T+160: In Spandex We Truss

NOTE:  Now that the tour journal telling the story of our cross-continent ride is complete, I have been thinking about how the blog goes forward.  We will add a few more posts wrapping up the last days of the "Exploratorium," as we prepared to return to our cabin in Wyoming.  This will encompass our travels in Maine, Massachusetts, and Seneca Falls, NY.  I am also planning on adding a few "Rants, Ruminations, and Reminiscences" about some of the on-going issues, through-lines, and bigger themes of our journey.

We are now making plans to return to Detroit next week.  There we plan to continue  our explorations by bike--this time, in and around our amazing city.  Plus--- we are in the beginning stages of scheming up our next adventure, which we are not quite ready to announce.  Stay tuned! 

Long story short: The journey to discover who and where we are is not complete. (Is it ever?) We are going to keep exploring and writing about our explorations.  We hope you will continue reading.   And yes, to the many of you who have suggested that this blog become the basis of a book.  This has been my plan and hope from the beginning.  If you have suggestions for publishers and editors, I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.
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Reminiscence 1:  Somewhere in the middle of North Dakota, I realized that long-distance bicycle riding all day, every day, is an unnatural act.  Up to that point, I held out hope  I would find a way to be comfortable on the bike. 

I had sought the Holy Grail of comfortable bike shorts.  I had adjusted my seat up and down, back and forth.  I moved my handlebars this way and that.  I had changed my bike gloves.  I tried adding padding, cutting away padding, I wore extra bike shorts.  I wore bike shorts with underwear and without.   I cut pats of moleskin and affixed them to various intimate and not so intimate body parts.

And yet…

I was often miserable and sometimes in real pain. 

When I began the bike trip, I was very overweight.  While I certainly carried (carry) excess weight all over my body, there is no doubt that much of that excess was in my butt, upper thighs, and belly.  That means a lot of flesh in constant motion while on the bike.  Where there is motion, there is chafing.  Where there is chafing, there are sores and abrasions. 

I had sores on my butt where the saddle and the bicycle short met.  I had terrible, swollen abrasions on my “ladyparts”.  I could get sweat burns on my thighs and under my gut.   Not a pretty picture, nor I assure you, a pleasant feeling.

As we went along, I got stronger and slimmer.  My legs, my breath, and my stamina got better and better.  I had the strength and endurance to do the daily ride.  It was just the constant problem with my netherparts that was holding me back.

I am an inveterate tinkerer.  “Almost” drives me crazy.  If something is working pretty well, I will mess with it, and mess with it, until I have either made it better or totally screwed it up.  If the latter happens, it just spurs more “dink, dink, dink” as Wes calls it.   I always think I can figure everything out.  This is equal parts blessing and curse.  When the washing machine drains and fills slowly, I will take apart the hose and drain until I find the blockage.  When Wes’ gear shift slips, I will take it apart and put it together until he can’t stand it anymore and tapes it place  (where it did work much better.)

So it was a real crisis of conscience when I realized I could not solve this problem.  No matter how many minute adjustments I made—no matter how many types of bicycle shorts I tried, I couldn’t fix this problem.  All I could do was mitigate the damage and manage the pain.

Thus began a different kind of problem solving that when it reached its zenith, resulted in a full 30 minute dressing ceremony that began each biking day.  The individual pieces of clothing, the specific order in which they had to be donned, along with the application of various powders, painkillers, and emollients would rival the complexity of dressing a 17^th century geisha.

By this time we got to the New York and were riding in cool weather, this is what my dressing routine looked like:

1^st layer:

·       Full length sports bra with Gold Bond medicated powder under the breasts and underarms

·       Bicycle shorts* with extra strength Anbesol gel** applied to my genital area, Gold Bond powder in the front of the shorts, chamois butter or glide at various abrasion points

·       Compression knee socks to keep my feet and legs from swelling

·       An ankle brace to keep my rotten right ankle from bowing out while riding

2^nd layer

·       Bicycle jersey

·       Knee warmers

·       Arm warmers which went down to my hands and had a hole cut for my thumb

3^rd layer

·       Wool socks

·       Nylon sports pants that could be worn as knickers or full length

·       Fleece or warmth layer

4^th Layer

·       Nylon sports shirt with numerous pockets containing Anbesol, gum, tissues, lip gloss, phone, and sun screen or bug spray, as appropriate.

·       Leather bicycle gloves

·       Nylon over-gloves with electro-sensitive index fingers and thumbs

·       Baseball cap

Out the door

·       Bike helmet  (despite the nerd factor, I wouldn’t be caught without one—a close encounter with a stone fence during our bicycle tour of England convinced me of that)

·       Wind and water resistant parka

 

·       Sunglasses

In my saddle bag, within easy access:

·       Small bottle of powder

·       Chamois butter or glide

·       Moleskin and scissors

·       Ibuprofen

·       Aspercreme

Basically, underneath my sports clothes, every part of my body was being compressed and held warm by spandex.  The knee and arm warmers could be adjusted for heat or cold without the necessity of undressing.    It always gave me a bit of laugh when the bike snobs looked disapprovingly at our camper shirts and sports pants.  Underneath that shell, I was completely encased in bike gear.

Wes didn’t need or want to go through all that preparation.  He has what is known in his family as the “May Butt”—a flat, narrow butt, often connected to fairly skinny legs.  He didn’t have nearly the abrasion problems that I had.  But even so, even with his bicycle shorts and underwear, he still suffered from what he called “40 Mile Butt.”  After being on the bike for hours and miles, it is hard to be comfortable.  He would begin gyrating on his seat, sitting this way and that, standing for a while, moving left or right on his hips, just to allay the ever increasing discomfort.

We don’t know how people like long distance biker Andrew can ride for 200 miles in a single shot, although we guess there are three factors at work.   These kind of bikers are usually whippet thin—there just isn’t much flesh to rub.  Second, they probably have invested in really high quality bicycle shorts, a lesson I learned the hard way on this trip.  (See attached note on bicycle shorts.)  Third, long distance anything: runners, cyclists, rowers (whatever) probably have a highly developed capacity to ignore pain.  I remember hearing the story of a woman who often runs hundreds of miles at a time.  She said, “Let me tell you about all the different types of pain I have experienced.”  Maybe some even enjoy the pain.

I am not enough of a masochist to enjoy the pain, but I did learn that I didn’t have to let the pain control me.  It was liberating to realize I couldn’t fix the problem, but I could fix my reaction to the problem.  I easily could have let the pain ruin my trip.  Once I decided that it was irresolvable and it wasn’t going to stop me, I was much happier and had more fun.   Yet another discovery of the obvious.

*A Note about bicycle shorts:  In the course of this trip, I tried numerous pairs of bike shorts.  I bought shorts in Detroit, in Anacortes, WA, in Whitefish, MT, in Fargo, ND, and in Port Dover, ONT.   I cheaped out on the first pairs: the padding was not anatomical at all and rubbed me raw. I ended up sewing in extra padding before I threw them away.  The next purchase was long leg Pearl Izumis, which worked pretty well, but the foam padding held the moisture.  As I got in better and better shape, I discovered that I am “sweat-hog” like my brothers.  At the end of the day, I felt like I was wearing a wet diaper.   This was especially the case as I lost weight.  Loose, wet bicycle shorts are an anathema.  In Canada, after complaining to the bike shop owner, he steered me to pair of bike shorts from Sugoi (of Canada) that cost well more than $100, fit incredibly tight, and had varied and anatomically specific padding.   Matched with bike glide gel, and when I couldn’t find that any more, chamois butter, rubbed on the abrasion points, I was as comfortable as I had ever been on a bike.    Not pain free, of course--see the note on Anbesol.

**A Note about Anbesol:  When I spoke to the helpful female bike shop clerk in Anacortes, Washington about my saddle and butt difficulties, she led me to the anatomically cut Pearl Izumi shorts.  She also told me that many women riders use topical pain killers.  I was shocked.  However, I had a “come to Jesus” moment when we riding through a beautiful estuary not too far from Anacortes.  I was in such pain and no combination of shorts, padding, or whatever was helping.  I could not enjoy the beauty all around me. 

I had to do something to “STOP THE PAIN.” I thought and thought about what could do this safely.  I realized that the painkiller I had used for toothache would work and be safe for this purpose as well.  The benzocaine in the compound would numb the active and painful abrasions.  If I could prevent further damage and not suffer from the damage already present, I would be all right.  It did work.  I tried a few formulations, and found the highest strength gel was the most effective and least messy.  I would re-apply the gel regularly throughout the day. I am sure passing motorists were wondering what I was doing down my pants, but oh, well.  Let them wonder.  At least I wasn’t in active pain all day.   I could be present to the world I was traversing, which was, after all, the point of the trip.

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Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

T+155: The Final Push

Mile 4162: Portland, Maine

We leave the bed and breakfast in Meredith and push out into traffic.  It is chilly.  We have about a 50 mile ride to the little town of Cornish, Maine.  The next day, we will only have about 30 miles to get into Portland.  We both have pretty strong homing fever.  Like horses who have been on an all-day ride, but who begin to trot and can’t be deterred once they get a sense of barn and pasture, we are singled minded in our focus.  We want to get to Portland as soon as we can.

Of course, that doesn’t stop us from missing our turn and going the wrong way for a few miles first thing in the morning.  Even though we were following Highway 25, we were not seeing the lake shore as we should.  Instead we were climbing a small saddle…and making good time, at that.  It just doesn’t seem right, I tell Wes.  Let’s stop and check.   We pull off into a public area, check the map, and…can- you-believe-it—not only have we gone the wrong way, I also have a flat tire.  Grrrrr.

It is already late because of the long conversation we had at breakfast, so we try to control our anxiety as we change the tire and make our way back to what should be a connector road back to EAST 25.    (We had been going due north on WEST 25.)  25B is a short-cut, all right, in distance.  It is straight up a steep hill we can’t ride.  After a long and cranky push, we make it to the top and see the streets of Center Harbor, straight down.  I am not completely confident in our repair, so I brake like mad down the 13% grade.   Wes shoots straight down, and when I meet up with him at the bottom, he has a bug-eyed, wild-hair grin.  Near the junction with the main road, we see a semi-truck loaded with hay just turning onto the road.  He stops his truck and asks us if this the road to Sunset Hill.  Wes tells him it is, but warns him that he may not be able to make it up that grade.  He drives off to attempt it.

We don’t tarry at the lake, even though the town looks cute.  We push through Moultonborough, even though it is on another lake and has an intriguing sign for the Cloud in the Sky house.  Nope, we’ve got homing fever.  No left, no right, just go.  The road outside of Moultonborough begins the circumnavigation of the Ossipees.  We climb up and can see its western flank with big canyons and fast moving streams. 

Ossipee Mountains

As we circle around these unusual mountains, the view to our right doesn’t change.  Unlike normal linear mountains, which have a beginning, middle and end, riding the perimeter of the volcano means that mountain seems to rotate with us.  However, once we are on the north side of the circle dyke, the views to our left begin to be awe-inspiring.  The White Mountains are just a few miles away and they are impressive.  At one point, we look north and see a jagged peak far above the surrounding peaks.  A single horn of granite, the stubborn remnant after glaciers had scraped away all else, stands 1000 feet above the rocky ridges below.  We wonder, is that Mount Washington?  It certainly was the tallest mountain we had seen since the Rockies. 

West Ossipee is at 1pm on the clock of the circle.  It is the last junction before Conway, in the heart of the White Mountains.  It is also the first place we see a road sign announcing the distance to Portland, Maine: 62 miles.  There is a busy barbeque joint right at the junction.  There are lots of folks wrapping up their Columbus Holiday weekend.  We eat in the tent outside the main dining area. 

It was better people watching than eating.  Around our table we see the following sets of people.  There is a handsome young couple, both quite athletic with the tans and muscles that come from lots of vigorous outside activities, with five children.  The oldest, a teenage boy of about 15 looks exactly like his father, who looks no more than 32 years old.  The mother has long, dark hair and a kind of casual elegance that makes me jealous.  Their youngest child is probably 5 years old. They order tons of food and eat only part of it.  They all seem very confident and relaxed.

Next to them is an intergenerational family of far fewer means.  The grandmother is on oxygen.  Her two daughters are overweight and wearing tight knit pants.  They all have their hair pulled tight into high ponytails.  All three women spend a good deal of time correcting and engaging with a young tween who can’t sit still and may not be able to read.  There are numerous questions, in quite loud voices, “Do you want the chicken?  How about the pulled pork?  Please sit down!  Did you want to try chicken, or not?  Answer me!” 

Across from us is a middle aged man of Asian descent, who has led his tiny, tottering, nearly blind mother up the ramp and to a high table, where he has very difficult time getting her into the stool.  There he explains, over and over, what this place is.  It’s not clear she understands.  When the food comes, he puts a bib around her then gently helps her take bites from her sloppy, slippery sandwich.

At the far end of the tent is another extended family.  I can’t see them very well, but I have a great view of the patriarch, with his sailor’s cap, beige windbreaker, tan chinos, and deck shoes.  He looks like he should be returning from a weekend on the boat instead of the New Hampshire mountains.  He spends the whole meal on his cell phone, only breaking his conversation once, with a loud, “Oh, all right!”  while he pulls some bills from his pocket to give to two gesticulating teenage boys, who then run into the interior of the restaurant.

When I come out of the restaurant, I see Wes in deep conversation with an odd-looking fellow.  I had seen him riding down the hill to the junction on a beater bike with a wobbly front wheel.  He looked to be in his forties.  His clothes—work boots, ragged jeans, polo shirt under a flannel shirt—were ragged and dirty.  His long blondish hair was stuffed under a mangled fisherman’s brim hat.  Still, his eyes were clear, his face was clean and smiling.  He was gesturing animatedly and pointing to his bike.  I soon learn he is telling Wes of his plans to convert his bike to a recumbent so he could take a tour like ours.  He is very fascinated by the trailers and asks Wes all sorts of questions.  The conversation starts to repeat itself and it is not clear whether this fellow actually has the wherewithal to do what he says, so we gently take our leave.  As we are riding away, a young interracial couple in full black leather come riding up on motorcycles.  We hear the cyclist tell them, “See them trailers…I’m getting me one like that and headin’ out!”

A few miles down the road, through a strip of tourist oriented businesses, we have traveled 180 degrees around the Ossipees.   The main route continues circling, but our route  turns to the east, over a small pass, heading to Maine.   The country is changing from upland hardwoods to boggy lowlands with ferns and pines.  The houses are becoming few and far between.

We stop to take pictures in front of the beat-up “Welcome to Maine” signs.  We have about 45 miles to go to Portland, and still about 10 miles to go today.   We are feeling pretty excited.  It’s hard to believe our traverse of the Northern Tier is nearly complete.

Almost immediately, we see that this part of Maine is in a very different economic state than anything we had seen in New Hampshire and Vermont.  Instead of big, well-maintained “add-on houses,” we now see bedraggled cabins or rusty, raggedy mobile homes surrounded by old pick-up trucks.  There are signs, some hand scrawled, offering firewood cutting, small engine repair, or “Maine-made” crafts.   Instead carefully tended gravel or paved driveways, there are muddy two-tracks leading to yards with falling down fences.  There are also chickens on the road with great regularity.

 
There are moments of great beauty in this landscape, however, especially alongside the Saco River.  Our minds, however, are focused on getting to Portland.  Even as we go through the little town of Cornish, with its rustic shops, outdoor cafes, and groups of weekenders pottering about, we don’t stop.  Our lodging is well outside of town, in a new-but-meant-to-look old complex.  It has a bar, restaurant, and butcher shop in the downstairs retail area, and is advertising for more renters.  It’s blinking external sign, at odds with its attempted colonial tavern design, says the motel is open, but the restaurant is only open on the weekends.

Our hostess is a young, beautiful Asian whom we can barely understand.  When she finds out that we are headed to Portland, she tells us we need to go to Kennebunkport and see President Bush—the first one—he is always there.  Make sure we don’t miss seeing the bridge over the bay, she says.   She is giving us more enthusiastic travel advice when we finally interrupt her and tell we are tired and need to get to our room.  She then apologizes several times.  We are to put our bikes in a covered awning behind the bar.  Our room is upstairs.  They will be serving until 8pm tonight and no, they do not have a breakfast in the morning.

Ok.  Putting the bikes under the awning proved quite difficult because of the chained picnic table also occupying the space. Both Wes and I end up with big bruises.  Upstairs, it is clear we are the only tenants in the motel.  The room is new and nice-ish. Like the rest of the building, it is built to look nice, but made with the cheapest materials and the shoddiest construction--the simulacrum of civility.

The restaurant/bar has a number of patrons.  Most are eating lobster, which is the special of the day.  It strikes with a blow that these are probably fresh caught lobsters.  Our minds and stomachs are still in the mountains, however, so we have stir-fry and sandwiches instead.  This was probably a mistake.

We try to go to bed early, but like kids waiting for Christmas day, we have a hard time sleeping and wake up every few hours to see if it is time to get up.  We are up before dawn and out the door just as the sun is beginning to peak over the hillside.  We are passing through numerous ups and down, with small farms and little cabins.  It is not quite as disheveled as the area near the border, but this is no high rent district, either.

The road turns south near the tourist area around Lake Sebago.  We are sure that this is a beauty spot, but nothing is going to deter us from getting to Portland as soon as possible.  We have gone about 15 miles; the sun is well up.  We need to get some breakfast. 

We find a tiny, “Mom’s diner” looking café, complete with gingham curtains, and pull into the parking lot.  Just as we are about to go into the door, a young man standing next to an old 3 speed bicycle, smoking a cigarette, accosts us.  Without warning, he launches into a big story about taking bicycle maintenance classes at his alternative high school.  Before long, we have learned that he was put out of his previous school, that he loved the teacher who taught him bike mechanics, that he thought it was a great thing for people like himself, who need to learn a skill, but that the whole program was shut down because of budget cuts.  He’s looking for a job now.  He hopes he can find something to do with bikes.  He really likes bikes, what kind are ours?  Have they worked good?  Do we need anything done?  This all goes by lickety-split, with barely a breath between sentences.  Stunned, we tell him our bikes are working fine, and wish him luck finding work with bikes.  Later, he comes into the restaurant, and unleashes another torrent at a fellow sitting at the counter.  The waitress and the cook exchange knowing glances.  The waitress then helps the young man find the door and tells him can come back later.

As we are eating, two 30 year old men enter the café.  They ask the whole diner, “Whose bikes are those?”  When they hear our answer, they sit in the booth next to us, and ask us questions throughout our meal.  While they are interested, they are also just a bit disrespectful, with “Why on earth would anyone want to ride a bicycle that far?”  and “Don’t you have something better to do?”  questions.  However, they wished us well as we left, and told us we still had 25 more miles to go.  We are surprised by this.  We have been pedaling fast.  Why aren’t these miles going down faster!  The young men beep and wave at us as they drive past us a few miles later.

Bit by bit, the landscape begins to take on unmistakable signs of suburbanization.  The two-lane road becomes a four lane and the traffic is becoming more noxious.  We stop in the town of Gorham, which was originally its own town, but has been swept up in the wave of suburbanization.  We are about 10 miles from the sea.  On some material I had picked up, I see a description for a bike route that will take us all the way to the coast.  The ride on the highway is not pleasant, so this seems like a good solution. 

We find the trail right away and are following a river trail, when all of a sudden, it goes into a small park and peters out.  We wander about a bit but can’t find it again.  We wander out to a major junction on the edge of a big industrial area.  We are trying to determine if one of these roads will get us to downtown and to the ocean, when we see a bicycle tourist riding up truck-clogged street towards us.  We flag him over.

When he comes over, we are surprised to see he is a tiny, beautiful youth.  His hair is light brown ringlets curling around his bike helmet.  He has enormous blue eyes ringed with long lashes.  He is just an inch or two taller than me and looks to be about 17 or 18 years old, with soft pink cheeks. Except for his well-used mountain bike shorts and dirty wind-breaker, he looks like an angel.  He is riding a mountain bike with an odd conglomeration of bags and a huge sleeping bag.  We find out that he has cycled all the way from Portland, Oregon, and that he left the day after us, July 4.  He has never heard of Adventure Cycling, but has been making his own way using Google maps. He has been camping a bit, but mostly couch surfing or staying with various relatives and acquaintances.  More surprising, he was now turning south, on his way to Florida.  He hoped to be there by December.  He had found Portland kind of inhospitable and was anxious to leave.  He could offer us no suggestions for a route downtown.  We watched this little spirit boy mount his bike, then ride off along the ridge, heading to southern parts unknown.

We are lucky enough to find good ol’ Highway 25 again, and follow it past suburban malls, across freeways, and through an increasingly dense and packed environment.  As we go along, Wes is telling an outrageous story about how the mayor will be meeting us to give us the keys to the city…for a rather large fee, of course.  Oh, and that marching band playing the victory march at your arrival, that’s an additional $6000.   If you could just leave the fee with the bursar, I have another pressing obligation…

At one point, we are faced with a Y junction, east or west?  We would have preferred south, but that was not an option.  The east route runs us past institutional buildings and ends at Portland’s Back Bay.  Clearly, we had reached some portion of the ocean, the smell alone would have told us that.   However, the tide was out and gulls, sandpipers, and curlews were hunting in the sodden mud. 

The main portion of downtown was to our right.   We cross another freeway and have to go up to go downtown and down to the sea.   Our path takes us by a Salvation Army service center.   There are scores of homeless people hanging around, all ages, all genders, all colors.  There are those in hot conversation with others.  Some look like they are embarrassed to be seen in this crowd, some are there in body, their minds elsewhere.  No one says a words as we pant up the hill, in hot pursuit of a little piece of open ocean.

We find our way to Commercial Street.  Before us are a series of busy piers.  Some are serving the tourist trade (Whale watching, scenic tours); others, for commercial fisherman.  A few look like private mooring for pleasure craft.  Beyond these piers, we can see a glimpse of water.  We want to get there. 

The first one we traverse stops us with a locked gate.  The next one leads to a waterside condominium with private boat slips.  Although there are numerous signs saying, NO TRESPASSING, we will not deterred at this point.  We come to the edge.  There will be no ceremonial dipping our front wheel in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  It is 8 feet below the edge.  It is not open ocean, either.  We can see standing oil tanks across the bay.  None of it matters.  We have made it.  Even when two men exit the condominium and give the fish eye to the two rasty-looking bicyclists on their dock, we will not be deterred from taking pictures and sending a celebratory text.   

We made it!  It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of our bicycle journey.  Our travels are not done, far from it.  We will visit with my brother and his wife in “downeast Maine.”  We still have to get back to our cabin, then  back to Detroit, before this journey is truly complete.  But for today, for right now, we can celebrate.  We can relax.  We can begin to begin to understand all the changes this journey has wrought.  But first, we’ll pause, and relent, and have at least one day where there’s no goal to be met, no task to be done.  Aaaaah.

 

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Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

 

T+151: We Don’t Know, We Just Go…

Mile 4084: Meredith, NH

Using my handy-dandy mapping tool, I find a way to take us out of West Lebanon that will allow us to get past the congestion and freeways before returning to US Highway 4.  We are curving around a back road when we spot a tell-tale trail marker just off the road.  The trail does not show up on the program, but this looks quite promising.  We’ll take it. 

Not too far along, we see what appears like college students out for a jog. We hope we haven’t made a bad choice. The conditions begin a little dodgy, but get better as we go along.  The trail is lovely as it crosses back and forth over the Mascoma River.  We don’t know where we are, but we are paralleling Highway 4, so we keep going. 

A few miles in, we are greeted by a handsome 60-something woman and her gregarious Jack Russell dog.  She tells us we are on the Northern Rail trail, and that it goes 30 miles or so all the way up to Grafton.  She also tells us about some the sights up ahead, including Mascoma Lake, with the Shaker village of Enfield across the way.  She asks about our trip and is very surprised to find out that we started in Portland, Oregon.  She tells of a recent trip she and her husband took to the Netherlands.  There, they would ride their bikes during the day, then get on a canal barge at night for their dinner and lodging.   She tells us they enjoyed it so much, she has developed a taste for more bike travel.  We offer “tips of the trade” and we all laugh about the various strategies we have employed to deal with saddle pain.

The ride is spectacular as it passes Mascoma Lake.  Two distinct features tickle our fancy.  In celebration of Halloween, various scarecrows depicting sports deaths are placed on the park land between the trail and the lake.  The bike-wreck scarecrow seemed to be plowing into a giant rock on a small moto-cross bike, with the stuffed rider about to fly right over the handlebars.   The hockey scarecrow had a black eye and broken teeth, and a hockey stick out of his head.  The six or seven of these creations were quite funny and creative---and must have been a big community effort to design, costume, and place these images.
This is also the first place we spot what we soon come to call “New Hampshire add-on houses.”  A house might begin with a small single gabled cottage.  Another generation would add a wing at a right angle, then another might add another gabled cottage addition, which might then have a connected corridor or two with eventually joined the barn. Over the years, simple structures become quite complicated.  I tell Wes that is what we are going to do with our cabin.  He just rolls his eyes.

We follow the rails to trails all the way to Grafton, even though the track is becoming more and more marginal.  There are places where it is hardly more than a sandy two-track.   Sometimes the trail is just a few feet from Highway 4.  We look longingly at the smooth surface, but don’t leave the track, choosing no competition with vehicles over an easy ride.   The trail takes us through a variety of huge culvert tunnels, which strikes us as a good solution for contested intersections.  

We are getting discouraged at our slow progress.  We are working pretty hard and not going very fast.  It is nearly noon and we have only gone about 12 miles.  We enter a rock cut where the train track was cut through 12 foot tall granite walls, and see a small brass marker.  We have just passed the Orange Summit, the highest point on the trail, and the highest point the railroad reached between the coast and its terminus at White River Junction at the Connecticut River.  Although we had been seeing  Mount Cardigan before and beside us, we didn’t realize we had been climbing all morning. 

We stop for a break at Danbury, where we will turn off to take a road to the little town of Meredith on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.  By the time we get there, we are tired, crabby, and worried.  I know we have to go a total of 60 miles to get to our bed and breakfast.  It has taken us until after 1pm to go 20 miles.  How on earth will we ever make it the rest of the way before we lose the light?    We have an uncomfortable break at the small country store.  Both of us are picking at each other.  My phone doesn’t work and there is no wi-fi, so we can’t scout the road ahead.   A young man and several senior ladies out for a bike ride try to allay our fears about the route ahead, but I, for one, am not having it.  One lady says, “It’s not bad.  There are ups and downs, but it’s just like life, isn’t it?” 

We are still sniping at each other when we head out on Highway 104.  It is pretty easy and quite beautiful, but we are both convinced these good times will end momentarily, leaving us to slog up the mountain to the Lake.  The miles start to slip by.  We’re cruising along.  Wait!  Where’s the climb into the White Mountains?  This part of the ride has been no problem whatsoever. 

As we ride along, we see lots of the “Add-on Houses.”   However, very few of these look like working farms.  There are no animals, no tractors, no work-trucks.  The fields lie fallow even as the houses are well-maintained.  We pass the grounds of the private Hampton School, and realize that this is probably the third private residential school we have seen since entering New Hampshire.   Although the road is fairly populated, there are very few commercial establishments.  I ask Wes, “How are people making their livings here?”   He answers, “Maybe they aren’t.”   This is obviously not a place where people are trying to make a living and can’t, as we have seen in New York and Washington.  This is a place where the living is coming from elsewhere.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and the ride to get much harder, as we zip along to Bristol and the crossing with Interstate 93.   There is a little outbreak of plastic land close to the freeway.   We have about 15 miles to go when the climb in the foothills of the White Mountains begins.  We spend the rest of the afternoon climbing, climbing, climbing.  We have just cleared one good sized hill when we see a long-haired hippie-ish looking fellow standing next to his station wagon.  He has pulled his car into the little verge between our road and a right turn.  He has been watching us hump up the hill and as we go by, he calls to us, “Do you have a place to stay for the night?”  We answer that we have a bed and breakfast waiting for us.  “Too bad.” He says, “I was gonna offer you a room at my house.  Where you headed?”  We tell him, and he sighs, “Man, you got a big hill ahead of you.  Good luck.”

He wasn’t kidding.  The country we are entering reminds me a lot of the glacial highlands of the Rockies.  There are deep, cold lakes surrounded by granite shelves.  In the distance we can see foothills with the occasional glance at the rocky highlands beyond.  We are about 5 miles from the town of Meredith and we look up to see what should be called a cliff climb.   We’re beat, but too bad.  Up we go until we can’t.  Then it is off our bikes and time for pushing. 

At the top of this steep hill, our road joins the Daniel Webster Highway and the traffic increases.  Now we are tired, it is close to dusk, and we are still not there.  It is spectacularly beautiful alongside the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, but hard to appreciate it because of the dangerous road conditions.  We feel a surge of energy, however, when we get to the town of Meredith.  It is a lovely tourist town, dominated by large, white 19^th century hotels which overlook the lake.  The town is a warren of 18^th and 19^th century buildings sitting cheek to jowl on the hills just above the lake.  Like all tourist towns, it is full of restaurants, bars, and cute little shops. 

We need to make our way to the Tuckernuck Bed and Breakfast.  When I had made the reservation, the innkeeper was thrilled to hear that we were cross country bicyclists. Her husband, she told me, was an Ironman, and had participated in many super long distance triathlons.  I told her we were far from Ironmen and that a 60 mile day was a pretty long day for us.   It had been a long day, and we were feeling every bit of those 60 miles, when we found the street on which the inn was located, and saw that it was another big climb.  We were pushing our bikes up the hill, on our last legs, when a young police officer, in a Meredith Police Department sedan, pulled alongside us.  “Don’t you know you are supposed to be riding up this hill?”  It took us a moment to realize he was joking before we had the presence of mind to assure him that this was just our “cool-down.”

Our brains are fogged by exhaustion as we get to the house on the top of the hill: our inn.  We drag our bikes around to the side and meet a young couple who say, “You must be the bicyclists!  Kim has told us all about your trip!  We can hardly wait to hear your stories!”   They take us to meet the landlady, an effusive, petite blonde with a somewhat raspy voice, who welcomes us mightily and tells us how excited she is to have us staying there.   We don’t feel special, just tired, sweaty, and hungry.  She gives us a great deal on a beautiful suite at the top of the house.   It is all we can do not to fall asleep right then and there.

After a shower, we feel slightly less exhausted and want to get some dinner.  Our landlady gives us a bunch of menus and guidance.  She also tells us that the other guests in the house are the young couple we had earlier met; they were newlyweds on their honeymoon.  There is also a threesome from England, fellow innkeepers enjoying a holiday in various beauty spots of eastern and western United States.  She assured us that they were all very interested to meet us and hear our stories tomorrow at breakfast.  Apparently, there would be no sitting back and listening to other’s stories for us in the morning.
Oh, how we wished we had been better able to follow our landlady’s advice about eating establishments.  We had seen a little brewpub on the way in to town.  We thought it would be a good place to eat and listen to the Tigers/Red Sox baseball game that night.  It was a fail on both counts.  The place was packed with sports fans, all right, football fans cheering loudly, then not so loudly, as the New England Patriots barely beat the New Orleans Saints.

After a disappointing corporate plastic goo-fest for dinner, we walk around the town, follow the lakeshore and explore the historic inns.  In one, we were sitting by the blazing fire, when a distraught man came in, trailed by a manager.  His wife had lost her phone.   Could we please move so they could check the overstuffed sofas where we were seated.  We do, but no phone is found.  Off they go, the man almost wailing, “What are we going to do?  Where can it be?”

We find the town charming, but we’re too tired to do much, so we go back to our inn.  We turn on the game, but fall asleep with the Tigers comfortably ahead 5-1 in the 7^th inning.  The next morning, as we make our way to breakfast, our landlady asks us, “Did you hear what happened in the game last night?”  Her husband, who had driven the 2 hours to attend the game in Boston, called her around midnight to tell her that game was now tied and there was still one more inning to go.  He was going to be very late getting back. She woke up to find out that Red Sox had won, in one of the most stunning comebacks in baseball history. 

At breakfast, all eyes are on us.  We start by telling them about how much economic distress we have seen as we travelled across the country.  Not very romantic, to be sure, but it does get the newlyweds going.  They are from Rochester, New York and in their mid-twenties.  He has a degree in civil engineering; she in marketing.   Together, they have sent more than 500 letters of inquiry.  They have gotten a few bites, but they see people with lots more experience getting the jobs.  They wonder how they will ever get a start, but they were still hoping a job would materialize for them.   The Brits are shocked at this.  They didn’t know the economy was that bad in the US.

We tell stories of our bicycle trip through England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland and make the Brits laugh with those “innocents abroad” adventures.  We all end up telling stories of our favorite places to visit.  I don’t think we ended up talking much about our ride across the country, but it was good fun anyway.

When we make our departure, our landlady, who had generously volunteered to find our next lodging, tells us how much difficulty she had making arrangements in the little town of Cornish, Maine.  After numerous attempts, she was able to find a place for us not too far from the town.  We thank her and commiserate with her.   Who would have thought securing lodging would have become such an on-going hassle?  She tells us of one set of bicyclists who had stayed with her.  They had arranged their entire lodging six months in advance.  Only once did they miss their reservation.  It’s clear we are not that rigid or that well-organized.

As we prepare to leave, I stop to stare at a topographic map on the wall.  Just to the northwest of Lake Winnipesaukee lies a circular range of mountains called the Ossipees.  Surely, this must have been an ancient volcano.  I show Wes and he agrees with me.  We ask Kim.  No, no volcanos around here.  Wondering what else could make such a distinctive outline, we vow to look more closely as we ride by.  Our route out of New Hampshire will take us half way round this strange feature.  By the end of this day, we will be in Maine.  Almost there.  Somehow or another.

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Posted from Centennial, Wyoming

T+148: The Real Deal and ….Really?

T+148: The Real Deal and Really?

We mount our bicycles at the top of Sherburne Pass.  (The town of Killington was originally named Sherburne, but it was too easily confused with other names, so it officially changed its name just a few years ago.  The pass has kept its original name.)  It is distinctly chilly, although the sun is out.  I don’t have gloves or mittens.  Wes has gloves to put over his bike gloves, but for reasons unknown does not put them on. The ride down is fast and cold.  By the time we reach the valley floor, we are both bringing our hands to our body’s core to warm them up. 

This is a beautiful part of the country.  The valleys are cut with rivers; the mountains rise steeply and glow bright yellow and red above us.  My ability to enjoy this beauty is being hampered, however, by how cold I am.  At a corner, about 5 miles below the summit, I pull in to a sports shop, where I buy a pair of ski gloves with photo sensing. (So I can use my phone without taking my gloves off).  

As we come out of the shop, we look across the highway and see a house completely off its foundation.  The houses and barns next to it have obviously just undergone a major renovation.  The shoulder of the road, which had been excellent, now is patchy.  Parts of it have fallen into the Ottaqueechee River.  The traffic is fairly heavy, but we soldier on, seeing more and more signs of something amiss:  another building off its foundation, strange dark marks high on the side of a barn, the width of the road strangely narrow. 

I see the name of a furniture builder I recognize from the pages of Old House Journal in a re-purposed warehouse not too far from Woodstock.  I call a halt, and under Wes’s protestation, tell him I want to visit the workshops of Thomas Shackleton Furniture.  Housed in a former wool mill, the factory and showroom were a fascinating visit.   After viewing the handmade furniture and pottery, we stopped upstairs to see the workrooms.  There, we encountered two young people in the midst of hand-building two pieces of furniture.  I stay and watch for a long while.  Wes goes to look at the artwork downstairs.

The young woman, dark haired and long limbed, was using a hand planer to shave the smallest edges from the footboard of cherry sleigh bed.  A young man, massively built, and wearing a bandanna over his balding head, is working on a walnut sideboard.  He is carefully chiseling dovetail joints to construct an upper drawer.   I find out that each piece of furniture is made by one person from start to finish.  The individual builder meets with the wood supplier, and sources the specific wood for each piece.  The builder preps and cuts the wood, then hand builds and finishes each piece.  I say, “It must be so satisfying to see a piece from idea to shipment.”  They both nod vigorously; she says it is one of the main things that keeps them going through years of apprenticeship, becoming a journeyman (person?) and finally mastering the art. 

He tells a story about friends who want him to make them furniture.  When confronted with the price of a handmade piece of furniture, they are shocked and say they will just get a piece from Ikea.   I tell them I think Ikea is a form of “classy trash”—it is visually very well designed, but made of the cheapest materials and scantiest structures.  Ikea won’t last the decade: the works made by these young artisans will be given to the purchaser’s grandchildren.  As I get ready to leave, the young man notes: “Usually, it is the husband who stays to talk to us.”  I note: “I am ten times the gear head that Wes is.”  He says, “Well, that is what it takes.”

Before I leave, I ask about the Shackleton name and find out that Thomas Shackleton was indeed cousin to Ernest Shackleton, of the ill-fated Endurance voyage to Antarctica.  In that trip, the ship was frozen in the ice for months on end, but Ernest Shackleton was able to save his entire crew through great personal heroism and effort.  Making furniture from tree to truck may not be as dangerous as sailing to the Antarctic, but it is heroic in its own right in this age of flashy trash and corporate consumerism.

Back on the road, Wes thanks me for making him go to this workshop.  We keep following the river, with the shoulder becoming more and more suspect.  We round a corner, and see the Woodstock Farmers’ Market.  There are lots of cars, but we are suckers for hand raised foods, so we stop, despite our intentions to keep moving. 

As we are parking our bikes, we notice a hand-drawn sign on the backside of the red clapboard building.  Well above my height is a scrawled note, “Hurricane Irene water level.”   We peer at the note, and look around at the surrounding buildings, seeing the tell-tale signs of high water on the market and the adjacent building, which houses a glass workshop and artist studios. One of the store manager comes out.  We ask her about the sign and she tells us that the water had completely crossed the road.  They had to do major renovations just to get open again, but were lucky compared to some. 

We get some rolls and cheese in the tourist packed market and go down the road to a series of tables next to the river.  I go in to get soup for lunch and discover that this business had been completely swept away in the flood.  It is hard to imagine the sweet small river on which we are sitting raging with such force.   As we are eating, I realize that we have now completed 4000 miles.  We take pictures in front of the river and think about my brother Steve and the recovery they’re facing.

Because this is the Columbus holiday weekend, the pretty town of Woodstock is full of people, buses, cars, and bikes.  The Columbus holiday passes with very little notice in other parts of the United States, but here in New England and Upstate New York, it is a big deal, although it could be more accurately called “Leaf Peepers Weekend.”  Making our way through this crush is no fun, but I call a halt to Wes as we go by a particularly intriguing local art store.  We go in and are very struck by the high quality of the artwork.  Both Wes and I stare at a beautiful print of aspens next to a frozen lake with the mountains in the distance.  It is fairly rare that Wes and I both get “beeped” by an artwork.  We try to listen to these impulses, but this is not exactly the right moment to buy a piece of art.  We walk away, as we usually do, to see if the image stays with us.   We walk through the throngs, and check out a few stores.  The town reminds us of Aspen—not at all in the way it looks, of course—but in the sophistication and expense of its goods and the profound sense of place in its design and layout.   As we walk along, we become more committed to the artwork and decide, “What the hell?  Let this be the one memento of our trip.”

Back at the store, we make arrangements for the print to be shipped to Wyoming.  We have a long conversation with the store owner who was a longtime resident of Detroit.  As usual, we have to allay her fears about the destruction of the city.  She had many wonderful memories of her time there; she had lived on the far southeast of the city and in Indian Village.   She had heard that there were even more artists in the city than when she was there.  She compared the situation in Detroit to New York City in the 1970’s, when that city was its most dysfunctional and yet a haven for young artists.   

After our purchase, we return to the traffic.  As we pass a covered bridge, I see a road on the other side of the river.  I use my newly discovered mapping program to take us to the “road less traveled.”   There we ride up and down hills through tiny villages and little farms under glorious red and yellow trees.  This is Vermont at its most charming; we wonder if we will have the same experience in New Hampshire.

The short answer is “No.”  First of all, there is a snarl of freeways, roads, and bridges as we cross the Connecticut River into Lebanon.  Traffic is intense and we feel quite exposed.  At long last, we clear the access roads and confusing one way streets and are ready for a break.  We spot a diner.   The diner is full of students from nearby Dartmouth College.  When we go to sit down, the young waitress behind the counter barks at us, “We’re closed! You have to leave.”   Wes points out that the doors were still open, she shouts, “You have to leave!”  We ask if there is someplace nearby.  Nobody answers.  This is not an auspicious welcome.

The layout of the towns and villages is quite confusing and dense, but we make our way to a coffee shop and call our accommodations.  It had been quite difficult to get a room on this holiday weekend.  After many calls, we were able to get the last room in the hotel that serves the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital.  We have to cross freeways again and wind our way around to find this out of the way lodging.   The room was bit worn at the edges (especially for its high price), but young Indian desk clerk was friendly.  There were no services, so Wes and I set out walking to the closest convenience store.  Bleah.  Gas station dinner for us. 

Just as we were coming back, we crossed an uncomfortable scene in the lobby.  Three senior citizens, one man and two women, were seeking lodging for the more slender, care worn woman.  She had to receive medical services at adjacent hospital and had no car.   The three pled with the desk clerk, but the motel was full.  He asked, “What shall we do?  Where will we stay?”  Some desk clerks would have called around to see if anyone had any openings.  Some lodgers who saw this might have offered their room. But this night, neither did, and the trio went out into the cold night.  No room at this inn.

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posted from Centennial, WY