June 12, 2007

Denny has a cosmic day.

Denny made us waffles and farm fresh eggs for breakfast this morning. We rolled out at around 8:00. Denny said as we rolled out that the winds would be out of the north in the morning and would shift from out of the east when we hit the Connecticut border. That would give us tails all day long. As we left his place and headed south over the hills before the Rhode Island border the winds were just that, out of the North. It was a hillier route today than either Denny or I expected. From his home he rides some in Rhode Island but has never gone as far south, so when we hit a series of long rolling hills he was surprised. The good thing was that the winds which were 5 to 10 MPH in the morning helped push us up and over each crest. The roads in MA and RI were very suitable for cycling. By the time we reached the CT border, sure enough, the winds shifted to coming out of the east. They were stronger in the afternoon, say, 10 to 15 MPH.

One of the former mill ponds above Machaug.

There were few services on the route in the AM. We passed up a Duncan Donuts around ten AM expecting to find a place to get second breakfast in each small town we came to. Well, there were few small town centers on our route and we couldn’t find anything until we came up to I 95 where there was a truck stop so we ate there with forty miles ridden at around 11:00 AM. We should have waited as the next town we came to had a nice local diner which is typically the type of place where we eat. Oh, well.

Camoflauged barn.

The roads in CT on US 1 for the most part were fine for riding except where we hit the bigger town or cities like Groton and New London. At around 2:00 we were both in need of a break. Denny said to me something like: “Lets hold out until we find a place to get an ice cream." We then went down the road about a quarter of a mile, up a small hill and around the corner and there was a quaint ice cream shop with outside picnic tables with umbrellas in the center of each table. I told Denny that he was creating reality as we rode and that the ice cream shop never existed until he made his comment, and then, poof, there it was. We took a break there and were approached by a man who rode about the same route that we did but he did it counter clockwise with a youth hostel group in, I believe he said, 1952. There are few hostels left around. We tried to stay in one in Maine run by two sisters, but when we called to make sure they were open they said: “not yet.”

Ice cream break.

Church and statue honoring Antietem

Riding US 1 we didn’t see much of the CT coastline. When we did it was usually crossing a bridge. It was pretty but not by Maine standards. So, we just kept riding along being pushed by the winds, making good time. At the ice cream break we decided to make Rocky Neck State Park our destination for the day. Denny called and they had plenty of sites. We were about twenty-five miles away so we said that we would be there in a couple of hours based on our speeds and the way it was going. What we weren’t counting on is some more hills, more stoplights, and having trouble finding the bike and pedestrian path over the Groton to New London bridge. We stopped once and a woman gave us directions. We saw a sign and figured we were home free. The only problem was that was the last sign we saw. The entrance was not where we expected it and we were about to turn around, in fact we were already on the other side of the road when a rider with rear pannier approached so we waved him down like we always do. Well this rider turns out to be a guy that Denny met last year on a group ride. He even mentioned him and his wife to me in conversation, I think somewhere in Quebec, as he and his wife rode a tandem on that ride and Denny and I were talking about tandems at the time. So, anyway, Denny meets Ray, and each are very surprised to see each other. Ray is cycle commuting home from work in Groton to his home in Norwich, which I think he said is twenty seven miles each way. He is preparing for a two week ride in Utah that he and his wife will be going on next month. So, here again, Denny conjured up a solution to our problem by producing a chance meeting with someone he knows. The way to the entrance to the bridge is very hard to find, poorly marked and we probably never would have found it by ourselves, even though Denny had a CT cycling map.

Ray and Denny (You can't make up this stuff!)

View crossing the Thames River

Rocky Neck State Park is really nice. The only minus is that the free showers are luke warm. The bathrooms and showers are clean, The grass is cut and green, the weather is perfect for camping. It was a good choice.