Back to Day 3

No, we didn’t walk all the way from Windor Locks to Canaan, but that title just sounds good. Maybe biblical or something, right?

1 PM

Sitting in Sweet Pea’s in Riverton, CT. A cute little antiques/restaurant/ice cream place on the Farmington River. Our butts and our backs are killing us.

Today, according to the ACA maps, is our day from hell. Dana has been muttering about it, and in the course of psyching himself up, he has been freaking me out. Showing me maps with contour lines, and shadings, and oqther things that scream “you are going to climb some big f—ing hills!” Another reason to hate contour lines.

So this morning I locked myself in the bathroom, totally dreading the day. I had a strange deja vu, back to my first day of kindergarten – a certain feeling deep in my gut that says “I don’t want to.  Please don’t make me.”

But eventually I came out of hiding and we began our trek. First, we stole 2 bagels from the hotel’s breakfast buffet, although in my defense I’m not sure it’s stealing if I say to the desk clerk “Shhh, don’t tell anyone. We’re stealing bagels from the breakfast buffet.”

The first 10 miles today were wonderful – rolling if not somewhat downhill. Our first big hill started just west of Granby, but it wasn’t all that horrible. We walked some, but there were flat sections, and there was a nice wide shoulder. After that was another 10 miles of rolling, in the middle of which I realized that I had left my watch at the hotel in Windsor Locks. So we stopped at a hardware store and sat in lawn chairs they had on display and called the hotel. After a few phone calls back and forth, they found my watch and promised to mail it home. I still can’t deal with this head button thing, though. It’s proving quite challenging, even in the hardware store parking lot.

As we were riding up a long hill, I saw a sign for Barkhampton and said “Hey, that’s where we’re going” and Dana basically said “No, silly female, we’re looking for Rte. 219”. And then I looked at the sign on the road to Barkhampton and sure enough it was 219. So today he only gets an A- for navigation.

On the way to Barkhampton we passed the most amazing scenery – the Saville Dam. It’s the kind of place they show in brochures, with people bike touring past them, saying “Come bike touring! I’s always this pretty!”

We crossed the Farmington River in Barkhampton and stopped into the town hall to fill our water bottles. They were very nice about it, and outside we met a guy who really knows Key West, so he gave us some great recommendations for places to eat and drink if/when we get there.

5:30 PM

Continued a few miles to the restaurant on the river, had lunch, and braced ourselves for the hill from hell. We had already done 22 hilly miles, and the prospect of 22 hillier miles didn’t seem appealing. It reminded Dana of an old joke… A little boy is going to start kindergarten and his parents keep telling him how much fun it will be, pumping him up, hoping he will like school. He comes home from the first day completely happy, says he loved it. The next day when his mom tells him it’s time for school he breaks down crying. “What’s wrong?”, asks his mom. “I thought you liked school.” And the little boy replies “Yes, but I didn’t think I would have to do it again!”

The hill did not disappoint,  I’d say we walked close to 5 miles, and it was so steep that even walking was a challenge. Not to mention that at walking speed, the bugs find you. They got into our helmets and our glasses and our gloves. At one point I could hear Dana’s helmet bugs buzzing into the headset. It was awesome. The fun ended in Norfolk, where we stopped to call a B&B in Canaan.

Note to self: Buy bug spray.

So we checked into the B&B, which is a mile from town, and the proprietors took pity on us and offered us their car for the evening. We are now at the Stateline Pizza restaurant. I am having a beer, but only one. That’s my rule for the rest of this ride. One beer, because Dana was showing me the big boy biking blog online, and lots of the questions deal with weight loss.

Q: How much weight do you lose bike touring for 2000 miles?

A: None… beer.

As we’re sitting here, it started pouring. Thunder, lightening, flash floods, the whole thing. We are really hoping this doesn’t continue into tomorrow. We don’t mind biking in the rain, but we have our limits. And as much as Dana says we’re meandering, we really can’t afford to lose an entire day in Canaan, CT.

7 PM

OK, so we just sat at the bar for a while and started talking to Debra, and the conversation got going, and I had 2 beers. Well, a beer and a half. Sigh. But I will forgive myself, because I think we just finished the hardest day of this entire 2400 trek.

Gosh, I hope that’s true.

On to Day 5

Back to Day 2

8 AM…….

So a few things I forgot last night – probably because I was way too excited about the sandwich we dragged here from the Four Corners restaurant in Quinebaug.

We started today re-accessing our load, and we are thinking of sending some stuff home. Like why have 4 bike shirts and only 3 pairs of shorts? And if it’s cold we will wear our rain jackets, we don’t need long sleeved shirts. We are planning to do laundry today in Windsor Locks, and we’re really excited about it.

Going up one of the plethora of hills yesterday – I just love the word plethora – Dana fell off his bike. He mumbled “fell off my bike” into the headset, so I got off my bike out of true concern for him. Then he almost hit me because he had managed to get back up and still catch up to me on the freakin’ hill. Man do I suck at hill climbing! But now his rear derailleur is messed up. He will try to get it fixed in Poughkeepsie.

And check out this picture! We rode all this way just to get to Westford! We actually pass this area on I-84 coming back from NYC. Once when the kids were little I said “Hey guys, check out the sign. We’re home!” And they got all excited. Heh heh.

Yup, I’m such a bad parent.

Speaking of which, Bill called yesterday. He actually called when we were still on the bikes, which totally confused both of us, and I couldn’t handle the extra pressure – pressing buttons on my head, figuring out who the f– I was talking to, slogging up the 500th hill of the day, avoiding cars racing by me, etc. So he called back later. Bless his heart, he actually asked how we were doing, and it took a good 5 minutes before he started talking about his problems.

But more interesting than his problems… Saturday night while were sitting at the bar in the Kyoto restaurant in Whitinsville, we got to talking to another couple, and of course we started talking about our kids, and I showed them pictures, and then we passed Bill’s picture to 2 younger women at the bar, and one of them actually recognized Bill from work! It’s such a small world. So last night Bill commented on it, because somehow the girl had contacted him to say that she met his parents in a bar.

I’m pretty sure that’s more proof of my bad parenting, but I thought it was cool anyway.

3 PM…..

Today was an easy, short day. A few hills, but nothing killer like yesterday (and I’m afraid tomorrow). We are in Windsor Locks, CT, near Bradley Airport. It’s a real hotel room with a few real restaurants right here!!!!!  And we only rode about 30 miles today. We really wanted to ride the extra 10 to Granby, but there is only one B&B there, and they didn’t answer their phone. I don’t want to be at mile 40 and have nowhere to sleep. So we can consider today sort of a rest day. I definitely see beer in my immediate future, Dana sees steak.

We rode about 8 miles this morning then stopped in Stafford Springs, where we mailed some extra stuff home. We met a lady in the post office who runs a B&B in town, so we talked about bike touring and kid raising, then we had breakfast.  Dana got a heurvos rancheros wrap, which I believe satisfied his omelet craving. I had a bagel with bananas, honey and peanut butter, which just sounds like something a cyclist should eat.

The rest of the day was absolutely wonderful. Rolling hills through scenic farmland. Here is a picture of Ellington, which just gives you an idea of how wonderful this area is.

We sat under a tree drinking cherry glacier Gatorade, it’s awsome  stuff, I really recommend it.

When we got to Windsor we found a laundromat next door to a supermarket. Here is Dana eating mac&cheese in front of the Nifty Laundromat. It just doesn’t get any niftier than this, does it?

Katie called today to ask how to find Perdue chicken in Market Basket. I still had trouble answering the phone on my helmet, but at least I wasn’t stressed and exhausted when I accidentally hung up on her. We will practice answering our phones this evening.  Before beer.

On to Day 4

Back to Day 1

I would say that this is the day from hell, but according to the ACA maps, that will be Tuesday. But today has been pretty nasty, so we’ve dubbed it the day from hill.  Some of the roads we rode were named Buck Hill, Brandy Hill, Thompson Hill, and Buckley Hill. Get the picture?

We started in Whitinsville, figured we would just ride until we found food. Saw a convenience store at mile 6, Dana said “No, I want to find a place that serves omelets.” Famous last words. The next food we found was at Beno’s Variety in Grosvenordale, CT, at mile 27.

But I’ll get back to that later. So the day was beautiful, but as it progressed it got hillier and hillier, and we got hungrier and hungrier. We walked a few hills, but it was worth it for the views. Before we left home, Sue gave us a box of gummy peaches, and she was worried the extra weight would be a problem. It’s no longer a problem, as we ate a lot of gummy peaches walking up those hills!

We got into Rhode Island:

,

then Connecticut. Missed a few turns, which is particularly sucky when going downhill, but in general I give Dana an A for his navigation skills. If he had younger eyes he would probably get an A+.

When we got to Thompson, CT, we were sure we would find food, but we didn’t. So we sat under a beautiful old tree in the town center and ate walnuts from our emergency food stash. Then, when we saw Beno’s Variety about 6 miles later, we went for it. Water (a must!), Snickers bars, and Cherry Garcia ice cream.

While we shared the ice cream with one spoon, Dana looked up restaurants in the area, and found Four Corners Restaurant and Pub, 1/2 mile up the road in Quinebaug. So we went there and shared a sandwich and talked to some really nice people. And we bought a sub to carry for dinner, since the hotel is near nothing. A lady at Four Corners warned us about the hills on our remaining 15 miles, and boy was she right! Turns out CT route 197 goes through Bigelow Hollow State Park, but why it was uphill getting there and uphill getting out is beyond me.  We walked a lot of the roads in there. I am no longer feeling bad about walking.  Walking is exercise.  Deal with it.

A problem I’ve been having is that Dana keeps saying that this is a meandering ride. I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means. Walking up all of those freaking hills does not count as meandering in my book. I think he pictured us easily doing 50 miles per day, like the big boy bike tourists who post on big boy bike tourist sites. So I told him that he has to stop using the word meandering, as I find it somewhat insulting.

Then, a few miles and a few hills later – some on foot, some on bike – he started getting tired, and began wondering if we can actually do this. All this time he’s been saying how easy this is going to be, and I’ve been terrified. So there I am saying “OK, this is bad but we can do it” and he said no, we might not make it to FL. I think if we can both think about this the same way, somewhere between “pessimistic hill slug” and “uber macho biker dude”, we will get along better for the next 2 months.

By the time we finished our ride today, we were mentally and physically exhausted.  I almost cried when I saw what turned out to be the last hill. If there had been another hill, I think we both might have cried. Now that we are in a motel room and showered, things are looking up. But our backs are killing us.

On to Day 3