What a beautiful ride! The weather was gray and threatening rain all day, but the terrain made up for the weather. The beginning of the day was flat to nicely rolling. The end had more short steep ups and downs interspersed with more flat and rolling. It was a 60 mile ride, with an average speed of 10 miles per hour - not bad.
I made quite a few stops today, the first just steps from the campground. For a while I didn't think I was going to get anywhere because I was having so much fun talking to people. I stopped just after I got out of the campground to take a picture of the first marble quarry in the US. I met a woman there who was walking a Corgi. In case you haven't seen one - it's a stocky dog with short legs. As usual, the little dogs seem to think they are in charge, not their owners. The dog's owner was an elderly woman who told me I shouldn't talk to strangers on my trip. Hmm... wasn't she a stranger? Then I met a man who used to do a lot of bicycle touring himself when I made my first Gatorade stop. I looked at my watch and realized that I'd been on the road for a half of an hour and I'd only made 2 miles of forward progress! It's nice not to be on a schedule.
I stopped for some french toast two hours after I started riding. Then two hours later I had a great lunch at the Brown Bag Gourmet Deli in Poultney, VT. They had chicken parmesan pizza that was absolutely wonderful, and I also picked up a brownie for tonight, and a small loaf of fresh bread. It was a good eating day.
I stopped at the beach at Bomoseen Lake this afternoon to use the bathroom, and I met a great couple from Chicago and their children. They were disappointed that my route doesn't go through Chicago because they thought it would be fun for me to stay with them. I thought so too, but Chicago is quite a bit north of my route.
There was quite a bit of farm land today - lots of cows. The weather reports I kept hearing called for rain, thunderstorms, downpours starting this afternoon and going through Tuesday. I certainly hope that the reports have been blown out of proportion or that they are just wrong. But riding past fields full of cows made me think of what my mom used to tell us as kids - that if the cows are sitting down that it is going to rain. Of course it's just an old wives tale (sorry Mom, I know you're not one of those old wives!), but I was laughing as I passed fields with all of the cows standing, and other fields with most of the cows standing. Unfortunately, I still didn't beat the rain.
Let's see, if the cows are standing it's not going to rain, right? Wrong!
I arrived at Andy's Campground - or what I thought was Andy's campground - at 3:30. It's funny I saw one well-marked campground, then a campground sign but no campground, then Andy's, where I saw the campground but didn't see a sign. Odd. Anyway,it was 3:30, and it had been getting darker out as the afternoon went on. I looked at the map, and it appeared that the ferry to New York was only about 12 miles away, so I decided to push on, and to try to find a place to stay inside. It turned out to be 14 miles, filled with lots of ups and downs across some very pretty farmland with mountains in the background, and then a couple more miles on the New York side. It started raining just before I got to the ferry. It's a cable ferry across a pretty short part of Lake Champlain, seven minutes across. It was a great deal - $2 for both me and the bike. There is no one staffing the ferry dock - the ferry staff are all on board the boat. When you get to the ferry landing, there is a sign that says "Pull here to call ferry". When you pull, it flips up a bright orange square sign!
I guess I'm being a baby tonight - I just wasn't ready to pack up a wet tent in the morning, so I opted for a motel.
I'm now on the Northern Tier route, and in my 4th state - a function of the New England states being so small. And now I have the security blanket of the Adventure Cycling maps. Now I just need to figure out how long it will take me to get from here to Boonville so I can let my folks know when to meet me there. It will be fun to see them!
