Well the goat path road we traversed to get to Rangeley, ME, gained a casualty. NFG Kelly’s Ram truck threw a dash light that the air ride went out by the time he arrived at Saddle Back Inn. He, and Yamaha Kevin, located a Ram dealer about 40 miles away, and got it into service before they closed for the evening (they borrowed the Bumble Bee for a chase vehicle). I tried convincing NFG Kelley that we have had a guy, Connecticut Jim, buy a sled on the trail, but it would definitely raise the bar if a new truck was purchased on the trail! He wasn’t so thrilled with that prospect, and was relieved when the dealer said it was just a fuse.
Anywho, while those two were screwing around with that project, the rest of the crew conjoined in the indoor swimming pool/hot tub building for adult beverages and friendly banter. After they had got their fill of soaking, we moved across the sidewalk to Recreation Room. A couple tables, a TV, a recliner and a couch, and the group was settled in now for the evening. We moved our bar set up from our rooms to the Rec Room, and a good time was had!
The Saddleback has a bar/restaurant on the premises, but I am not sure what the reason is that it is closed at this time, so this morning we loaded into trucks and drove about a mile into town for breakfast at the Rangeley Inn & Tavern. It is a beautiful bar/restaurant, and we were filled and ready for the trail in not so short order. Tomorrow we are going to try the Moose Alley Bowling and Restaurant/Tavern for breakfast. The real saddle bag ride begins in the morning, and we need to be on the trail in proper time.
We were on the trail by 10am this morning, and we did about 100 miles on a local trail loop. The trail conditions are MUCH improved versus where we were Monday. Pretty uneventful first half of the day, we stopped at the Looney Moose in Stratton ME, after about 50 miles. We entered the small entryway to the diner, and because there was 12 of us trying to offload our helmets and gear, the line went out the door. We were promptly reprimanded, by the only waitress, to “Close the damn door”. As we started to take seats in the front room, 1/2 the group sat at the first 8 person table. while the others roamed to the back room. The back room crew came back and said, “Hey, there’s room back here for all of us”, so we all moved to two tables in the back room. This prompted the waitress to holler at us “I hope you’re better at finding your way on the trails than you are at finding a table!” She was quite fun and provided us with a lunch filled with laughter.
The lunch special was Lobster stew, cup for $19.99 or bowl for $29.99. There was a few cups of the lunch special served, as well as some burgers, reuben’s and other lunch fare. Good lunch, good laughs, and we were back on the trail.
We headed back to proceed on the Loop that was marked on the 2022 trail map. After about 8 miles, we came to a trail head, and struck up a conversation with a homeowner. Action Dan & Craig asked the kind gentleman if were on the right path, and the kind gentleman informed them that the trail had been shut down by the local Indian reservation.
The time was getting away from us, it was about 2:30pm, the sun sets earlier as far east as we are, so we decided to do a partial track back to be in before dark. Good call, as it is getting cold here tonight low of -24 is forcast.
As we were hustling back on the mostly groomed trails, NFG Kelly lost a bogey wheel on a turn, Chip Nasty pointed it out, and I stopped to pick it up off the trail. The last time a guy rode an Arctic Cat in front of me, I was picking up his gas can, saddle bag and whatever else flew off that particular day. I hope my old Indian friend Paul is sipping a scotch and reading this right now, he’ll know who I am talking about.
The rest of the ride in was uneventful, and the plan was to order some pizzas, run down to the local IGA and restock our adult beverages. Half that plan came to fruition, we made it to the IGA for provisions, but we decided to head back to Sarge’s for food and the free wifi so I could punch this nightly blog out for my seven followers (I gained one somewhere).
Dinner is over, dessert is being had by a couple of the team, and this day’s edition of Frost Bytes is wrapping up.
I believe breakfast call time is 7am, tomorrow, we need an early start with earlier sunset… we shall see.
Bye for now…
Stick
