Hannah loves to travel!: Finally, a connection to Abraham Lincoln

Start: Comfort Inn, Lincoln, New Hampshire
End: King's Hill Inn, Paris, Maine

Mileage: 83 miles
Weather: Heat wave!

States Conquered: Washington; Idaho; Montana; North Dakota; Minnesota; Iowa; Illinois; Indiana; Ohio; Pennsylvania; Ontario, Canada; New York; Vermont; New Hampshire
State Being Conquered: Maine
States to be Conquered: The Atlantic Ocean?

Particulars: We're staying at the King's Hill Inn, a Bed and Breakfast in Paris, Maine and the birthplace of Horatio King, the Postmaster General under Presidents James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln. Maine is BEAUTIFUL although the roads tend to be a bit dicey--a lot of up and down (Hannah and I said woo hoo several times) smooth and well-paved roads interspersed with obviously untouched and unattended roads sadly in need of attention.

The proprietress of the King's Hills Inn informed me that President Obama and his family are vacationing in Acadia, so I think we'll pass on a visit to Cadillac Mountain. Sounds like that will just have to wait until the next bike trip (yes, they're already talking about the next one) in Nova Scotia. Departure for this trip will be on the ferry out of Bar Harbor, Maine, right next to Acadia and Cadillac Mountain. We'll plan around the Obama's vacation plans.

A report from Joe Thompson: Today we rode 83 miles from Lincoln NH to Paris ME. We had new records for both speed on the trip (42 mph) and steepness of grade (21 per cent). That was steep enough that Kelly was zig zaging and Mike had to walk his bike 50 feet to re-start after missing a shift. I ended up riding directly up by standing up in my lowest gear and pulling on the bars as hard as I could.

Attached is a photo of the back of the B&B where we are staying this evening. King's Hill is the name of the place, after the guy who was Abe Lincoln's Postmaster General. The building is interesting in that it conveys the peculiarity of the buildings in the area. What they have in common is that they are huge. It seems that they usually start out as normal size dwellings, but then generation after generation the buildings are modified by adding floors, wings, garages, barns and businesses until they become the architectural equivalent of a run-on sentence. One sees these conglomerated buildings all over the place here, mostly well maintained and functioning as what, I have no idea!