Last Days of the Bike Trip
While I have been posting a few tidbits here and there , it doesn’t really give an accurate perception of what has transpired since that last real update on the trip.
We left the Thompson Public Library some four hours after we got there. After I posted we were used the internet connection there to look up possible routes to speed the journey into New York where we hoped to recooperate Scott’s knee while staying with Maneesh, who has a place on Manhattan. We hit up a pizza place for lunch, then we were planning on heading out of town to find a place to pitch a tent on the side of the road. It began to rain and I started pushing for us to get moving in case it got worse. Right then, a man pulled up and asked us what we were up to. We told him the story and mentioned that we were looking for a place to camp. He directed us to the West Thompson Lake Recreation area, where the Army Corps of Engineers maintains a nice and inexpensive ($12/night is much nicer than $25-$35) camping place. We pulled in as it got dark and for the first time, had the joy of setting up camp in the dark. That obsticle was more than outweighed, however, by the fact that we were also staying at our first established campground of the trip, with a nearby restroom, shower, water spicket, and about 20 RVs full of nice old people.
The next morning, June 29th, we decided we’d stay another day, but we were low on food so while Scott rested the knee, I biked, unloaded, into the nearby Putnam to buy some groceries. We ate well that night, but we didn’t end up using too many of those groceries because the next day, Scott’s birthday, we decided that with the condition of Scott’s knee, we were not going to be able to keep up a worthwhile pace, and would only be doing more damage. So the focus of the trip changed from biking to ending the biking portion of the trip, and salvaging some time on Scott’s first experience of the East Coast.
On the 30th, we turned inland, taking route 40 west towards Hartford. It was by far the most greuling portion of the trip – the undulating, unending hills stretched all the way to Hartford, some 50 miles away. I tried to take as much weight as I could manage from Scott, and ended up with a bike so back-heavy that it balanced at its seat when I lifted it to test its weight. Still, Scott had the harder job of pedaling with mostly one leg as we climbed the hills and descended into the valleys again and again. I was surprised by how much Connecticut reminded me of more hilly Louisiana, with each valley hiding a swamp. And while climbs were torturous at times, the downhill portions led to some of the more exhillerating, albeit short, experiences of the trip.
It turns out that there are no cities worth mentioning directly between Thompson and Hartford until you get to Manchester about 45 miles later and just a few miles from the center of Hartford. We stayed the night at a very nice (by our standards) Super 8 motel there in Manchester, did some laundry, and planned how to finalize the trip the next day. Well, thats what we were going to, but no firm plan really emerged, so we headed out the next day thinking we’d simply go into Hartford, find a bike shop near a UPS store, walk a short distance to the train station, and head south to Washington DC, where we had arrangements to stay with some of my relatives for the 4th of July weekend.
However, it turns out that Hartford has no bike shops. In fact, they are spread quite evenly all around Hartford, among the many subburbs. So while we easily found the train station, we had to bike another 8 miles or so to a bike shop. Where we ended up, Newington Bike, turned out to be the perfect place. The staff members there were extremely helpful, giving us water, bike boxes, and helping us ship the bikes home. Afterwards, however, we were left 8 miles away from the train station without a way to make it back to Hartford, the bikes in boxes, the taxis saying we had to wait at least an hour, zero knowledge of the bus system, and the last train leaving in about an hour.
At this critical juncture, a family exited Newington Bike and struck up a conversation with us. They had, like most of the people we met along the way, gone on a bike tour in their past. They were preparing for another, now that their twin boys had reached 16. Like so many people that had been nice to us along the way, they offered us a ride to the train station. Their intervention got us there on time – and we got on the train for Washington DC at 7:20 pm.
Stay tuned for the next segment, “Adventures in DC.”