It’s getting to be the time of year out here when sharing the road means 90 percent me and Tom, 10 percent the squirrels. (For those who might not know, “out here” is eleven miles from blacktop–where sharing can be with logging trucks, ATVs, moose, deer, the occasional excavator or cement truck and, during the summer, more passenger vehicles whipping around than the fast lane through the Hampton toll on a Friday afternoon.)

Not too long ago, I would’ve loved to whip through that same toll. Back before I left the land of highways, traffic lights, and hairy commutes you still had to slow crawl past a booth—or, heaven forbid, stop and hand over some real money to a real person—not maintain velocity like you’re running the Daytona 500.

Since my Big Move to Rangeley, with those memories fading and my relativity recalibrating, “traffic” has a whole new meaning. And these days, hairy commutes actually might have hair. . .on whatever I hopefully avoid as it runs in front of me. No more constant wondering about how far the turnpike is backed up or how hard I’m gonna hafta gun it to make my work meeting on time. I still do have plenty of questions, though, just different ones. Like “Jeeeezum, where are all these people coming from?” and “Where the heck do they think they need to get to so fast?” Plus lots of hypothesizing about why most folks can’t be bothered to wave, nod, honk, or otherwise acknowledge there are other humans out and about with them anymore.

By far, though, the year-round guessing game that literally overshadows the rest when taking to the roads out here is: “Do you think they’re haulin’ logs today?” Because you never really know till the answer pops right up on you, but it sure helps to try to be clued in.

“LOOOOOOGGING TRUUUUUUCK!” Tom and I holler to each other when we see one coming, hopefully in time to yield the right of way as instructed on the shared use road signs. Before I started coming upta camp, the only thing comparable to being passed by a loaded logging truck was “doin’ a train” back in college. (No, it wasn’t one of those wild Seventies streaking things. But, yes, it did involve drinking and risky decisions.) Doin’ a train meant getting all liquored up and and sitting on an embankment right over the tracks till the midnight train rolled through Durham, NH. It’s probably fenced off now but, back then, there wasn’t anything quite like the wind-sucking, eyelid-flapping, heart-fluttering sensation of having a locomotive whiz by your face at 75 miles per hour. Until the back roads around Rangeley.

I got a kick out of the recent “Driving in the North Woods” email from Maine Fish and Game. “Always give the right of way to logging trucks,” it said. “Remember, they’re working. You’re going fishing.” (Or pretty much going wherever whenever because we’re retired.)

“Thanks, but no need for reminders,” I say as I hop on my vehicle of choice. No need for Ginkgo biloba, a Luminosity app, or whatever the latest trend is for keeping wits sharp and reflexes nimble, either. Because on hauling days I’ve typically got less than a minute to steer way clear with my vehicle of choice—the bicycle equivalent of a go-cart six inches off the dirt. A recumbent TerraTrike Rambler with electric assist for the “swamp hump” and other gravel-grinding ascents requiring a little extra oomph, it’s been called everything from a buggy, to a contraption, a rockin’ rig, a three-wheelah, and that thang. On hauling days, I call it a good way to maintain my muscle mass and mental acuity.

But no matter how you roll out here, road reciprocity is a win-win situation. If not for the logging companies plowing, grading, and otherwise repairing our surfaces, travel as we know it would turn to bushwhacking real quick. So, even when I’m yielding to Big Blue Pete, I’m grateful. Named by my truck savvy neighbor for his brand new blue Peterbilt 567, Pete’s the rolling backwoods version of the T. rex in Jurassic Park. I can feel him coming before I see him in my rear view mirror, at which point I detour off-road as far and as fast as possible, hunker down, and start singing. Something like “Daddy shark doo doo doo doo doo doo, daddy shark doo doo doo doo doo doo…” to drown him out before dusting myself off and returning to the Country Roads/Low Rider/Beautiful Day tunes that otherwise round out my mental pedaling playlist. After a few such encounters, I figured Big Blue Pete deserved his very own song, sung to the tune of the Monkees theme song:

Here he comes
Roarin’ down the street
You better back away from
The truck named Big Blue Pete!
Hey, hey he’s a logger
And people say he should slow down
But he’s too busy haulin’
To not keep the pedal down
Just thunders right past you
Flying toward a cutting crew
Better keep your wits in high gear
When Pete’s comin’ through
Hey, hey he’s a logger
And people say he should slow down
But he’s too busy haulin’
To not keep the pedal down
No time to be friendly
So quick jump out of the way
‘Cause Pete’s gettin’ three more loads out
Before the end of the day
Any time, or anywhere,
Just look over your shoulder
And say a silent prayer
Hey, hey he’s a logger
You never know where he’ll be found
So you’d better be ready
To beat feet when he’s around! ¹

Haven’t seen Big Blue Pete in a long while. Luckily there seems to be a more “sharing is caring” crew of drivers who don’t mind slowing down a bit. They’ve got me singing a different tune—my version of an Eagles classic—while giving me new perspective, their perspective, as they bob and weave around an orange-flagged, laid back e-triker and all the other critters they might encounter.

Well I’m running down the road with a real heavy load
Got a world of trouble on my mind
Four moose wanna ram me, two folks wanna damn me
One bike of the strangest kind!
Take it easy, take it easy
Don’t let the sight of those weird wheels drive you crazy
C’mon lady, I hope maybe
You gotta know that slowin’ down ain’t gonna pay me! ²

I think Big Green Pete, the new guy in town, sensed my empathetic vibe. And it probably didn’t hurt that I gave two thumbs up in the general direction of the truck cab versus cowering and covering my face with my bike cap. He waved at me! No blast on the horn, thank you very much, but an actual palm all the way off the steering wheel as he throttled down past me. And it could have been a road dust mirage, but I’m pretty sure I saw Pete 2.0 crack a smile, too. (Or maybe it was a smirk because I looked like the bicycle circus came to Rangeley and left behind one of its clowns.)

Either way, it’s nice to get a “road wave.” Out here that’s code for “Hey there, g’day, nice to see you,” an acknowledgment that just because we choose to live off the beaten path we don’t choose to do so totally alone. It was one of the first rules of Rangeley road etiquette I learned back when I was a part-timer, before I earned my year-round, dun-colored car exterior (AKA a Rangeley paint job) and the crusty-calved travel pants that come with it. Thirteen years later, I’ve pretty much mastered the “seasoned local” driving salute: Two to four fingers up while your thumb stays hooked over the steering wheel. (Never just one finger up, though. That’s not neighborly.) Most warmish days when the sun is at least partially shining, I trade driving for a jaunt around my e-trike loop, doing a full-on, five-fingered howdy-do. I’m like Queen Consort of the Puckerbrush, wavin’ my fool bike-gloved hand off, hoping any spectators wave back. Sadly, though, this road salutation business seems to be a dying art. Except for some of us old fashioned types, folks just ain’t reciprocating as much. Or nodding. Or even looking. “That’s okay,” I remind myself. “They’re busy getting wherever the heck they need to go. . .faster than friggin’ Big Blue Pete. . .while I’m just out here high-fiving, low pedaling—and singing my version of Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree:

I’m headin’ home on this fine day
And I’m glad to see who else is on my way
So if you catch my hand up
Giving you a big hello
Then you’ll know just what to do
If you do see me
If you do see me
Oh do a little road wave
When you pass by me
It’s been ten long miles
Seeing only trees
If you don’t do a road wave when you pass by me
I’ll move on along
Keep singing this song
‘Cause you’ve got places to be
Too fast for any critters or the scenery! ³

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1. Original song written by Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart and Jack Keller. ↩︎
2. Original song written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey ↩︎
3. Original song written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown ↩︎

Ten winters after putting down Rangeley roots—perennial roots deep in the arctic strata formerly known as our summer waterfront—we put down tracks. Serious tracks. Boldly going where we hadn’t dared to snowshoe, ski, or ice shuffle before. Faster than a speeding lawnmower. More powerful than the Funtown kiddie train. Almost able to leap aboard in a single bound. And while we might not be shreddin’ it hahd, as Bob Marley would say, we are dicin’ it up pretty good.

“Bout time!” That’s the general response we got from the “locals” this fall when we talked of buying a sled—after ‘fessing up that, no, we never owned a snow machine and, yes, we live on the slow end of the Big Lake. All winter. With nothing but miles of “white gold” between our front door to ITS 84 and beyond. For the past decade.

Usually I’m pretty honed in on anniversaries. From the mundane to the monumental, I’ll be the first one to tell you how long ago something happened, what day of the week it was, who was there, and what they were wearing. Like if Rain Man were fixated on calendar days rather than never missing an episode of Judge Wapner, that’d be me.

As it turned out, though, buying a sled during our tenth winter around the Rangeley sun was more coincidental than ceremonial. More reactive than proactive. Blame it on some kind of decade in a cabin dementia, but my instinctive, proactive time elapse surveillance never kicked in. If it had, our conversation might have been something like “Wow, ten’s a big number. Let’s celebrate with that Ski-Doo we’ve always wanted.” Instead, we just sort of woke up one day in October and, with the reverse of what a bear must feel right before hibernation, saw there was a new third-digit year coming up on the calendar and said “Ya know, a sled would be pretty darn special.” Even more special, most days, than our snowshoes and grippers. And that’s how we knew it was finally time to spice our snow daze up a notch with some horsepower and “helmet therapy.”

Our brand spankin’ Ski-Doo Skandic 600 “wide track two-up” arrived well before the first snow fall, during that twilight time of waiting and wondering also known as sneaking up on another Rangeley winter. Seeing the sled parked in the yard in all its just out of the showroom shininess added a different dimension of unknowns to the season. Would it really snow enough to ride that thing? Or, like the year we bought the new snow blower, had we triggered an inverse weather pattern and insured a winter drought? And what, exactly, were we gonna do with this gas-propelled, snow+machine piece of property except go get yet another registration stickah and reshuffle some shed space for it?

Silly us. We forgot that the only sure way to make Old Man Winter start piling on blankets and blankets of snow is to doubt, even for a day, the inevitability of his arrival up here. In these parts, idle speculation about winter—or any season—is just that. Idle. It’s counter productive right when we need all the squirrel energy we can muster to spring into action, get ourselves set up.

So, almost as fast as the yard turned from brown to white, we got busy. Never having piloted a snow mobile, Tom did some test runs and gave me, the designated back seat passenger, a “just in case” lesson on the controls. We dress rehearsed using our most expensive fashion accessories to date—our state-of-the-art helmets. How to hermetically seal our noggins while adjusting, snapping, sliding, and otherwise tweaking each advanced feature—on-the-fly—according to our ever-evolving safety, comfort and visibility requirements. How to gracefully remove the new-age brain bucket without removing large patches of hair along with it and then dropping it on the kitchen counter like a greased bowling ball. Then we graduated to figuring out how to pull on our new snazzy boots without pulling a neck muscle and before pulling on our sub-zero gauntlet gloves. Finally, I was ready to do a “hands on” demo: How to get all layered up, hop on the back of a two-up, and actually stay on.

Or so I thought. But the real lesson I learned was this: When prepping for your maiden snowmobile voyage, don’t rely on a pair of 40-year-old snow bibs you’ve had since back in your almost-maiden youth. You’ll forget that you used to be able to zip ’em up ’cause you had nothing on underneath except a pair of control top pantyhose, not rolls of wine blubber and uber thick fleece! And you’ll feel like the famous scene from Gone With the Wind where Mammy tries to get Scarlett back in her skinny clothes, minus the bed post and plus at least 10 more waistline inches!

So my first ride kinda blurred past me while, instead of wild and free, I felt like Michelin Mamma, praying the few centimeters of zipper I was able to close over my paunch didn’t let go and send a shower of shrapnel into Tom’s back. “No more snow bunny waist for you, Miss Joy Joy!” I said as I waddled back inside to find me some bigger girl pants, glad to have Amazon Prime and be searching for something less cinched, but not quite Mammy sized—yet.

A few days later, we were finally geared up, gassed up and two-up, ready to hit the trail hard, to roar into the great white open. Well, maybe not roar. What we ended up with was more like a steady purr. Because the next teaching moment came as soon as we hit the trail for more than a test run. It pertained to my spirit of adventure. The same spirit that, back in my pre-Rangeley driving days, made me the proud owner of a Mustang convertible named Joyride, the same one that keeps me wanting to ride the fastest, hairiest roller coasters till I can’t hobble on and off them anymore. Turns out, that spirit dies a quick death when exposed to snow-covered terrain. And my need for speed? On the back of a sled, that’s met and exceeded in first gear. Anything above 25 miles per hour feels like I’m riding the end car on Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. In the middle of winter. Without high tech safety restraints. Yelling things not nearly as endearing as the squeals my daughters call my “roller coaster laugh.” But luckily, my pilot seemed to agree. A couple daring sprints to see “what was under the hood,” and he didn’t need me thumping on his back or silent screaming into my helmet to convince him to slow down.

So much for calling our new sled the Red Rocket! After maintaining about the same cruising speed as a Zamboni, the name just didn’t fit. That, plus when we told our daughter we had a Red Rocket, she made the same face she makes when we ask her to explain a Cards Against Humanity phrase. Said something about that term being synonymous with male dog anatomy. So now we have a Red Rover. As in “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Tom and Joy right over!” Across the lake, around Toothaker, down the Bemis track, and back home. Rambling around, blowing the cabin dust off, enjoying another popular Rangeley pastime. And, yes, getting good exercise!

Before this winter, I agreed with Bob Marley when he said snowmobiling didn’t count as outdoor exercise because “all you need to ride is an ass and a throttle thumb.” Now I beg to differ. Especially in the back seat, you also need vice-like grip strength—in your hands and your legs. Specifically in your adductors, those inner thigh muscles you don’t feel until you ride a horse or haul out your Suzane Somers ThighMaster from the 1980s. Did Suzane ever try muckling onto a vinyl seat while thumping over pressure ridges and scaling snow bankings? I think not. Because, if she had, she would have been a Ski-Doo fitness guru instead.

And talk about an ab workout! I might not be sporting a six pack, but I definitely think I’ll be in better swimsuit shape than your average Jane Sixpack, thanks to my Red Rover workouts. We thought that buying the “deluxe” after-market back seat rest for our sled model would be all we needed to have me riding in style and comfort. We were wrong. Until Tom retrofitted it, I spent most of my ride in a half crunch position I hadn’t achieved since I retired my Abs of Steel video. And all the time I was doing so, I was wondering why the engineers at Ski-Doo didn’t take some safety and design pointers from their cohorts working on car seats. If they had, seeing crash test dummies getting all stove up on the “deluxe” after-market back seat of a Ski-Doo Skandic 600 would have sent them back to the drawing board! Sure, streamlined aerodynamics is important on a two-up sled. But how streamlined is it if you end up needing to duct tape your old college “sitting up in bed” pillow with the armrests and five pounds of foam support to the back of your sled?

Luckily, we didn’t need to go that far. With a little Yankee ingenuity and some more help from Amazon, Tom had me sittin’ pretty, enjoying Rangeley’s winter splendor like never before, looking forward to many more years out and about on our anniversary gift to ourselves and our unique lifestyle. It’s not the stuff that jewelry commercials are made of—the ones that make you believe if you don’t by some sort of diamond studded “still married to my best friend” bling to commemorate your love, you’re doing something wrong. But I’m pretty sure, one time in February when we were avoiding a snow drift, our sled tracks made a big, heart-shaped loop on the lake. And sometime along in there, I got inspired to write a song. A reggae song set in the frozen north, about breaking our own path and moving to our own quirky beat.

Slow, Slow, Slow Ridahs
Sung to the tune of Buffalo Soldier

Slow, slow, slow ridahs,
Won’t go fastah.
We’re just the slow, slow, slow ridahs
Old faht Sunday drivahs.
Moved up from the Flatlands
With no real sled plans.
Bought our first Ski-Doo
Gear that’s brand new.
Ridin’ duo
On days above zero.
Joined the trail club
For a stickah and a raffle stub.
Cruisn’ real slow
Where there’s good snow.
Traded in our bicycles
Feelin’ like icicles!
Toward Bald Mountain
Trail map scoutin’.
Havin’ no fear
Keepin’ it in first gear.
Toolin’ round Bemis
Maybe the ITS.
Slapped by pucker
Motherf*****r!
Still we look slick
Straddlin’ the Skandic.
“Snomos” wild and free
On our four-stroke utility.
Gawkin’ to and fro
Through a helmet window.
Is that an ice bump
Or a buried stump?
But, oh what a cool sight
Our shadows on the white!
Great view of Tom’s head
His neck’s real red!
Out on the Big Lake
Watchin’ out for snow snakes.
Holdin’ on so tight
Can’t feel my frost bite.

Singin’ braaap braaap braaap ba braaap braaap
Braaap braaap braaap ba braaap ba braaap braaap!

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For more “Songs of Joy and Tomfoolery” see:

• Vaccine vigil
• A few of my new COVID things
• Mooselook state of mind