When we woke in Carleton-sur-Mer it was another gorgeous day, but things were a little different now because we knew we were about to end our trip in Canada. After 9 days of touring Quebec I could easily have stayed another week to continue to explore, perhaps down into the maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.

I bet if I had really tried to twist the arms of Steve and Eric I could have convinced them to go further south into the maritimes, but I was the guy who had a deadline. An important business transaction needed to be done, and I had to be in the United States to do it. People were waiting for me to get off my bike and sign papers, and my first chance to do that would be in Maine. So instead of dreaming up grand tours from the map, we headed east back toward home.

But first we took one last quick tour around Carleton-sur-Mer, stopping at a cafe in town for a leisurely breakfast and coffee, and then up into the mountains above town to a church set on the peak 555 meters above our campsite, near yet another wind turbine farm.

We lingered for a few minutes, taking in the view, and then turned the bikes downhill back to the coastal road and east to New Brunswick.

The road through New Brunswick is not very exciting. Basically it cuts the corner of the top of the province in the shortest possible way, directly from the last stretch of coastline on Gaspé to Limestone, ME. We had received an offer via an Internet forum from a guy in New Brunswick who would take us on a more “interesting” path through the province, but with my looming deadline to get back into the USA, we had to pass on that. Our only stops in New Brunswick were to get gas (and a bunch of Canadian candy bars as treats for my ladies back home), and lunch.

Crossing the border in Limestone ME would have been a non-event if I hadn’t gotten selected for a random search. This added a few minutes to the crossing, just filling out an I-9 form and having an agent take a perfunctory peek at the contents of my panniers. Nope, no alcohol, tobacco, firearms, merchandise, or contraband in there—unless you count a stash of 7 Canadian candy bars. Eric had a tough moment when the agent asked him where he was going. He didn’t know, so he just said, “I’m following those guys.”

Not far down the road we found the former Loring Air Force Base. Like other abandoned bases in the northeast (Plattsburgh, Pease, Brunswick), there’s an attempt to convert it to a “business park,” but in this case not much is happening. Most of the buildings, including this massive hangar (of which only about 1/3 is shown in the picture) are slowly deteriorating. If you need indoor space to store a really huge RV, or perhaps 200 or 300 of them, I can recommend a spot in far northeast Maine.

We rode the motorcycles down the long taxiways to see everything. It’s not every day you can ride your motorcycle down the taxiways of a formerly secure military facility. The runways are so long that even at 60 MPH it takes a couple of minutes to get to the other end.

We ended up, as planned, in Presque Isle, ME. The weather was threatening again, so we holed up in a local motel—not a nice place, but cheap—and I started in on my business tasks. Now here’s an example of “working from the road,” for those of you who want to see the real gore involved. I had researched copy shop, UPS Store, and office supply locations previously while in Canada, so I knew there was a Staples in town. I rode over there, and using the store’s wifi I emailed my documents (seven of them) to the store’s print shop. They printed them out for me (about $2), and then I rode over to the nearest FedEx drop box (also previously researched) to get an overnight envelope. I put all of that in a plastic zip bag because the rain was starting up again, and rode back to the motel.

At the motel I wrestled for about an hour with Bank of America, trying to arrange a wire transfer. They wouldn’t do it over the phone, and there are no branches in Maine. I couldn’t do it on the mobile app, either. So I got onto the website and immediately ran afoul of security protocols, which required me to verify my identity with username, password, my business credit card number, and then a 6-digit security code sent to my phone. Then I had to set up the wire transfer recipient, which required another security code. With various website SNAFUs and re-tries, this took quite a while. Eventually I was able to break through the security cordon and order my wire transfer. I wasn’t done, but it was a good start.  Tomorrow I have to find a Notary Public.

After that ordeal, we decided that a walk to town for dinner would be good idea, and we scored by finding Governor’s restaurant. After many days of mediocre meals, this was a real treat. It turned out that we’d arrived on a special day when they were discounting lobster rolls to $5.55. If you’re not familiar with lobster rolls, suffice to say that they are awesome and normally run about $13-15. So Steve and I, being lobster fans, ordered two each.

Since it was apparently gluttony night for the motorcycle boys, I also got a real American milkshake to make up for the disappointing one I’d had in Quebec. The waitress comped it because they didn’t have the flavor I wanted. Two thumbs up for Governor’s! We waddled back up the hill to our hotel, stuffed with lobster. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be back in the USA after all…