Long Haul - Day 13 (8/29/21) West Greenwich, RI 61.1 to Old Saybrook, CT. 60.0 miles
Today was a very interesting day, and I don’t mean “interesting“, I mean interesting. First of all we had good roads, most of the time, and the traffic wasn’t bad, most of the time. When we left this morning we immediately had a big hill in front of us. Yesterday we came half way down a hill and saw the we would start the day climbing one that seemed pretty high. Sometimes you just need a bit to get your legs warmed up and you blood pumping to get up a good hill. I literally dreaded starting this morning just because of that blasted hill. But, we headed out and got started and I thought, wait, that hill doesn't seem all that bad and before we knew it we were cresting. Dana yelled from behind, “well that wasn't as bad as it looked yesterday.” We did have some more air sucking climbs right after that but we made it just fine. Today was the second most elevation gain so far and it didn’t seem so bad. Maybe, just maybe our legs are starting to do some crack a lackin. I’m sure that after these almost 600 miles we have at least toned up these old muscles a wee bit. We traversed though some beautiful country side. It was a bit odd though because when we hit Connecticut it seemed like we were thrown back about 50 years. It just seemed the farms were throwbacks to our childhood days. Then all of a sudden we saw beautiful homes, groomed lawns etc. What did we just see? Then we hit a main road again and made fairly good time the rest of the day. We had some sprinkles, just enough to get almost wet and then it stopped and we dried up.
Today was an odd day of encouragement. Real encouragement, not my sarcastic “encouragement”. We were coming through a small city and as we turned a corner there was an “air sucking” hill in front of us. As we started, we went past a tall burly shabbily dressed man who saw us and yelled “you got this hill, go on man, you got it“ I think I heard a whoop in there yet somewhere. I told myself “there is no way you are going to push this bike up this hill. Just a bit later, a man in a truck opened his window and gave a big thumbs up to Dana. We were also slowly climbing a hill to cross a river on a busy bridge. A man in a truck pulled over and pointed out a bike path which was just next to us that got us off the main road. So we went back down and took the path. He was a 40 something and when I first saw him I figured he was going to yell at us, but he was just being helpful. We also stopped at a small market for a break and an older man was sitting at an outside table by himself. He asked where we started and where we were headed. I told him and he clapped and said “good for you.” He asked which coast of Florida we were riding. I told him the East coast. He clapped again and said “when you get to Jupiter, stop in my house and I’ll buy you dinner. He gave me his card and told him I would take him up on the offer. As we were pulling into our hotel this afternoon a guy pulled along side us and asked if were traveling with just bikes and living out of our packs. I said yes and said that is awesome and we chatted a bit and then he wished us Gods blessing and he pulled on.
As I reflected on these people who jumped into our lives today, I realize I would have passed them by on any other day. In fact not one of them were “like us” whatever that means. We aren’t all that different when we stop a moment to look past our preconceived ideas and see the humanity behind those eyes. We are all on our own journeys, and sometimes, or most of the time we just need a little bit of encouragement. Today we received it, maybe tomorrow we will need to give it. Either way, today, these strangers made our world a bit better. For that I am grateful.
https://www.treesforgoshen.org/biking-for-bucks-expand-goshens-tree-canopy/
Today’s Ride Ratings
Weather 8 (it was a cool over cast day, dreary and sprinkles)
Temperature 65 at start and 73 at finish
Scenery 7 (normal scenery with some great spots)
Riding Surface 9
Terrain 8 (it was a bit hilly but not bad)
Oh and we sort of saw a bear
Love your sort of bears!!