Cyclocross?

New England is really beautiful for riding. Really just about perfect. The weather warmed up quite a bit after my morning note, but never got hot. Our route took us up and down hills, through lots of woods, along little rushing streams with tiny waterfalls, through picture-postcard farms. Easy to understand why so many bike tours come here. I was almost sad to think we are so close to the end of the trip, and very glad we had split this section in two so we had lots of time to enjoy it.

There is one dark note. Some of the pavement is atrocious. Not most of it; most is average and some is perfect. But occasionally, and especially in a couple of Berkshire towns yesterday, it was scary. Those big cracks in the road that are just longing to eat a skinny tire or two. Not terrible on a climb, but what a wasted descent when you have to keep a death grip on the brakes to keep the rubber on the road!

But I want to record more about our Bullfrog stay. Our hostess told Bruce when he made the reservation that she bet she was older than he. When he acknowledged his 59, almost 60 years, she said gleefully that she has a son older than that. So when we arrived pretty much as scheduled and could not get an answer at the door, I was a little bit worried. We rang the bell, and eventually I stuck my head in the unlocked door & called out. Nothing. Was she all right? What should we do? Then we heard some construction sounds out back so we walked around. There was a guy working on the roof who stopped and showed us to the front door and told us our room was upstairs. We would see our hostess when we got back from dinner; she had just made a quick trip up to the farm.

So we rode back to the little restaurant on the lake, had a very nice meal, and stopped at the little store to pick up a pint of ice cream to eat back at the inn. Sure enough, Lucille was there. She had been to harvest corn. The storm had knocked it down & it would quickly rot when touching the ground. So she was cooking & freezing it, having already canned several pounds of tomatoes and green beans. She stopped long enough to join us in eating ice cream and we had a great talk. She is fascinated by our trip. In recent years she has done week-long Elder Hostel bike tours in Europe (but, she said apologetically, no days longer than 43 miles). She said her kids don't like it when she trains for them on the fairly narrow and well traveled road out in front of her place. So she gets up at dawn to ride so the few cars up that early will get to expecting her.

She has five kids in the area and several grandchildren, mostly grown. Her house is in perfect order. She seems to have unlimited energy and a cheerful approach to everything. She made us a wonderful breakfast: black raspberries and peaches to begin, all local, followed by homemade sourdough toast with rosemary, eggs, local sausage and whole wheat pancakes, all prepared on her woodstove as we watched. We had more fun conversation as we ate. I could have stayed all day.

But we headed out, and before we knew it were crossing the Connecticut River. It is very, very full. We stopped on the bridge for a bit to look. The trees are in water almost up to their lowest branches. The water is very muddy and there were plenty of logs & branches rushing downstream. The water racing under us emerged with ripples and little whirlpools. I can hardly imagine how it must have looked on Sunday evening.

But our roads were dry and peaceful, and I began to fear we would arrive long before check in time. We went by parts of the Quabbin Reservoir & took a side road to get a better look. We found an alternative to the route that would get us off a busy road and closer to tonight's place. Left on Athol Road, right on Tom Swamp, we're there.

Wait. Tom Swamp? Will we never learn???

It looked ok at first. A local road that still had a fair amount of tree limbs on it from the storm, but a few nice houses, a day care center, then, well, then the pavement ended. Bruce kept riding but I got off to walk. It was pretty rough. Bruce soon decided to go back & ask a guy we'd seen mowing his lawn if we would actually get through ok. I kept walking. Yes, we would get through, but there was one area where the water covered the road for a hundred feet or so. Ok, I kept walking. Bruce has bigger tires & some off road experience, so he kept riding. For a while. It eventually got beyond any road bike's comfort zone & he did quite a bit of walking, too. When we found the pool across the road ( by then I had passed several large but easy to walk around puddles & had gotten my hopes up), we knew we'd be getting our feet wet. Bruce offered to get the bikes through. I took off my socks, felt very glad to be wearing my rubber Keen sandals, and plunged in. It was actually sort of pleasant. The day was quite warm, the water was always a comfortable temperature, and it only took a few minutes.

After that, we just had to walk the rest of the way through to the main road. Which turned out to be close to another mile & a half of occasionally steep, always rough road.

We weren't early arriving.

Well, I really do think the adventure must be about at an end. We hit the suburbs tomorrow. Meanwhile we are at a very nice, rather fancier B&B tonight. They also serve dinner, so no more need to try to master local navigation.

Miles today: 45
Total miles so far: 4096