Saturday, July 9, 2011

More observations....

Harley Davidsons
We now not only think Warren Buffett is a genius, we know it.  In February 2009, he 'saved' Harley Davidson, by investing $300 million, with a 15% interest rate  with the notes due in 2014.  The Baby Boomers of North America have totally taken to their Harleys.

We have seen a lot of motorcycles since Nova Scotia, in all shapes and sizes.  Bikes with 'mother seats (for wifey)', bikes with trailers almost twice their size.  Bikes with 2 wheels at the front and one at the back,  bikes with 2 at the back and one at the front.

But NOTHING is as ubiquitous as the Harley Davidson.  We reckon we have seen (or more relevantly heard) well over 1000 different Harleys in the last couple of weeks.  In Canada, they need helmets, in the US, most people don't wear them.  You can definitely tell when the bike going past isn't a Harley, over 2/3rds of the bikes are.

Often, the woman (on the back of the bike), turns and smiles and waves to us.  Sometimes, the all round sound system blasting out, is totally offensive. The 'considerate' Harley rider, has his sound sysystem linked in to their helmets. They also have WiFi and GPS all rigged up on their bikes.

We had a lovely chat with Nick and Jo from New Jersey, over coffee and muffins in Searsport.  They had been right up north of we were in Nova Scotia, and today they will be back in New Jersey (lucky them!)  They had a Harley each, and travel a lot on them.

We have watched grown men wiping down their precious bikes lovingly on a ferry crossing.  Harleys on special trailers behind RV's, being carefully covered up at night in campgrounds.

It is the real Baby Boomer trendy thing.  Well done Buffett - can't see how the investment can't work!!

The people (Canada versus North Maine, versus mid Coast Maine, versus 'summer people')
We marvelled consistently at how friendly and nice the people in Canada were.  They didn't take themselves seriously, laughed at themselves, made jokes and laughed at/with us at us.  They were so laid back and so nice.  It was so nice and refreshing!  We finally worked out that that is what Kiwi's used to be like a long time ago  before we all became so serious and so darn PC.  They refer to themselves as living in the Maritimes and meeting the people was so much the delight of the area.

Then, as soon as we got into the US things got uptight, abrupt, rude.  This was North Maine (the Border Control Guard was nice).  We noticed the difference so strongly, so quickly, it was clear.  This was in Lubec, Maine.

This continued for a long time. It has really only been for the last few days (apart from a handful of peple at Bar Harbor) that people have started being more friendly (including the aliens at Waldoboro, see below). 

It has been very noticeable the 'summer people' at Camden and their superior attitudes.  We can take or leave (ie don't trust or believe) the volunteers at the information centers.

It will be interesting to see how the people and their friendliness changes as we move through the different states.  So many peple are so wrapped in their own lives, they just have no interest whatsoever in what we are doing (which is fine, except when we need them to be interested, ie something to do with our accommodation or bikes).  People initially assumed we were from Canada.  Now they assume we are British.  And given the historic anti-British sentiment here (and in the written histories) we don't want that.

We started off with a Silver Fern NZ flag, but people ignored it.  Then, we discovered that on the 4th July it didn't make it the length of the Sunrise DownEast railway trail.  So the poor flag is sitting there al lonely with the zillions of ATV's driving over it!!

Billboard posting regulations
We don't know about you, but over the last couple of years in NZ, we have become increasingly annoyed and frustrated at the visual pollution of the roadside billboards in NZ.  Unfortunately MOST of them, are actually local authority or LTSA (or whoever they are now) signs talking about road safety.  So much for our beautiful clean green country.

Therefore, it is so refreshing to witness the Maine State 'Billboard Posting regulations'.  The camping ground guide gave us the heads up on this, and we love it.  Below is a regulation billboard posting.  They all look the same, same colour, same layout.  It is so nice and refreshing.

We have to go into New Hampshire (which I have no desire to do), it will be interesting to see what it is like there.  I have read in our the newspaper that New Hampshire is so Republican (one of the key primaries are held here), that there are none of these regulations, very few taxes or other interference by the State.  I saw a New Hampshire licence plate today, with the the slogan 'Live Free or Die'.  Fortunately we think we can ride through in a day....



A typical billboard in Maine
The role of the Military in the USA (very pervasive) Of the people that have talked to us (touring cyclist from Washington DC, Fred on the bus in Bar Harbor, RV owners, Motorcyclists), an overwhelming number of them are ex or almost ex military.  All shapes, sizes, ages.  It is amazing how easy it is to not understand how pervasive the military is in North America. 

Th Maritime Museum we are planning to go to in Bath tomorrow has a tour of the current Bath Ironworks where Naval ships are currently built.  Every day except Sunday.  Tomorrow is Sunday. So we don't get to see it.

But the armed forces are everywhere!


Antiques, Flea Markets, Book Shops, Artists and Musicians
We have been amazed at the proliferation of these shops as we have been riding down the coast, and have been trying to work out why.  We think we have come to some conclusions. Most of the coast was settled around 1726 - 1800. Most of the coast comprised of successful ship building and sea-faring towns.


We read somewhere of some of the ships having huge libraries of books.  This made us think of the role of books in an economy where it is frozen and snow bound for much of the year. But obviously, the captains libraries were an initial source of the reading and books.

Also, many of these ships traded with Europe and 'got' goods from other places that they travelled to.  They were fairly early settled by North American standards, and that must be why there are so many antique shops and flea markets.  Seriously there would be either a flea market or an antique shop every mile and about every 10 miles a bookshop.

A trend as we have come further south are the 'fine art' studios, the artists shops, the musicians.  We went to a fascinating place today (Saturday 9th July), called Waldoboro.  It was off the main road, on a road with lots of long step hills, we were just following the adventure cycling guide...  We came down a really steep hill, and being paranoid about not having anything for lunch, we stopped in at the village bakery and cafe (unusual words for a place in North America, as compared to Diner).

As we went in there were a motley group of people hanging around outside and we thought, 'what an earth is happening here?'.  The cafe was fantastic, it would pass for a good quality NZ cafe any day.  They made us wonderful filled bagels for lunch and we had some muffin,cake, coffee and tea (as we didn't get a chance to do the tea and coffee at the rainy grotty campsite this morning, and it was a good excuse to have some nice sweet stuff.)

When we came out, we ended up talking to some of them.  Talking about cycling, music, trout fishing.  We asked what happens in Waldoboro and the answer was that it focuses around music, art, trout fishing.  Having said that, we are pretty convinced that most of the guys handing around the cafe were on heroin, or some other drugs.  They started jamming with banjo, harmonica and someone was of to get their guitar as we left (this was 10am on Saturday morning).

Then, as were riding along, Peter managed to get his raincoat caught in his tyre (and burnt a nice long hole in it), which meant we stopped.  Another cyclist caught up with us, and checked to make sure our gear was ok (a standard code of honour with cyclists...).  We talked to him for a long time.  We didn't catch his name, but he was from Waldoboro. He has tour cycled through North America and Europe. He said 'most of the locals don't really do things in accordance with the law..'  This pretty much confirmed our impressions.  Apart from talking about the riding, the bikes (his trek is the same as mine, but a mens version), the hills, we talked about the locals at Waldoboro. He said (which pretty much summed it all up...) he had a friend come to stay, met the locals and said 'where is their UFO?"

I loved that!  It is a real hippy/druggy community.  Fascinating to meet the locals!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment