100 Days 48 States - The Journey

"If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same….
….Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And - what is more - you'll be a man my son!"
-Rudyard Kipling

TODAY’S ROUTE:
Madawaska, ME to Gorham, NH: US-1 to Fort Kent to SR-12 South to Portage to Patten to I-95 South to Howland to SR-16 to Dover-Foxcroft to Guilford to SR-150 West to Skowhegan to SR-2 West to Rumford and Gorham. (MAP)

THE DETAILS:
Early morning is a wonderful time to be on a motorcycle. As I head west out of Madawaska, a thick morning fog surrounds me. I’m riding through clouds, gliding along rails of silk in oceans of cotton. I turn south in Ft. Kent as the sun bursts through the mist, revealing rolling hills of deep green and valleys filled with milky dew.

Today I’m looking forward to riding through Baxter State Park and seeing Mt. Katahdin, the end of the Appalachian Trail and the highest point in Maine at 5,286 feet. During that summer in 1981, I climbed Katahdin. On the top there were a few markers, pillars made from stacked rocks. I took a small diamond shaped stone and hide it inside the monument. I dreamed of coming back the following summer with my father. We would climb the mountain together and I’d retrieve my hidden treasure. But I never got the chance to go hiking with Dad.

After my five weeks in Maine, I flew back to LaGuardia Airport where my parents were to meet me. But when I arrived, my mother was there alone. "Where’s Dad?" I asked. "We’re meeting him in the city at a doctor’s office," mom replied.

So there’s my father in a fancy Fifth Avenue doctor’s office, but something is different about him. It’s the glasses, which he’s never worn before. He hasn’t been feeling very well. His vision has suddenly worsened and he keeps thinking he is hearing things, a symptom he has had for almost a year. A brain scan a year before revealed nothing, but today he will have another, with more advanced equipment.

I’m already, at this early age, interested in computers, and Dad thinks it would be cool if I could watch the brain x-ray in progress. So I sit in the control room with the radiologist and the Cat-Scan operator. Through the glass, my father lies down on a platform that slowly draws him into the huge machine. We watch the pictures appear on the monitor in shades of gray. The sections slice by, one after another as the scans move up Dad’s head past his eyeballs.

And then there’s something different; a spot growing larger and larger on the left side. And suddenly it’s enormous. Even a thirteen-year-old knows there is something terribly wrong. A nurse ushers me out of the room and suddenly my entire family’s life is changed forever.

Two days later my father had brain surgery at NYU Medical Center and a tumor the size of an orange was removed from his skull. My dream of returning to Katadin was quickly forgotten.

So now I’ve come back, and I reach the sleepy town of Patten by late morning. I’m thinking of Dad as I turn up route 159 to enter the park about 10 miles down the road. A sign catches the corner of my eye and I turn around to read it:

BAXTER PARK RULES.
1.No Pets Allowed
2.Motorcycles Prohibited
3.No Vehicles Over 9 Ft. High or 22 Ft. Long
For Further Info Call HDQTRS 723-5140

MOTORCYCLES PROHIBITED! I can’t believe it! I call the number and speak to a park ranger who doesn’t really know why the rule exists but she confirms it is true. Perhaps we can blame those loud Harley Davidson bikes for this one. She’s very sorry and so am I. Katadin rises out of the plain in the distance, taunting me. I have no option except to turn around. My dreams are dashed once again.

I may return here someday, to climb the mountain again and find my diamond shaped stone. To look across the open plains and see the ocean miles away. Perhaps I’ll be a father myself some day and I’ll come here with my son. We’ll stand at the peak together and survey the glory of nature. We’ll breathe the crystal air and ponder the wonder of life.

Don’t ever stop dreaming.

THE DAILY TAKE:
Miles Today: 356.4
Total Miles: 1335
Time on Motorcycle: 6 hours 48 Minutes
Average Speed: 52.4 MPH
States Visited today: 2 (ME, NH)
Total States Visited: 6
National Park Service Passport Stamps: 0
NPS Stamp totals: 27 Stamps, 5 States
Weather: Cool in Morning, Sunny in Afternoon
Number of Moose seen: Zero, but I’m still looking

RANDOM PASSINGS:
The roads in Maine leave something to be desired. And it’s no fault of the Maine DOT because there are work crews rebuilding the pavement constantly. The problem lies with the lumber trucks. They’re as common as a taxicab in Manhattan, and combined with the harsh winters they do terrors to the road. Right now, for about 5 miles on a section of Route 10 between Portage and Patten there is nothing but mud and dirt and stones. A Motorcycle Nightmare. Don’t try this at home.