The latest calculations are that we put in more than 20 miles in today on our rented bikes, mostly over the national park’s gravel carriage roads.   We stuck to the trails described to us “more moderate,” and while we expected these to be flat and gentle, they turned out to be a fair bit less moderate than that.

Looks flat but is probably uphill

The carriage trails are lovely, wide, shaded trails, but owing to the nature of the terrain in this part of the world, they are not really flat.  Lovely, but rolling with hills.  On many of the hills some or all of us would have to dismount and walk our bikes up.

It was a hardship that seemed bearable when we  were driven by the promise of a large ice cream sundae inside an even larger popover at the Jordan Pond House, conveniently located at the farthest point in the Tri-Pond Loop we were executing today.

On the far side of Jordan Pond, we could practically taste the popovers.

This thought kept us pedaling along rather briskly for most of the morning up and down the undulations of the landscape, though at one point on a particularly long climb, we all got passed by a jogger.

Deflated troops after a bag lunch in a lovely setting

While we did see all three ponds gleaming magnificently in the sun, we didn’t actually ever get to latch onto any of those popover sundaes.  The darned line at the Jordan Pond House was just too long, and, probably due to coronavirus restrictions, it seemed not to be moving at all.  The hill-climbing jogger would have passed this line like it was standing still, because it was standing still.

Popovers, no; wild blueberries, yes

It was a difficult decision to make, but we ended up just eating our bagged lunch and refilling our water bottles several times at the Jordan Pond House before making our way through the rest of the loop.

Many a strategy board game loss was avenged on the adventure golf course, mateys.

One concession for the missed confection was to head almost directly to an adventure golf set up we saw yesterday on the way into town.  We headed back out there almost as soon as we returned our bikes to the rental place.

The line for golf was long, too, but at least it moved.  We opted to play the easier, original course and cruised right along once we got our clubs.  The going was much slower on the flashier new course.  Then we headed downtown to make up for lost ice cream and also to have dinner.

We even managed to break our beer fast at dinner with a sample flight of various Maine brews.

See, it all works out in the end.