Tip of Texas to Tip of Maine Bicycle Trip

Three years ago, I set out on a bicycle trip from Brownsville, Texas to Fort Kent, Maine. After completing the first part, from Brownsville to my home in Tennessee, I found that my sister was in a stage of cancer much more advanced than when I had left so discontinued the trip to be with her and family. This summer, I completed part 2 of the trip. This post summarizes the two parts. Later ones will focus on this summer’s trip to the tip of Maine.
     See Tim’s Bike Trip  (blogspot.com) for a report on my coast-to-coast trip five years ago. 

Part 1: Brownsville, TX to Murfreesboro, TN

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Approximate Length: 1,2000 miles in 12 days (no rest days)
 
Time: Last two weeks of May, 2015

Getting to the starting point: I boxed my bike with the help of Youtube videos and a carton taken from the bin of our local bike store MOAB with their permission, took a Greyhound Bus to Brownsville, and reassembled the bike in Greyhound’s quiet, protected outside waiting area.
 
Highlights

• As I coasted heat beaten into a rest area in southern Texas, a man standing by his truck held out a frosty bottle taken from his ice chest and asked “Want some water?” Yes indeed!
• Ferry hops along the Gulf Coast.
• The Bluewater Highway to Galveston,  enabling avoidance of Houston and travel along beaches. Few of the beach houses were occupied and car traffic was light.                  
• Several hours of biking with cousin Jason.
• In Louisana, eating crawfish for the first time.  
• The Natchez Trace Parkway. A delightful route for bicyclists. The speed limit is 40-50 mph and cars yield to cyclists. I took it from the starting point in Natchez, Mississippi until near the end in Nashville, breaking off to go through Columbia, TN to my home in Murfreesboro. I had a healthy, plentiful breakfast at the French Camp Bed and Breakfast Inn, just off the Trace, and enjoyed talking with some of the friendly Academy administrators and teachers who had just finished a meeting there.

Part 2: Murfreesboro to Fort Kent, Main

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Approximate Length: 1,800 miles in 23 days, including 3 rest days
 
Time: May 27—June 18

Highlights: I will mention a few here, each being the potential topic of later posts.

• Biking with daughter Kayitesi the first day’s 75 miles.
• First time to travel with a smart phone, given to me just a couple days before the trip as an early Father’s Day present.  
• State parks in Kentucky and Ohio: clean, cheap and within a day’s hike from each other.
• Ohio bike paths: excellent!
• Stealth camping (a joy of any bike trip).
• Overnight stays with friends and family along the way.
• Coasting down the east side of the Green Mountains (climbing the west side a bit laborious).
• A parallel to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
• Maine: southern Maine, central Maine, northern Maine, Maine, Maine, Maine.
• My Specialized Sirrus hybrid bike bought just before the hike. 

 
Getting back home: Dear cousin Marg had been in central Maine and, ready to return to her place in Pennsylvania, agreed to go a couple hundred miles out of her way to pick me up in Fort Kent and take me with her. I then rented a car from her place to my home. The price of the rental dropped from $650 to $150 when I changed the final destination to the airport 25 miles from home rather than the local agency in Murfreesboro.