Back to Day 9

We decided to take a day off today. Between the threat of thunder storms, Dana’s back spasms, and my butt soreness, we thought this was a wise idea. So we spent the day in Easton, PA. The highlight so far has been the Crayola Experience, a museum dedicated to the history of Crayola crayons. I think our personal Crayola experience might have made more sense if we’d had a 4 year old in tow, but it was fun nonetheless.

First we colored pictures on computerized coloring systems. I can’t believe I’m such a girl!

Then we decided to get creative. This seemed appropriate.

We learned some wonderful stuff about Crayola crayons. Did you know that Crayola comes from the French word for chalk “craie”, and the Latin word for oily “oleaginous”? Or that there are 300 Crayola crayon colors, but only 13 wrapper colors?  Or….

Then we went to the gift shop – there’s always a gift shop – where we did not buy a 2 lb. crayon. Seems like a complete waste of cargo weight on the bikes.  However, Dana bought a tube of flavored sour sugar. Luckily that didn’t survive long enough to become burden tomorrow.

After the Crayola Experience, we walked around the town, checking out antique shops. We had lunch at the Two Rivers Brew Pub, then walked back down to the river to check out more stores, historic buildings, etc. Then we ate ice cream.

We are now back in the motel room, where Dana is resting his back. As much as my butt pain is horrible, at least it doesn’t hurt off the bike. Back pain is far more pervasive. So while Dana rests his back and I stare lovingly at my new bike seat, we are watching MeTV. Just finished a riveting episode of The Big Valley, now we’re getting into Adam-12. A ridiculous waste of time, but boy!, do we need the break.

I’m looking forward to trying my Bark-O-Lounger seat tomorrow. We bought an allen wrench today, so that I can adjust it if necessary. I am painfully aware that a badly positioned bike seat can cause knee pain, which is worse than butt pain (but better than back pain).

Tomorrow we will head to Lambertville, PA – about a 40 miles ride – where we will have dinner with my cousin, Andrea. I wish we could ride more, I wish the 40 miles didn’t take so long, and I’m fairly sure that I am the slowest rider ever to attempt this endeavor. But it’s still a wonderful adventure.

On to Day 11

Back to Day 8

4 PM

We began our day with a wonderful asparagus and mozzarella frittata at the hotel, then set out for our short 30 mile day. As Dana was getting the bikes ready, he had a small panic attack because he couldn’t find his helmet. It was hard not to just watch him run around in panicky circles, but I took pity on him and pointed to the helmet on his head.

It was a nice ride. We forced ourselves to take a butt break at mile 12, on the Delaware.

I texted the kids to remind them to call Dana because it’s Father’s Day. Katie called.  Bill texted to remind me that Father’s Day isn’t until next Sunday. I told him to call anyway, which he did. Good boy!  But… 1) I’m impressed that we knew it’s Sunday, Father’s Day or otherwise; and 2) I just hate when Bill is smarter than me about anything. Scares the crap out of me.

We rode on the PA side of the river until Riverton, then crossed back across the Delaware into Belvidere, NJ.  A wonderful little town with lots of services, and a beautiful town center that looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. We had lunch at Skoogy’s – a Skoogy special sub, Tastee Cake pies, and milk shakes. (We’re out of frappe country now, a milk shake is what us New Yorkers think it should be.)

The reactions we’re getting to our story are getting better. Now, it goes like this:

Them: Nice day for a ride.  Where are you headed?

Us: Key West

Them: Oh, that’s nice… wait… what?  Key West? Like in Florida? No! Really? No!

We got to Phillipsburg, NJ around 2:30, and immediately crossed back over the Delaware to Easton, PA. Found the Genesis bike shop. Dana needed to have his rear derailleur fixed, and I needed a new seat. My butt is KILLING me. I also wanted new pads for my helmet, but what I really need is a new helmet, and I can’t handle that right now.

So I tried a different seat, which felt exactly like my current seat, and then I tried a Selle SMP, which the guy said is the Bark-O-Lounger of bike seats. I think I’m in love. But now I want to move the seat a little, and we can’t loosen the bolt holding it in place. I will ride with it for a while, and mabye move it when we pass a hardware store.

We are now in a room at the Quality Inn. Doug is here. I can’t take a picture of Dana and Doug yet, because Dana is wearing only a towel, as it is laundry day. I am wearing my bathing suit – which I have not used for swimming yet on this trip, but it makes a great laundry-doing outfit. I hate laundry rooms – in motels, in apartment buildings, anywhere. And today I went to do the wash, but the machine was full, so I had to wait half an hour, and then the lady put her stuff in the dryer, so I did my wash, but then another guy wanted the washer, but she hadn’t taken her stuff out of the dryer, so the guy took her stuff out and I put my stuff in the dryer and he put his stuff in the washer, but then the lady came back and took my stuff out of the dryer and put her stuff back in. So then I apologized, and her jeans dried, and she gave me $1.50 for the next dryer cycle, and it turned out to be a very pleasant public laundry experience.

10 PM

Just got back from dinner in Bethlehem with Doug. He gave us a tour of the town – Lehigh University (where he works), various neighborhoods, and Bethlehem Steel.

Had dinner at Sal’s Brick Oven Pizza, which was delicious. Check out the garlic bread!

Here are Dana and Doug at Sal’s – you will be happy to note that Dana is no longer dressed in a towel.

On to Day 10

Back to Day 7

Today started off on a very good note, as I finally beat level 273 of Candy Crush.  Immediately following this major accomplishment, we were leaving our hotel room, and I had a brainstorm. For a split second, Dana was in the hallway wth his bike, and I was still in the hotel room with all of my stuff, and I thought “I can just lock him out now, hide in here for a while, and escape back to Westford.”

But I was feeling reasonably confident because it was looking to be a relatively flat 30 mile day. So I abandoned my escape plans, hauled my bike into the hallway, and we started our day – off our route, staying on the PA side of the river. Our plan was to cross to NJ, back onto the official ACA route, in Milford.

If you ever get a chance to go to Milford, PA, do it. It is so quaint, so wholesome looking, just wonderful. We stopped into a deli that used to be a RexAll Drug – it still had the RexAll blue and orange designs on the bricks. The deli is owned by an ex-Brooklynite, so all of the sandwiches had a NY flair to them. We ordered sandwiches for lunch later, then sat at a table on the sidewalk drinking juice.

Then we crossed back across the Delaware, on a walking bridge, which was very pleasant. On the other side of the bridge, we found ourselves in Montague Twp, NJ.

Our route promised to follow the Delaware Water Gap for about 30 miles. It followed the river for a while, then rolled through a national park near the river. It was a beautiful ride – almost no cars, lots of wildlife, gently rolling terrain. But it was the weirdest thing – the road was covered with centipedes walking all over the place. We tried not to hit any, since they live there and we respect nature. But I just have to say that if I EVER see half as many centipedes in any room of my house, I will move immediately.

We took a butt and lunch break at the Walpack Inn, which is just outside the town of Walpack. From what we could see, Walpack consists of a post office and 5 houses. Of course, the entire area consists of mostly abandoned farm houses, so it was nice to see a living town. However, it did not have any stores that we could see. In fact, after leaving Milford, we saw zero stores on our entire ride. Which explains the sandwiches we bought earlier in the day.

[Note: We later learned why there are so many abandoned houses in this area. In the late 1960’s, the entire area was condemned as preparation for the proposed Tocks Island Dam project. Havoc was wreaked on many towns in the area, homes and businesses and lifestyles were destroyed. On the plus side, the area is now a National Park. Small compensation if you ask me.] 

So when we got to the Walpack Inn, we wanted to fill our water bottles, but it doesn’t open until 5, so we just sat on a bench eating our sandwiches and sucking water from our Camelbaks. There was a little LBJ flitting around, and we threw some crumbs for it.

FYI – LBJ is a very official bird watching term meaning Little Brown Job. My friends and I learned this from Bob, on a Birding with Bob tour, on one of the Boston Harbor Islands.

The road continued in its rolling, rambling way for a while, then we crossed a little stream and started UP the road to Mill Brook Village. And I do mean up. 2 miles of steep, rutted, nasty, hot road. When we finally clawed our way into Mill Brook Village, we figured we’d see a store in which to get water or Gatorade or something. But I don’t think Mill Brook Village is even a real village. I think it’s sort of a museum village, and it wasn’t up and running today, so alas, no water, no Gatorade, no nothing.

A note about that nasty hill… When we plotted the ride in the “Ride with GPS” website, it showed every day with a ride profile, which roughly shows hills, flats, downhills, etc. The profile for today’s ride looked great, except for this one big spike in the middle. We had been wondering what could possibly cause such a sharp, steep spike in the profile – like a middle finger sticking up where you don’t expect it.  And now we know – Mill Brook Village was giving us the finger.

Our nice 30 mile day turned into a long, hilly 40 mile day, at the end of which we crossed back over the Delaware. On the sidewalk of the I-80 bridge we met Debra and Camilla, who are riding from Key West to Bar Harbor. You can check out their blog – two2tandem.blogs.wm.edu They gave us some good tips for our coming adventures, like that there’s a bridge out near Valley Forge. Good to know.

Tonight we are staying at the Deer’s Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, PA, which is an old hotel, restaurant, bar, and jazz room right on the Appalachian Trail. It’s awesome. Tomorrow we are riding to Phillipsburg, PA – hopefully only 25 or 30 miles – where we will visit Dana’s friend, Doug, who he’s known since 7th grade.

A few things I figured out today:

• People thought I would lose weight on this trip.  After 8 days and 315 miles, I haven’t lost an ounce.
• Before we started, I blogged that riding all of these hills would either kill me, or turn me into a hill climber. Wrong! I’m still alive, and I still suck at hill climbing.
• I do not need to become a good hill climber. If I can walk the hills in CT, I can walk the hills anywhere.
• We are more than half way through the hilly part of this ride. Whew!

On to Day 9