Perfection personified......

8:52 am - Wednesday - June 27th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 66º F, 62% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the southwest......partly cloudy with a forecast high of 67º F.....we're almost to the high of the day at 8:52 am?

Of course, we are knee deep in the 2018 World Cup daily matches of which there are four each day for the first two weeks.  We spent the morning watching first the Denmark/France game which ended in the first nil-nil game of this World Cup.  The second between Australia/Peru was won by Peru 2-0 thus eliminating Australia from the 2018 World Cup.

For our Tuesday exploration we opted to return to the Carriage Roads in Acadia National Park.  We easily found a parking place at the Eagle Lake trailhead just off SR-233.  Our plan was to ride south to Jordan Pond, get a bite to eat there and then ride back.  We estimated the total loop distance at around 10 miles.  We set off riding down the east side of Eagle Lake and immediately came upon a climb that went on for about a mile. Near the top of that climb I noticed the rear of my bike was feeling kind of squirrely so I looked down and saw that my rear tire was almost flat!  I stopped immediately  and waited for TLE to close the gap.  This is my second flat tire since arriving at MDI.  I haven't had a flat tire since last summer, so it was a little disconcerting to have a second within two weeks.....last time it was the front tire.  It turned out there was a thin, long wire stuck in the tire which had punctured the tube, so I removed it and then installed a new tube.  I will fix the punctured tube and use it again.

We were stopped about 15 minutes fixing the tire, and were on our way once again.  We arrived at Jordan Pond around 2 pm to find it was overrun with tourists and the wait to eat about one hour......thanks, but no thanks.  We're still a week away from the 4th of July and things are already beginning to rock in Acadia National Park.  We decided to just continue riding........it took us a few minutes to figure out where the Carriage Road continued past Jordan Pond, but we did figure it out eventually and continued our ride.........

Arrived at Jordan Pond

.......the Carriage Road continued on the other side of the Park Loop Road from Jordan Pond House with this grand stone Gatehouse guarding the entrance to the this section of the Carriage Road......

.....it was at this point I decided to take a short video of what the Carriage Roads typically look like here in Acadia National Park.......

.....we began our ride at the Eagle Lake trailhead at 321' elevation, and at the peak of our climbs on the west side of Jordan Pond at around the 7.9 mile mark we hit 458'.....that's a good bit of climbing.....I have to add that TLE never complained one time.....

....the prettiest part of the ride was along Bubble Lake where the Carriage Road runs right along the shores of the lake for about 1/2 mile before veering back into the woods once again......

Bubble Lake

.....eventually we came back to the shores of Eagle Lake and our starting point......

.......our final mileage ended up being 11.3 with about 650 caloric units being consumed with a total riding time of one hour and twenty-two minutes.  It was just after 3:30 pm and neither of us was out of gas.....we could have ridden another 10 miles.....lol.....well, maybe I could have.  This is only the second time TLE has ridden her Cannondale F-600 in the past 12 months and she is coming around quickly.  When we rode two weeks ago she was insistent we not do more than 5-6 miles, but this time she had no problem agreeing to a 10+ mile ride.

We were home by 4 pm at which time TLE began to prepare some snacks to munch on while got out the outdoor TV to watch a couple more World Cup games......the Iceland/Croatia match was won by Croatia 2-1, and then the Argentina/Nigeria won late by Argentina 2-1.....had Argentina lost, or tied they would have been out of the World Cup.  Both games were very good games and could have gone either way.  It was a perfect end to a perfect 'weekend' day!

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