58.5 miles, Plainfield, MA to Kinderhook, NY! This morning we experienced our first knuckle-gripping downhill dirt road better suited for mountain bikes which was a good wake-up at mile 3, and then had more hills going over the Berkshires. We realized that though these mountains may be old and not as high as newer mountains, that doesn't mean they aren't a bear to get over. Molly's young nephew Jeffrey had misheard the description of how we were carrying our stuff, and instead of in "pouches" he heard "couches" so he was expecting us to be carrying couches behind the bike. I swear, sometimes today on those hills it certainly felt like we were pulling couches behind us...
We crossed our very first state line, which caused much excitement. The photo took a couple tries to get right (think us creating the letters YN instead of NY) but here it is in its final glory:
Today we write from great comfort in Kinderhook, NY (better than last night, where Molly was standing on the picnic table at our campground attempting to get reception for just 20 seconds to send our blog post...). We are staying at the lovely home of the parents of a college friend of Stephanie's, Jamie. Lenny and Warren have been wonderful, and Lenny came out to ride with us for the last 10 miles. We rode with him through the scenic roads of Columbia County, New York, which have gorgeous old farmhouses on wooded lands.
Molly's parents are coming to join us for dinner, which should be quite a feast as Jamie's parents have an amazing kitchen garden with all kinds of vegetables. We feel like we've earned our dinner, and what a dinner it will be! We also got to see the new chicken coop at Jamie's parents' house, and we are honored to know that two of the 26 chickens will be named after us!
We did much better on the beer front today than yesterday (there were not so many services in Plainfield, MA, and certainly none of the package store variety...) and sampled some Adirondack-made Saranac beer in Lenny and Warren's garden while throwing sticks for their two labs, Sophie and Cutter, to fetch. Life is REALLY good, especially since Molly's parents are sagging us tomorrow and graciously picking up all of our luggage in their car while we bike through the Catskill Mountains! Two mountain ranges in two days. Our legs are going to be huge.
1 comment:
Right on Chica! Woo Hoo, sounds like a good start to the big adventure. I especially like the part about beer..yummy :) Love the blog and the updates, its awesome!!
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