Over Christmas break myself Jeff ‘Business 3000′ Spence and James `2006′ aka ‘Butch’ Searls biked about 800 miles in the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. A plane, a train, and a bus brought us to our starting location.

My last day in Maine I made it to Loring Air Force Base, located near Limestone.

A few quotes from the linked Wikipedia page regarding the base

Loring AFB was carved out of the woods of Maine beginning in the late forties and officially dedicated in 1953.

The host wing for Loring AFB throughout its existence was the 42nd Bomb Wing. The wing originally flew the B-36 Peacemaker, converting later to the B-52 Stratofortress…

The Nuclear Weapons Storage Area at Loring once operated as a separate, top secret facility. Originally called the North River Depot, the remote area to the northeast of Loring’s property was the first U.S. Operational site specifically constructed for the storage, assembly, and testing of atomic weapons…

Since 1981, nearly $300 million in military construction and operations and maintenance funds were spent to upgrade the facilities…

The official base closure date was 30 September 1994.

It is a strange feeling to ride a bicycle around an area where a third of a billion dollars was spent since I was born and is now largely devoid of human presence.

Acadia NP and the surrounding area.

A warm summer Sunday in Acadia National Park. Mount Desert Island, Maine.

Up the Abol Trail and down the Helon Taylor. 10 miles that took 10 hours. We started at 5 am after sleeping in the car outside the park the night before. Seemed to be the Maine way.

The easternmost point of the contiguous United States and the closest point to Europe from within the fifty States.

Aroostook County, Maine. Sight of the first successful transatlantic balloon launch. The Maine School of Science and Mathematics is my home until July 26th.

Killing some time on the free wifi at the Denver airport. Scenes from the plane.

On day 14 we finally made it to the heart of Vancouver in the early evening. The final 20 miles or so of biking into a large city are rarely very fun. Downtown Vancouver itself is very pro-bicycle though, with lots of dedicated bike lanes.

This post is a small homage to the 24 hours round trip we NC Sulock’s spend in a car each Christmas driving from Asheville to New Jersey. To ignore it would be to ignore a significant part of my heritage.

On the way drive back to Missoula we stopped to walk a 5 mile loop at the highly recommended Multnomah Falls.

Put on your skinny jeans because its time for Northwest Jerk Fest presented by Northwest Movement Magazine . These are all from the final round featuring Portland’s own Bedrock Boyz vs. The Rip City Jerks.

All you future jerkers out there can learn some new moves here.