Turning off the main road at the BFI (big effing Indian - it's a huge cheesy statue of a Native American) we take the back road into Freeport. A few Canadians had mentioned Freeport to us. I'd come across it in Richard Ford's Independence Day. It is the home of LL Bean's. For those not in the know, LL Bean's is an old-fashioned outdoor shop selling clothing, footwear and equipment. What's made them famous is their lifetime guarantee of quality. That's it. Peter in Nova Scotia told us that on one trip into the US he took an old pair of boots he'd had for over 20 years - ones he'd worn building houses. They were worn out. The shop replaced them for him with a brand new pair.
We're looking for replacement down jackets and we park up our bikes and take it in turns to shop. Not only is there a huge LL Bean store that is open 24 hours every day of the year, but a collection of other brand outdoor shops and a whole lot more other stuff. The town is full of bargain hunting shoppers. No-one is leaving empty-handed. Remembering Peter's tip, I go and checkout LL Bean's outlet store and soon find myself wading through racks of badly-sorted end-of-line or returned clothes. i find a jacket and join the queue at the till. Then I notice a few feathers fluttering to the floor. The jacket is torn. I go back and have to take one in a different colour - a colour I can't quite define. Gayle is also successful finding a replacement. We bundle our old jackets up and leave them on a bench - uncomfortable with just shoving them into a litter bin. And we ride out of there in low sunshine through trees full of autumnal colours. So many shades of orange and yellow, too many to name.
"So what colour would you say my new jacket is?" I ask Gayle. She mulls it over briefly. "Diarrhoea Green." comes her assessment.
