Boston

I'm sitting here enjoying the chatter between my cousin and Chris as my cousin Diane prepares a frittata for our send off.  We have just spent 3 wonderful days visiting in Boston.  We didn't do anything spectacular or lots of site seeing, just hanging out and enjoying the company.  We did go to a college rugby game and watched Diane and Ron's son play, beating BU; we had a wonderful Italian dinner in downtown Belmont in an old fire station and on one rainy day I got caught up on my CEUs for my nursing licenses and Chris spent copious hours finding our route out of the city.  The ride to Boston was awesome riding through so much history and old houses, roads we would never had driven on, we even rode past Walden Pond.  Riding through Boston was quite hair raising with all the traffic, so we are leaving on a Sunday and hope the ride out is more mellow!  Onward south, next visiting stop, my sister Maggie.

South to the Future

We are two days out of Portland, on our way to Boston, and they were oh so different.  Monday was awesome... We navigated from Portland to our mapped route and the day just flowed:  rolling hills, beautiful views, the start of fall color, great roads, modest traffic.  We were well rested and and well nourished.  The route followed Rt 1 for awhile and at times was right along the beach or the "rocky intertidal".  It was great to be there without the crowds in beautiful weather.  We did about 70 miles and stayed in Kittery, Maine.  Today the vibe was different...  It was beautiful and there was some great riding but it was more work!  To start off, the bridge over the Piscataqua River (that's the border between Maine and New Hampshire) was out so we had to get to the van shuttle location.  It was a bit awkward but we met, and were helped by, some interesting folks.  Our legs were not as fresh today and we had headwinds ALL day.  And the hills were steeper and less rolling and there was a lot of crummy pavement and tedious navigation!  We ended the day by going off route to Nashua, NH, to find a place to stay.  No big problems but it is challenging to ride in unfamiliar cities while loaded up.  It was a nice relief to make it to our Motel 6 after about 60 miles!  Tomorrow we head into Boston to visit Nancy's cousin.  We have a mapped bike route that should take us within a few miles of their home.  There is a bit of rain forecast.  I guess that's why they call it adventure cycling.

We Made It

We rode coast to coast!  On Friday September 21, we rolled to the coast in Portland Maine.  Needless to say we were pretty happy we completed this segment of our journey.  I had mixed feelings, feeling proud & elated for our  accomplishment and on the other hand it was just another day of cycling.  That's how we did it, one day at a time of pedaling.  We had a great week leading up to the final feat. After we left our friends in New Hampshire we stayed the night in a great family owned motel in Ossipee, NH and got a van pickup to the notorious barbecue on the corner of 25 & 16 with the giant pig.  We could have made it to Portland the next day but decided to spend the next day at my cousin's "camp" cottage on Bickerford Pond (also thought of as a lake) in Maine just across the border from NH.  We only pedaled 17 miles, so we were able to take advantage of a great fall afternoon and kayak on the pond, it was awesome, so peaceful and tranquil.  The next day we headed to Portland, since we were not in a hurry stopped in a East Coast phenomenon "Dunken Donuts" ( they are every where) and met a retired principle and his wife who wished we could spend the night with them and talk more about our trip.  With all the awful things we read and hear about in this world, this reminds us of all the wonderful people out there that we don't hear about.  This weekend we have been hanging out and celebrating with our friends in Portland and even got a kayak paddle in yesterday.  Tomorrow we start the next segment of the trip - south to Florida!

New England, New Hampshire, New Hampton, old friends

We are currently cooling our heels, resting our butts, and generally having a good 'ol time while visiting our friends Barry & Gretchen in New Hampton, NH.  Chris and Barry were on the waterfront staff and lived together in a tent at Boy Scout camp in 1969 and all 4 of us have shared many laughs since then!!!
About 5 days ago we took a small cable ferry from Ticonderoga, NY, across Lake Champlain , to Vermont.  The farms were beautiful, the hills were steep, and some of the roads were in awful condition.  We cranked our way up a big hill and rode through Middlebury College.  It was suddenly quite urban and we had to stop for pedestrians in cross walks.  The next day we rode over "Middlebury Gap" a 1500 foot climb with some steep sections, but it wasn't so bad, and then we cruised, trending downhill for the rest of the day.  We camped at a funky "campground" along the White River that night.  There was no drinking water so Gunga Din (aka, Dora the Explorer) made a water run to a farm about a mile away.  We were the only campers but ther was another couple who were living in an RV for the summer.

Speaking of summer, it is slipping away and lately the mornings have been on one side or the other of 40 degrees.   So....we left our mapped route on Saturday and rode 63 miles to our friends' home.  Our current thinking is that we will head out tomorrow toward Portland, Maine, to visit more friends.  Most likely we will declare success (Portland is on the coast so we will have biked from the Pacific to the Atlantic), skip Bar Harbor, and start biking south.

Our journey continues to amaze and delight, and, as someone almost said, it's not just about the bike!

4000 and climbing

We hit 4000 miles yesterday, wow!!!!  We have also hit fall big time, in one day went from summer to frost and chilly mornings and we have hit the big big hills again.  The Adirondacks have been prepping us for the green and white mountains.  Tomorrow we finish NY at Fort Ticonderoga and take a ferry to Vermont.  Riding through upstate NY has been hilly, with lots of lakes and fall foliage, it brings back memories of childhood and young adulthood when time was spent around Lake George, NY.  Our lodging has been quite variable, warm showers, and fishing lodge as mentioned before, couple nights ago we put our tent up in an old barn with a huge kitchen and rec room on the floor below, great find of a campground.  Last night we stayed in an RV, it was a great opportunity to see if we would ever like to travel in one; I'm not really ready at this time.  Tonight's lodging is at Jellystone campground in North Hudson, their off  season cabin rate was just right.

Making our way across New York

We rode for a day along the Erie Canal...and found that really cool!  Mostly we rode on the towpath, where the horses used to pull the barges.  In some areas the canal was dug into the ground and in others the sides of the canal were embankments so that the water level was above the adjacent land, and sometimes the adjacent streets and homes.  It sorta reminded us of Holland, but we didn't have any chocolate or beer that day!  There were lots of drawbridges and we saw several sailboats with their masts stepped (stowed horizontally) motoring along.

That night we stayed with our second "warm showers" hosts, this time in Rochester.  Brian met us on the trail...riding a fat tire bike!!! And escorted us through the city on a labrinth of trails and streets to their  home.  Brian and Karen are super bikers and super gracious.  After enjoying their hospitality and spending the night, Karen escorted us, via a beautiful route, back to our Adven Cycling bike route.

Other New York adventures have included Nancy's front gears stopped working and visiting a bike shop where they were fixed, pronto; flat tire; camping at a private campground mostly inhabited by seasonal campers (snowbirds); another flat tire in a big windstorm so it was hard to find the puncture; staying at a fishing lodge...that had seen better days...to wait out a storm and discovered that Captain Jack's, across the street, had a Customer Appreciation buffet!!!  All you can eat...as long as you are an omnivore!!! (Nancy had a nice salad).

Great ride today, 63 miles, two hours of rain in the middle and we are camped on the shore of Lake Ontario at a state park near Port Ontario.  Coming up soon: the Adirondacks!!!

Another Road Side Attraction

What a week, we've been in Canada for the past week.  We crossroad over Lake Erie from Marine City MI on a small car ferry to Sombre Ontario.  Sombra is a sleepy tiny town with  1 restaurant, a very small variety store and a great seasonal RV park.  We were kind of the outsiders at the campground there with our little tent amongst the RVs with their porches, barbecue grills and lights, but as in many campgrounds the host found us fascinating or pitiful and  gave us special treatment.  We were provided with lawn chairs for the night and given an RV sight much closer to the bathrooms than a regular tent site.  At another campground the manager suggested we cmp by the pavilion with an awesome view of  Lake Erie, we could use the pavilion lights if we needed to read and camp under it if it started to rain, the regular sites were not nearly as grand!  One day we did have a shocker after biking about 60 miles we got to the campground to find it was closing that day and we were unable to camp there, to our good fortune we we only had to back track about 5 easy miles.  Today was our final day in Canada we ended with a ride through Niagra Falls, it was quite stunning coming from the south on the Canadian side and then Canada has beautiful gardens, preserves, butterflie conservatory and a number of trams and sight seeing boats, we were entertained for about 20 miles of riding, it was also very multicultural with all of the visitors.  We are ending our day camping behind the Widewater drive in restaurant in Lockport NY along the Erie Canal.  When "Marty" bought the place 5 years ago the prevvious owner offered free camping to cyclist, so Marty has contined the tradition.  To support our great host we had a giant order of fries when we got here, a fast food supper with some ice cream to top it off, not our usual healthy dinner, but we wanted to appreciate a great act of kindness.