In the tense standoff between a Maine nurse and state officials, it was a surreal scene.

Nurse Kaci Hickox, who recently returned to the United States after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, went on a bike ride with her boyfriend Thursday -- followed by a police cruiser and a throng of journalists watching their every move.

Her lawyer called the ride "a good way to exercise her right." Hickox told reporters she "just wanted to enjoy this beautiful day."

Hours later, Gov. Paul LePage said negotiations with Hickox over where she could go had failed, adding that he would "exercise the full extent of his authority allowable by law" to keep her away from public places.

"I don't want her within three feet of anybody," LePage told CNN affiliate WCSH.

"Right now, she can come out of the house if she wants, but we can't protect her when she does that. The reason there's a police car there when she does that is to protect her more than anybody. 'Cause the last thing I want is for her to get hurt," he said. "But at the same token, her behavior is really riling a lot of people up, and I can only do what I can do. And we're trying to protect her, but she's not acting as smart as she probably should."

The state has made it clear it's going to do something. But what?

"The first thing the governor has to do, which he has not yet done, is get a court order which requires her to stay in quarantine," CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said. "There is no court order now. She's not violating anything by taking a bike ride or leaving her house."

There's no guarantee the governor will be able to get a court order, Toobin said, "because, according to the science, she is not in a communicable situation."

It's unclear what the exact sticking point has been in negotiations between the state and the nurse. At first, Maine officials said they wanted Hickox to remain at home for 21 days -- the deadly virus' incubation period. Since then, they've said they want Hickox -- who has twice tested negative for Ebola and says she feels healthy -- to avoid public places such as stores during that time.

She's about halfway there; the incubation period, in her case, is set to end the second week in November.

"I'm just asking her to be reasonable," LePage told WCSH. "Let's get to November 10, and then you can do whatever you would like."

Attorney: Nurse was making a point with bike ride

Hickox has said it's state officials who aren't being reasonable. She contends the U.S. Constitution and science are on her side.

"I'm fighting for something much more than myself," she said Wednesday after emerging from the home where she had been staying. "There are so many aid workers coming back. It scares me to think how they're going to be treated and how they're going to feel."

Hickox has said she's willing to compromise with the state, and that she's open to travel restrictions barring her from public transportation and limiting her to Fort Kent, a town of 4,000 on the Canadian border.

"So I think there are things that, I know, work," she said. "And I know all aid workers are willing to do those things. But I'm not willing to stand here and let my civil rights be violated when it's not science-based."

One of her attorneys, Norm Siegel, told CNN that the couple went for the bike ride to make a point: She could be out in public "without freaking everyone out."

"You can take a bike ride, be in the public and not actually interact with people," Siegel said. "We thought this was a good way to exercise her right. We didn't want anyone in the town to be scared, even though the fear is based in misinformation."

What could be next?

When she returned from a month working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone last week, Hickox had a temperature at an airport in Newark, New Jersey, officials said. She was put into an isolation tent.

(CNN)