To Fryeburg New Church Assembly
I stayed here for three nights. Raise your hand if you are suprised that Brett Constantine stayed at a Christian camp. My hand is raised (and the other is not on a bible), but it is one of those places that once you enter, you know you won't feel awkward and you know you'll be both be missed and missing it when you leave.
The trip in was actually eventful, compared to the other rides so far. I only rode 26 miles on Tuesday morning, but they took a bit longer since I stopped for a late breakfast and a mishap. First the breakfast story.
I had a real hankering for an omlette. I had seen a sign for an omelette-serving place the afternoon before, but now I wanted one and was willing to be hungry for several miles to wait for one. I found a breakfast place along the highway (Route 16 North), and stopped in. Unfortunately, since I had been sleeping in so late before striking camp, I didn't make it there until they had finished serving their breakfast menu. I was crushed. But, the waitress took pity on me (and the fellow next to me as well, actually, as he wanted breakfast too) and asked the cooks if they minded making more breakfast. They didn't and within minutes I had a hot Loaded Omlette before me! The fellow next to me got his breakfast, and generously gave me some home fries, as he saw me hungrily chowing down.
My apologies to those of you following along regularly or who checked this page when I had it half finished. Following my tasty omlette, I headed out with gusto to finish the "quick" trip. I was doing fine, moving along, and then I came to some backed up traffic on Route 16 just South of the Kancamangus Highway. I was riding in the bike lane (known to some by the misnomer, "break-down lane"), and zipping by these stopped or barely moving autos, when I began to wobble, and realized with a sinking feeling that I had my first flat tire of the trip. But it was a sunny day and I know how to fix my flat tires, so I set to work, while sitting on the guardrail, and had it changed in very little time. I started pumping the tube up in the tire, and then, after about 40 or 50 pounds per square inch of pressure, my pump mysteriously ceased to work. I tried to fix it for a few minutes to no avail and decided to ride on what I had into the town just ahead (Conway, New Hampshire, I think).
My luck held, as just as I arrived in town, I spied another biker who was touring in the opposite direcition as me. We exchanged info on origins and destinations, and he bragged about scoring a can of sardines and a bagel for free that morning. The bagel I can see, but the sardines would not be my thing. Anyway, he gladly lent me his pump long enough to inflate my tube in my tire properly, and I was on my way.
I don't know exactly what to write about the Fryeburg New Church Assembly. The family camp was both so fun and so interesting that I may try to return another year, starting next summer. It definitely piqued my intellectual curiosity, but mainly I would probably pay just to be with those people again. What a great group of caring people! My thanks to all there for their trust, support, advice, and respect.
Oh, but I really do want to mention the Polar Bear Swim that occurs every morning at the camp! Every morning at 7:00 A.M. the big bell is rung, and the Polar Bears gather to go for an early morning swim. What a great way to start the day! After missing it due to ignorance the first morning, I attended both Thursday and Friday mornings. Poppa Bear does a tally of the number of Polar Bears and checks the air temperature, then comes up with the Polar Bear Quotient for the day and announces it at breakfast. Here's the formula: degrees Farenheit above freezing divided by the number of Polar Bears.
On to Stage 8: To Bustins Island
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