in the Maine

Yes, it's Donald Trump

In one good day's ride I calculate that we can do a circuit from Poland to Hebron to Paris to Norway to Sweden to Fryeburg to Denmark to Naples and back to Poland in under 100 miles.  You may think I'm barking mad, unless you know the area east of the White Mountains in Maine.  However, I'm not the navigator and this whimsy must be forgotten because we do have somewhere to go.  Besides, Fred has given us some suggestions for routes into the White Mountains and now we are faced with

Fred

several options the usual Monster of Indecision resurfaces.

We had a great evening staying with Fred, our Warm Showers host.  He lives with his artist wife in a house they built in the woods on an old farm plot that has returned to the forest.  To reach it we turned down a track past the original farmhouse out on the road, crossed a brook, and there in dark stained wood was a modern wooden house.  Fred had a friend visiting when we arrived and the friend told us what an inspired decision it was by Fred to lay down a polished concrete floor as the foundation for the house.  "It holds the warmth in the winter and keeps cool in the summer."  The friend has come looking for a specific type of wood.  Fred, it turns out, is a retired forrester, a man who knows everything about wood.  He tells us about his recent bike tour with his daughter and possible future ones, predicated by weird things he hears or reads about.  The Darvaza gas crater of Turkmenistan would be such an attraction.  We sleep soundly in their little cabin over the brow, looking out over a wild woodland water.  Fred's friend told us that all the forest of New England is secondary or even tertiary forest, quite different to that discovered by the first European settlers. The trees would have been taller, wider apart, with a large canopy.  Eventually most of the forest was cleared for farming, which turned out to be lousy, so when the settlers headed west in search of better land, the forest grew back.
 

the cabin in the backwoods

Don & Martha on their doorstep

Don & Martha are also surrounded by trees, in some sort of self-sustainng sylvan hideaway.  Don is a vet and together they are trying to live The Good Life, with a large kitchen garden.  We park our bikes with the chickens and take shelter from the rain in their Settler's Log Cabin.  From their wood burning stove Don has rigged a hot water heating system.  Out in the yard is as nice a pit toilet as one could hope to find.  And I'm not joking.  When we arrive, after one helluva long climb along a dirt road, they are picking fruit from their trees - it's harvest time.  When we tell them our proposed route Don suggests that he contact some good friends further along who might host us.  He thinks there'll be more rain coming too.  He phones Wendy & Ray who say yes, come on along to their house.  And so we do. 

Wendy with her two enormous dogs

Ray & Wendy also, surprise, surprise, live in the trees, just outside of Bethel.  Bethel is a pretty little town with an art cinema with nice toilets.  It is duly noted on our map of touring facilities.  To get to their house we head up a wide valley dotted with farmsteads, then turn down a track and into the woods.  There are two enormous dogs to greet us.  Enormous, I tell you.  Ray and Wendy generously invite us in to their home.  Any friend of Don and Martha's etc etc.  Such kindness.  Don knows them because he has had to help their dogs who'd been sticking their faces into porcupines.  (Don had shown us his quill collection.)
They've just got back from a visit to Ladakh looking at the work of a charity run by a friend - it's clearly been an enriching experience for them.  More rain so they invite us to stay an extra night.  As they're both working we cook tea, and, despite a blackout, it turns out fine.  

We've only been in the States just over a week and already we've been spoiled with such great hospitality.