Northern hospitality

Southern hospitality has nothing on northern hospitality as practiced at Madawaska, Maine.

I rolled across the bridge from New Brunswick into the U.S. of A. about a quarter after nine Tuesday morning. By 9:30 I had my gas receipt, a phone number and was standing in front of the Madawaska post office posing for my official arrival photo.

As I was wrapping up my photo session Ed Bennett of Mesa, Arizona pulled up on his BMW long distance touring bike. Ed is a truck driver, a local driver, who has been riding for 50 years. Ed said he was doing the Four Corners ride because he wasn't getting any younger.

Madawaska was Ed's third corner and he was off to Key West to finish the quest. Ed had come east from Blaine, Washington through the U.S., and had encountered hail and thunderstorms as well as fog. We're both hoping for better weather headed down the coast.

But, back to hospitality. While Ed and I were chatting about our experiences on the road we were joined by Christina Therrien, the Madawaska town manager. Christina had a small stuffed bear outfitted in motorcycle riding gear for each of us as a welcome gift from the town.

Madawaska pays more attention to the Four Corners ride than do the other stops on the circuit. In fact, the town is planning a monument to the ride. To raise money for the monumbent the town is selling paving stones. Financial contributors will have stone of one color while financial contributors who have completed the ride will have pavers of a different color. I have a form to send back with my check.

Christina was joined by the town's police chief who stayed to chat briefly before going off on his morning rounds. I would have included his picture in the shots above, but I couldn't figure out how to clear enough memory in the camera to take the shot. (I have now learned how to delete photos after they have been stored on the memory card.) Several post office patrons asked if we were doing the Four Corners. They all said thanks for coming here.

The Executive Director of the Madawaska Chamber of Commerce, Barbara Deschaine, came by and invited Ed and me to stop in at the Chamber before leaving town. Barbara and her assistant Karen Lavoie are picture beneath a Chamber banner on a street lamp.

Barbara gave each of us a Certificate of Award to certify that we had been to Madawaska, "the most northeastern town of the Nation."

From the Chamber I walked to the Madawaska Public Library to take advantage of the wireless connection to file this report. The USC journalism and library schools were merged several years ago, and I think the common technological element making the merger feasible is the Internet. Librarians and journalists are in the information collection and dissemination business, and today that work is done by computer. All of my students at the USC Law School bring laptops to class. In theory they're taking notes, but I have some notion that on some days what is appearing on those screens has nothing to do with my lecture.

For the record it took 16 days to travel the 9,267 miles to get from Columbia around to Madawaska. I might have been able to do it faster, but it might have been riskier, and probably not as much fun.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I might not be able to get back into the country. I didn't really have any belief that I couldn't get in, but I did have to park the bike and come into the station with my passport. I suppose the problem was that when I was asked by the agent at the crossing what my destination was for the night I replied, "As far as I can get before dark." Had I said Hyde Park, New York, I probably would have been waved through. Oh, well. I'm back in the country, and I think I should celebrate by going to McDonald's.

Appropriately enough the Four Corners monument model in Madawaska is standing beside the McDonald's. I say appropriately because I suspect that many folks on this ride eat a lot of fast food. The fellow rinning the gas station told me that the highest number of Four Corners riders passing through Madawaska was 300 in one year. He said, "Of course, not all of them finish it." I thought to myself, I did.

Now, it southbound and down. I'm heading for my son Todd's house in Hyde Park. If I get a chance, I'll try to call my friend Rob Gips as I go through Portland, Maine. Rob represents Indian tribes, and has provided sage counsel and advice to the Catawba Indian Nation.

I have some more photos to share, including a series on Indian finance in the high desert. And I have a picture of one of the moose warning signs I've been describing.