75 miles

I was rewarded last night with a beautiful campsite at Ascutney State Park. It was quiet—peaceful quiet, not eerie quiet. I ate some soup and drank a Radler. I mainly chose it because it looked refreshing and had a bicycle on the label, and it was a good pick, but a fly flew directly into it during the final quarter, so it stayed unfinished. 

I made decisions about what these next two days will look like. I cracked open Girl With Curious Hair, which is delightful as expected. Whenever I’m in a bookstore and I don’t know what I’m looking for, I just navigate to where they keep David Foster Wallace. I’ve never read anything he wrote that I didn’t love. 

This morning I woke up around 5:30 am, which felt pretty good. I thought for a while about what I’d rather do: climb an 11.6% grade up Mount Ascutney and do a hike, or lie in my hammock and read, or get on the road and skip the Precision Museum. I chose to read for a while. It was a good decision.

After packing up, I decided to try the mountain, just to see how it would feel. I went about a quarter mile and decided that was enough. Turns out that was a good decision, too, because as I left the park I realized what I hadn’t considered before: it is super overcast today, and there are low clouds hanging over all of the mountains. Even if I’d made it to the top, the view was likely to have just been a wall of fog. 

I made my way toward Windsor, where the diner I wanted to visit was closed, and the cafe was “phone order only” and very overpriced. I decided that I’d just get some coffee and wait to eat. 

The American Precision Museum was a great stop, just before leaving Windsor. It was full of incredibly cool machines and manufacturing history. I love thinking about how a new tool or technique can change every aspect of how we live and make sense of the world. I don’t remember much from the day—I’m writing this on the 18th now. I remember stopping at a small country store in Grafton, which is a town a little smaller than Alfred, but with no university. The “store” was just a few packaged snack items and some homemade baked goods. 

I had hoped they had a bathroom, but they didn’t. The woman I talked with told me she is from a city (I don’t remember which one) but her husband is local, and she spoke surprisingly openly about feeling that her interests don’t fit in here – she’d rather shop than hunt, etc. When I told her the rough outline of my trip, she said outright, “that is definitely not something I would like to do”. I found her candor refreshing—most people say they couldn’t do it, but she was the first to say that she simply would not, and I really liked that. Anyone can do this. Most people don’t want to, and that’s ok. 

She directed me to the library down the street, which was incredibly small. When I got there, there were people inside, a woman and her daughter, and a man named Tim who appeared to be unrelated. They were deep in conversation about some small town drama. She explained to me that the library was not technically open, but she let me sit inside to wait out some of the rain. 

When she and her kid left, Tim and I sat on the porch for a while and talked. He has lived in Grafton his whole life, and is tired of it. He spoke in a smart, nuanced way that made me suspect he has few allies in a town like this. We talked about politics – local and large. He spoke about how he’s wanted to do a bike trip, but he’s afraid of being “out there where you don’t know anybody”. I hope he does take a trip. 

One of the things I have appreciated so much about this trip is that I don’t know anybody, but the vast majority of people I’ve encountered have been nothing but friendly, generous, curious, fascinating, and eager to help. It’s all too easy to convince yourself that something like this is too scary or dangerous or hard to do until you do it, and come face-to-face with the fact that there is actually a lot of counterevidence to those fears if you’re willing to actually find out. 

After I left the library, I got rained on, but it was light rain and felt refreshing. I was on the wonkiest bike path/rail trail for most of the day. The surface was different every mile: rough with very large rocks and railroad ties in some places, or smooth crushed stone, or a slippery blanket of pine needles, or mud, or sand…a little of everything. I lost the rubber wedge on one of my bottle cages over a bump, and when I stopped to assess the situation, I was instantly attacked by a million mosquitoes. I was able to make a new wedge with a triangular rock and a panty liner. One point for feminine products. 

The rain had delayed me, so I was riding in the dark for a little while. The dusk was beautiful, but then it got a little sketchy because the shoulder was rough and narrow and there was a lot of traffic in some places. I made it to Meredith Woods campground, which turned out to be a long-term residence RV park or something. There were no sites available, so I set up my tent next to the dog park.