Towards the Shenandoah Valley and WV. Saturday

Up and down and up and down. Way too much grass to mow, I think to myself. I come upon a scene out of a Civil War movie. It's re-enactors. Horses, flags, soldiers for both the North the South, women in hooped black dresses, children dressed of the era, Boy and Girl Scouts and onlookers of suburban variety all standing around in a graveyard. A bag-piper plays and someone reads the names of deceased confederate soldiers.

This scene is played out with a high degree of accuracy until a suburban woman faints and a paramedic team with its high tech equipment is brought into the mix and by this time it is clear that her problem was standing in the heat.

I go downstairs in the church and have some good church lady food, then peddle on towards Winchester where I happily take a motel and all its comforts. This iPad and its bicycle app seem to think that from where I sit I should go to Augusta and Romney and then drop down to Elkins. Looks like a good idea.

From the Metro to the C&O Canal

A smoking cab driver with lots to say took across the Bay Bridge to the outskirts of Annapolis. It's idyllic in and around the Academy. However, The pastoral agricultural scene on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay has given way to Metro DC. Annapolis reminded me of reaching Danbury, Connecticut where it appears idyllic and green, but the driving style becomes aggressive and impatient and that if a bicycle is present it may slow things up. On this trip I have found the suburban driver to be among the most impatient. So much time spent in the car getting to and from.

Too close to DC for comfort.

I made it to a town called Bowie and Camped in a forest full of curious deer. In the morning I rode as far as I could into the District then took the Metro which should  have been fast but for a three hour wait to let the rush hour get over. The Metro workers were among the least helpful people I've met on this trip. I asked about attitudes of metro people from a Retired Lt Col I would later meet cycling. "I've lived in both NYC and DC and there is no comparison. NYC folks are much more pleasant...they will look at you. Here, people are looking down."

It was a warm sunshiny day. I took few pictures and made my way towards the Potomac and the C&O canal path. The path was busy with folks who made their way out for the day to run, skate, walk or cycle. No touring cyclists the first ten miles of this winding canal, dreamed of by George Washington but ground broken by John Quincy Adams in 1828 ....but by 1850 railroads had made this an impractical system of lock houses, locks, mosquitoes and mud.

Six guys in ages ranging from early boomer to late boomers with shiny bikes and expensive equipment were just starting out making the trip from Georgetown to Pittsburgh. The rains of recent days had left the path fairly muddy. The paces varied. In the next twenty five miles I would be asked by various of these riders if and how long ago others had passed. Towards sunset, one early boomer appeared to be interested in pushing the group onward to Whites Ferry where I would eventually spend the night.

Luckily, I did just that because the heavens opened and further messed up the trail. I decided I had experienced enough of the trail and wanted a non-mud route. I had seen turtles sunning themselves, great gray herons, deer, snakes, enormous carp sloshing in the muck of the canal. It was good for 35 miles but no more given the extra miles, mud and lack of services.

Whites Ferry is Just that. Mr.White operates the last of its kind and his employees take you on a ferry attached to a wire and a tractor to save thirty miles. No bridge, and people in these parts--although close to DC--like it at way. Except with flooding today there is no crossing.....off I go towards Winchester Va.

Getting over the Bay Bridge and Delaware...

I'd portaged through NYC Port Authority, passed through the dregs of Atlantic City, Crossed the Delaware from Cape May; the sun was out, the road ahead flat and straight, no problems. Life was good And i was Out on Del 16 when a loose end of a bungee cord caught a spoke then wrapped itself into the rear gears.
Everything came to a halt. I quickly realized I was over my head.

No bike shop open before 11:00 and if it doesn't carry Cannondale parts I'll have to go to Annapolis. That's $395 in a cab. The Motel desk clerk is online doing a bicycle tutorial. He comes out with pliers and the two of us bend and tug and jointly acknowledge a bicycle mechanic is needed. I call the bush pilot/cyclist Dan in Calif who is from Lewes about his thoughts; this guy is so on the ball. "Hold on I'm calling my brother. He's taking his wife to Annapolis today." A Delaware Trooper gets in on it. Then drives off. The Indian housekeepers are hanging on the balcony speaking Hindi. Dan calls back. "There's a shop a quarter mile down the road.  Let me know if you need anything else." The motel clerk is back online. "25 miles," he says. After no more than 1/4 mile, I hear a whistle, its the bike mechanic across the divided highway. Dan had called him.

Shaeffers Bicycle doesn't inspire confidence. It's a series of connected metal warehouses piled floor to ceiling with everything bicycle new and old, more than I have ever see in my life...more than most anyone could even imagine.

Wally and Cindy - my heroes.

"If you can get this fixed, you're my heroes," I say up front and meaning it. They pull out old parts and jointly do what was happening back at the motel talking all the while.

Cindy's husband, thirty her senior, died in 2010 and left her with two sons that sleep late and the bike Store. Wally has a wife in Tenn. twenty years his senior whom he hopes to get back to. A scruffy dog in a beat up chair barks when the door opens. "hush up Jacky". Cindy says, I'll be out in a minute."...Customers are just people who stop by at Shaeffers Bike Shop. If they happen to spend money, that's okay too.

Cindy is a self-confessed hoarder. She says her husband was too. She announces, "I'm going to clean this place up one day. I have a man friend in Florida I thought about going there."   She directs and fine tunes Wally's work. From this chaos comes a repair that works as good as new and I have two heroes and its not yet noon.

The rest of Delaware I found exceptionally dull. It explains how after all these years I didn't have much of an impression about the place. In the two days I've been here, I've read more signs or heard more references to the way to get OUT of Delaware....THE BRIDGE, THE FERRY.  The land is flat, fertile, and highly farmed. The roads are straight and flat. There don't appear to be a lot of dogs, horses or public parks or places to go. The food is hoagies and pizzas. Nothing too interesting in the way of housing. The states history with George Washington throwing the coin across the Delaware is manufactured. Oh, well. There are two heroes at Shaeffers Bike Shop in Lewes, Delaware and that's enough for one day. Away I ride toward the Chesapeake bay bridge,

Delaware Crossing, Part II

You have to love a summer place. There is an intentional disregard for much that consumes 12 month homes and towns.  The colors become less serious. They seem to be set up with no work in mind but sitting, relaxing, and, if you're lucky, just gazing at the ocean. Some creative methods are employed to get folks a peek at the surf.  The widow's walk is a modern variation atop three story homes here otherwise blocked from an ocean view.

 

I can't imagine these places as entirely useful for aging boomers. Most of the newer homes have garages on the first floor and living space on the next two and use every square inch of property for building these enormous homes. If rental property can be packaged into the deal, all the better.

I promise my wife I will visit her shore town of Stone Harbor. It is a very pleasant family-oriented  town with lovely shops on a Main Street--or that was the way it was remembered. Word had reached Karen that her family's little Cape Cod style house had been sold once since her Mother sold it around 1980 for just above seven figures. This seemed unimaginable. The real estate market and what it does with ocean view property is, well.... Stupid! One day before too long it will be underwater in all ways.

Karen's place in Stone Harbor

I make it in time for the last Ferry at six. The 18 mile/80 minute crossing not only saves time but offers an exotic feel to a trip. Dolphins jump and dance as this steel hulk pulls out the harbor.  "Don't feed the sea gulls," the signs read. Encouraging them could cause a kid with a hot dog to get a real scare. The winds have the surf up and even this ship capable of carrying 100 vehicles had passengers going for the sea sickness bags.

I'm stationary and people come by and ask standard questions. "Where did you start?"  "Where are you going?"  "Where do you sleep?"  "How do you eat?" I like to give short answers because folks want to talk of their adventures. I like to hear their stories.  It seems to encourage their sense of adventure. They remember what it was like to take chances, to feel youthful.

Wifi is everywhere including this boat. I decide to e-mail Warm Showers, a bicycle home share that I've hosted but never been a guest of.  Here's one: A guy who's crossed  both the US and Canada on bike. Oh, he's been a pilot for humanitarian causes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It is nearly dark by the time the boat gets to Lewes, Delaware.  It looks it could rain any moment and it is getting dark fast. I start down the road assessing all the options including any place that is dry where I wouldn't be conspicuous or pulled in as a vagrant. I think this undignified for someone my age but there aren't a lot of options now. I ride for maybe six to ten miles. I don't have a computerized odometer--they made me obsessive. It's getting real dark. Finally, I come upon a pleasant motel set back and I settle in.  Just as I'm closing my eyes the cell rings and its Dan the bush pilot.  He's on the west coast working.

 "Sure the place is my parents' down the road and they gladly said they would take a guest. It's their payback for all the nice folks who took me in when I crossed Canada and the US. " Total strangers, we chatted.  Then  rolled over and went to sleep.

Dry Delaware night - in the hotel.

Atlantic City to Ferry and Across the Delaware; 63 miles

No visibility.  Fog and light rain were the prediction.  I had to backtrack through an area of Atlantic City.  As a child, Atlantic City came up at Miss America time in the fall. There was one TV in the house and it would have been unthinkable--Un-American--for a patriotic family to pass on host Bert Parks from Atlantic City with 50 or 51 beauties in the Miss America Pageant. Mothers and daughters would cry  when he would sing.

That was a more innocent time that would bore most younger people; Atlantic City was a dream place then.  The boardwalk and hotels were elegant and an enormous source of pride for New Jersey. It had something that neighboring New York didn't.

I'm sorry Chris Christie, I hope everything works out for you.  You probably want to be President and your weight would undoubtedly be an issue....  I see it is a national point of discussion today. Many boomers remember the glory days...you and Donald Trump can't make it better. Enough.

Atlantic, Baltic, Ventnor. Oh, Monopoly must been inspired by this place!

The town of Ventnor is next. I had a roommate, Rizzo from Philadelphia. His parents had a giant summer house here. This was long before The Sopranos, but the pieces started coming together.

There are a thousand or more intersections between Atlantic City and Cape May at the southern tip of NJ. On a bicycle, every intersection could be a problem. I've drawn the free from jail card: there is almost no traffic.

The giant brick homes of Ventnor and Margate set on postage stamp lots become wood by Ocean City.

I turn and go a couple blocks and ride the boardwalk. The Atlantic to my left, a wall of two- to three-storey perfectly kept summer homes mile after mile after mile. This is the scene for nearly sixty miles except for estuaries and bridges that cars pay $1.50 to cross between towns. I relish my cyclist status, passing free through tolls.

  

Sandy's impact not as great as closer to NYC but it explains the small army of contractors in panel trucks and pickups that are painting, sawing, and generally readying homes and rentals for next month.  That's  about all the human activity here this time of year in this weather  Flat as a pancake, good tailwind, no traffic or rain.

My way of crossing the Delaware.

Day Ten End of New England and Beyond!

The mantra of the first week: "It will be better next week" has come to pass. Now, I simply enjoy the riding. I think to myself, I will never make this ride this way again. If I see it again there will be glass between me and it. My New England has been absolutely perfect to me. It is behaves like a child with good judgement when an old bachelor or old maid aunt comes for a rare visit. It is on best behavior: there are no hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, or sizzling heat. Natives remark that this is one long stretch of great weather for cycling or anything.

To see a place from a bicycle seat is special. Here I see people who love, protect and preserve their places and local history. The Boston Strong campaign evolving out of the marathon massacre represents healthy people living in this strong and healthy place.

I peddled into Kent, Conn.. along the Housatonic River. Kent Academy students were sculling along this ideal pastoral river sitting. Even though the earliest settlers had serious differences with their homeland, when you see this place there can be no question why it was called "New England". It is said that no one comes to New England ever for a first time because they have seen it on calendars and post cards and read of it and its heroes from the time of childhood.

A highly polished Rolls Royce, roof down and no owner in sight, created a sub-story of a Connecticut style of New England with a Rodeo Drive twist. The antique shops are no longer barns; they are galleries with special lighting and French names painted in gold on clean plate windows. There are comfortable seating areas outside for bored husbands. The eateries offer gourmet, vegan, vegetarian, and fusion choices. Al fresco dining with black or white starched table cloths. It feels different here. It isn't crowded here but there is less open or personal space with every mile.

I wish it were possible to ride through New York City but I decide I will take a bus to Atlantic City and begin again there. I have ridden twice before north to Massachusetts in the last thirty years and I want a new route. I have also ridden the cycle ride around New York City at an annual event held in early May. In the future, distance cyclists will ride on a greenway through the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan right onto the Staten Island ferry and across the great bridges into New Jersey. That will be some wonderful day in  the (hopefully) not-too-distant future.

42nd St. New York Port Authority and the up escalator is broken. I need to transfer to another building.... Hundreds, maybe thousands of people and this all happens and I'm in my seat, seat bike and bags under the bus with 30 seconds to spare for a total transfer time of less than ten minutes.

Gamblers leave NYC for Atlantic City about every thirty minutes. What could be imagined as a nightmare went rather smoothly. I was sailing down the NJ Turnpike with a Sopranos landscape outside the window.

"Peter Pan" bus for a boomer sworn to never grow old. How fitting.

Whatever irritated the bus driver didn't get my attention but twice he pulled over and threatened to put the folks in the seat in front of me off. As a general rule, nothing good happens after the third seat back from the driver. Just like in school, mischief still happens in the back of the bus. If you use a bus like this and have time and $5 you can purchase a priority boarding pass which generally will get you up front.

I ended the day in Atlantic City and found my way quickly out of town to a small motel with a nice rear window view of marshland full of long legged birds. Relaxing.

From Lenox to Stardust

To watch friends leave in comfortable cars and know that somewhere between here and NY there is a field with my name on it momentarily causes a pause in the middle of the night in that great bed in that great room .

But Sunday morning, Sunday yes brought glorious sunshine once again and the promise of more great days on a bicycle in New England. Passing into Connecticut has the subtlest of differences with Massachusetts just as Massachusetts did with Vermont. The roads get better pretty quickly when you enter Mass. The farms in Western Mass. along the Conn. River appear bigger and more corporate, less family. The prevalence of colleges and prep schools in Mass along this scenic route is an obvious difference and the parents that come for spring visits are something of an industry in themselves in these quaint Mass and Conn. towns. The homes of the states' residents become increasingly more manicured as I peddle southward, as if everyone has a landscaper and has already mulched to the max. Original sculpture in and around one's property is not uncommon.

May 5 - view from my campsite toward Kent School.

By the a time I got to Kent I recalled more than once the poem read at dinner the night before. The Berkshires poets were noted but it was the Canadian Poet that was chosen because of the starting point of this ride. Because of the Boomers sitting there in the Men's Library in this enormous house having dinner and being skillfully read a poem written by a beloved Canadian of our Generation; by someone we all loved and never thought of first as a poet. Susan, started slowly.

"By the time we got to Woodstock we were half of New York, We were stardust we were golden......" Yes, the poet was Joni Mitchell from Canada, and for that moment we were the Gilded Boomers....I would sleep in a field in Kent, Connecticut.