing in when I found Sussex, the sky was blackened by the time Bet and I as reached our destination on this August day in 1978. We had hooked onto Route 3 and headed north, following the St. John River through Woodstock and into Hartland, where we stopped for the night at St. George Provincial Park. We found a nice campsite and set up our modest lean-to under clear, starry skies. That evening, we were invited across the lane to the campsite of a man who introduced himself as Earl Smith, and his family, who gave us a spot by their fire and listened with interest as we told about where we'd been and where we were going.
It had been an easy day: only 226 miles.
