mostly vermont--my last two days...

day 40 (80 mi.)--up and down to george and champlain: i left joe's timber frame shop and headed for the border lakes between ny and vt.--but first i had to climb out of the hudson river valley. after muffins and tea at a gas station, i got to brandt lake and had to stop to take some pictures. here was a perfect example of what new englanders call 'peak color'! the sun out, the fog burned off, and the still water a mirror, i got an eyeful. this is what iconic means.

 a 6 mile climb up about a 1000 feet brought me to a strange site at the beaver pond head waters--a stop sign. i envisioned dare devil kayakers being stymied... (i want to crop this pic and remember being able to do it in st paul but not now...? any help out there??)

a 6 mile down of 1300 feet left me at the shore of lake george in hague. this was exciting, vermont was across that lake, well the lake, some more ny, and then the outlet to champlain. i was getting close to home!

i took off toward crown point and the bridge across into vermont. at a maple products gift shop i looked at a map and changed my route after the women working told me it was supposed to start raining wednesday into friday. i turned around back into the wind and for a few miles had second thoughts as it was really whipping coming off the lake. but i hoped it would be somewhat behind me when i turned east toward middlebury. when i got to the bluffs--imagine the glacial runoff that carved these out--the wind was at my shoulder and less of an issue.

after middlebury and sampling a shot glass of porter at the drop-in brewery, i headed for east middlebury and the gap. vermont has six gaps--they even have a 130+ mile six gap ride that some people call fun (i don't suggest using a loaded touring bike). i only had two to go over to get home and started pedaling up, and up, and...you get the picture. it was a beautiful evening and the light was behind me shining on the river to my right and the woods all around. it must have been directly in the eyes of the loaded bike tourer that was headed downhill as he did not see me wildly waving him in for a chat. interesting enough, that was the second bike tourer today that blew by with out even a wave. 

at one point i crested a hill and came into the town of ripton. a quaint little village nestled into the hills; i bet it is hard to get to once it starts snowing. i stopped at a private bridge to take a shot of the stream and the cute little flower boxes...

back to going up and up, i saw a sign for a robert frost interpretive trail that looked almost as interesting as the setting sun. i kept going thinking about dinner with a place to sit and enjoy the views. i passed another wayside with a reference to vermont's most famous bard and picnic tables. but, right in front of this sign was a  tiny one--"no camping"! i have honored such requests and knew that the bread loaf campus had to be close so i pedaled onward...and upward!

soon enough i started seeing the white houses with names like 'dragon's den' (which may have another frost connection) and 'earthworm'. then the ubiquitous yellow buildings appeared spread out along the road and extending back into the huge fields. the sun was  lighting up the surrounding mtns, including the one they call breadloaf, and i knew i had to find someone to give me permission to sleep there--easier said than done. the first person i noticed was taking pictures of the color, and she offered to snap one of me too.

i finally found a guy down in the bowels of one of the way back buildings who said "sure...!" he sounded authoritative enough. behind me is the picnic table where i set up dinner and then my tent. the picture below was my own private gazing chair off to one side of camp. it was a most sublime evening...

day 41 (65 mi.)--the proverbial horse smells the barn: i was up very early. i packed and turned on my lights to finish the climb up (and up...) past the middlebury snow bowl and over the gap. going uphill in the dark is a hard pedal. the lack of perspective is quite disorienting and i struggled to get used to it. i also stopped and stripped down as i was sweating buckets. when i crested the height of land and the sky was starting to get a little light to it i noticed that the smooth pavement stopped. i dropped down into the gloom trying my best to avoid any cracks, bumps, rocks, potholes, animals...and a few cars. there is an expression that bikers use when they ride in the road, not just on the shoulder, and i "took the lane" for the miles down into the foggy valley.

i stopped in hancock at a cafe/inn that advertised breakfast--it even had a chalkboard on the porch with a child's writing, "come on in the food is great!" my luck the door was locked, but then again it was not even 7:00 yet. it was a bit lighter by the time i got to the next town. i stopped at the rochester cafe and ate a big 'last breakfast' of eggs and home fries, waffle with apple and whipped cream, and a very large, extremely sweet, cinnamon roll! yes, i had finally found that treat from my past, and it was as good as i remembered it. 

the food and tea were so comfortable i sat and wrote a couple of final postcards to the 4th graders at canaan elementary school. when i took them over to the post office i met two senior citizens with their walkers. as i got on my bike and headed up the rochester gap one of them gave a cry of disbelief about riding up such a hill. 

as i climbed, i thought of the folks with the walkers and how our speeds were probably much more similar than different. at one point i came out of the saddle and did the ol' zig-zag over to the other lane and back. looking behind me, i saw a woman coming up strong on her mtn bike. when she passed me i suggested we should swap bikes. she politely declined the load and pedaled over a rise saying something about she "wasn't going to the top either..." what, this wasn't the crest? 

turns out, there were 2+ miles to go before topping out. the view was totally worth the climb--green mountains all the way up to canada mixed in with the low clouds. it was supposed to rain this morning and it looked like it might. i hoped to be down before the road got slick... it was a much smoother descent than the one that morning. so smooth that this time when i "took the lane" nobody needed to pass--at times it seemed close to fifty mph. nearly 6 miles and 1500 feet later, i had a huge smile--i remember twists and turns like that!

i passed through bethal and got to route 14 and the white river. had to go through a couple of construction zones--one, a half-mile of repaving. nobody got too jazzed save for the construction truck that roared by be when he "took the lane"! stopped into the sharon general store and got two big cookies to have with 'tea o'clock'...from this point on, i was on home turf.

speaking of which, as i came out to route 4 from the rail trail i heard a "hey koby" from across the field at mascoma. the outdoor pursuits class was setting up tents. i took mine out and gave them a quick final test to see if they could put up a slightly different one with no instructions. they did so well i gave them each a granola bar! i re-packed my now dry hubba and followed the students up to the school.

it was a great reunion with teachers and students and i got to see quite a few folks. i even went to a speak meeting for a bit and then an elo where a student presented his summer work with crrel on radio wave transmission in the mountains.

in the back of my head i knew i had to head home at a certain time so i could unpack and clean up for pam! she had told me before i left that under no circumstances was i to appear with a big white beard. when i got to the house--which was unlocked, thank you--she had a little note on the whiteboard for me...how did she know i would be getting here today? turns out she saw the breakfast sandwiches--egg and smoked gouda on an english muffin--i bought in hague ny and did a little google mapping that gave her a pretty good idea. maybe she was the impetus to change routes back at the ny vermont border. she had also included her 'mice' count of eight--not bad for an early harvest.

i made quick work of unpacking and cleaning up and was ready by the time pam rolled in the drive. it was a treat to be home...

why do people litter...?

this is one of those rhetorical questions that going along the roads at bike speed constantly repeats itself in my mind. i thought of actually getting off my bike and picking up all the trash one hundred steps behind and one hundred steps ahead of where i parked--preferably at one of those little brown and gold bike route signs... the photo would have all the usual: bottles and cans (on one stretch i saw at least one oil container in every stream i passed--wtf?); fast food foam boxes and bags; various paper products; etc. but there was also enough of the exotic to wonder--maybe this just fell out of the back of someones truck: a nice wooden dining chair; couch cushions; pillows; a wine rack; various storage boxes--plastic and wooden; etc. 

day 38 (120mi.)--upstate new york's little wonders: 
i appreciated the quiet saturday morning as i left kaleigh's about the same time evan went off to work. a car or truck here and there, one runner on a side road, aside from them, i was alone out in the cool and crisp. a mostly clear sky promised a fine day of riding and if it stayed fairly cool, that would suit me. i headed east out of shortsville and through a couple of very well kept little towns. zig and zagging some, i actually worked my way back to rt 20--the same road jalil and i crossed ny east to west on--for about two miles. i can't say as i remember it except for a ny state fishing access point sign in the montezuma national wildlife refuge.

as i turned north after the refuge to get to rt 31 i noticed a couple of little lawn signs advertizing the montezuma aqueduct run / walk . when i actually got into montezuma, i saw a whole crowd of folks standing around the finish line. nobody was cheering yet so the runners / walkers were probably still out on the course. i took this photo off the internet, but the aqueduct looks really cool. i can imagine that when it was in use it was magnificent.

criss-crossing I-90 brought me into port byron where i found a part of the canalway trail--erie section . i hopped on figuring if the mules could work it, biking would be fast. turns out that over a hundred years of non-use has left it in pretty rough shape. the first mile or so looked like a canal albeit with lots of trees growing in and along it. i stopped and took a picture behind me and one ahead for a general idea of what things looked like now.


after this section, things really filled in and it looked like a stream running through a marshy channel. before we ever left i had read about biking the path but was discouraged by the amount of time on roads, some of them a ways away from the original canal. now i understood why. but, there were still a couple of really cool sights to see from back in the day, just highly scattered. 





i passed a collapsed damn with some huge granite blocks in a pile. the actual canal was spilling into a stream at that point and it was hard to figure out how boats came and went with the blocks dividing the stream in two and the canal entering perpendicular to that... 

a bit further down rt 31 i came to lock 51 where i stopped for lunch. there were two sides to this structure like lanes on a modern road. with the help of an info poster, i was able to envision how the lock worked and even imagined the huge metal gates opening and closing, catching and releasing water as needed.



i left the canalway path for a freshly paved rt 31 and crossed I-90 once again. from what i remembered of the maps, i thought it was the last time too. i noticed two loaded touring bikers coming toward me and crossed the road to chat. the husband and wife team had just started that morning, leaving baldwin which i would run into shortly thereafter. turned out that with less than an hour on the road the husband had already broken his front derailleur. i couldn't imagine not having at least two chainrings to switch between, but they were headed on for three more days. 

in baldwinville i stopped at a tops grocery and stocked up on nature valley bars and a new favorite--breakfast biscuits. maybe i should have waited a bit as soon enough, i was into greater syracuse, complete with huge groceries. there was a wegmans and i remembered kaleigh's dad, ron, taking me in one for my first experience of the super fancy grocery store. i had just finished the nan bread that i got there, and thought about stopping. the heavy traffic and my fresh supply of granola bars kept me pedaling ahead.

i made it through the 'burbs' eventually and rode on toward the south shore of lake oneida. amazingly and wonderfully pleasant, the wind was mostly at my back. i was able to cruise along, quickly getting past the two 'ports' and one 'bay' and into verona where i picked up 365 to rome. i have always loved place names--being on a bike made them all the more fun. a week or so back i slept just outside of denmark and was now biking from verona to rome--in about an hour (from up against the italian alps in the north to down on the western coast of the mediterranean)--e stato veloce!

riding into rome i came to the fort stanwix national monument. it has an interesting history that i knew nothing about but makes sense given the rivers there and the critical "carry" or portage. 365 left rome to the east and i was immediately back in the country. i barely noticed floyd, but maybe that was because the sunset was so colorfully dramatic. i did notice the large fields at a school that seemed just the right place to camp. 

i pulled into one of the parking lots and asked some folks running their remote control car if there were picnic tables nearby. they didn't know but suggested i use the bleachers in the fields. as i was pushing my bike over to one, i saw their car come around the back and heard the woman calling me, "sir..." she had found tables and come back to tell me! we ended up talking about my bike trip for quite a while--until the four-ish year old twins started getting antsy. the parents, jim and jill and the boys nathan and james, were really enthusiastic and jim insisted i have a half dozen granola bars...i talked him down to a couple remembering all the ones i had just bought back in baldwinville.

after a big dinner, i pushed the bike over to a darker part of the field and pitched the tent. it was a good day.

day 39 (95mi.)--i feel like i am back in new england: it was early but not dark as i made my way over the heavy dew on the field back onto 365. i pedaled east and soon got to holland patent a very pretty little town, with no breakfast places. i thought about walking around the graveyard and looking for some van beests but settled for riding around the center green to look at the twin churches.



nothing was open in next town barneveld either but as i started out of town i hit the hills that were going to be with me for the rest of the trip. the perk to all those hills made itself known as the sun burned off the fog and exposed the beautiful lakes and fall foilage new england is famous for. i had never been in this part of new york state and was excited to be riding into the adirondacks. 


365 and rt 8  were going to be home for the next couple of days until i rolled into vermont. the 'map' had plenty more large hills, big lakes, and vast woods to go over, by, and through. 


i came to the west canada creek as it wound through the town of prospect. sitting along the shore was a row of typical new england houses, their white contrasting boldly with the colored maple leaves and dark water. just out of town there was a huge dam built creating the 7 mile hinkley reservoir. the water level was low and i wondered if they commonly let it drop for the winter like they do for goose pond back home. i checked water levels on their website and saw that it is even lower today than it was when i passed by. 

i stopped at a gas station-grocery store for some tea and muffins just past the picture above (the dam is immediately to the right where i took this picture). a local told me i would run into rt 8 just after the reservoir. the rest of my miles on 365 and getting onto rt 8 were where my thoughts started to focus on the trash on the roadside. it seemed so wrong that such a beautiful setting could be so wantonly littered.

i also met a group of four bikers out for a two day loop through that part of the adirondacks. i spoke of looking for the perfect site to sit and eat a big breakfast 2. they told me i was just about to get there. a half mile down the road i would come to the west canada creek pull off. it was all they promised plus i got to say hi to a minnesota couple traveling by truck-camper and another couple from north carolina.

a good climb out of this valley into the black river wild forest gave me a bit of an idea just how big the adirondacks was--wicked huge...most of it was relatively undeveloped except for around the bigger lakes: piseco, sacandaga, and pleasant. the later had the town of speculator--another interesting name--which served me up late breakfast 3, a couple tasty scones. i ate on the shore of the lake as a very stiff wind dried my tent and fly. 

well fed, i pedaled up and over a height of land past those lakes and zoomed south, downhill to where two major branches of the sacandaga river joined. rt 8 took off north east (to the sunny right in the picture below), alongside the east branch and for the next 13 miles or so, i climbed through some of the most beautiful woods i had seen, heard, and smelled so far. even going uphill for so long, it was a joy!

the downhill into bakers mills, and then wevertown, gave a clear clue as to which side of the mountain had the money. the roads were all freshly paved coming out of speculator, where the homes were well taken care of and there were plenty of amenities for the numerous tourists. after topping out of the sacandaga drainage and heading down toward the hudson river valley, one could not help notice the stark contrast. abandoned buildings and junk that rural new england seems to collect in their front yards lined the rough pavement and i didn't see anyone that could be labeled a tourist. in fact, it was kind of spooky that i didn't see anybody at all--maybe sunday evenings were always this quiet.

then, all of a sudden i came to a really happy looking park at a bridge over the hudson river. it was so pleasant i slowed and considered setting up camp in a corner. i pedaled past remembering all the times the law had moved me on from such public places like that. not far around the corner, i saw a bunch of random wooden timber frame structures with a great list of woodworking options.

even though it was late sunday evening, joe the woodworker-timberframer advertised, was in his shop and i dropped in to ask about a place to stay. "sure...camp anywhere you want!" people can be pretty generous. we had a good chat about building in general before i shuffled off into the dark to find a flat spot.