Cold rain greeted us this morning and the storm was officially classed as a "Nor'easter" when a friendly New England waitress called it one. This was day 4 of rain and on the Weather Channel you can see the system stalled over New England. Flooding did not affect us but we saw a lot of damage from Hurricane Irene; roads all along the rivers are being rebuilt. Today we cycled 45 miles in a cold rain; it almost made us glad to climb the mountain up to Middlebury Gap so we could get warm. We will try to recall this feeling when we are cycling through hot humid weather later in Pennsylvania. Before beginning the ascent we stopped at a wonderful and quaint country cafe/store and had real hot cocoa and a pecan sticky bun, excellent fuel to take us up the mountain.
After 16 rainy miles we pulled up to a cafe in Rochester just before starting the climb to Middleburg Gap. It was warm inside and a friendly waitress set us up with hot chocolate made with real cocoa and whipped cream and with a pecan sticky bun. When we went back out into the weather an admiring foreign tourist approached to talk. He asked if it was fun to tour when the weather was bad. I didn't know how to answer but told him it was still better than working. I thought about my answer as we climbed higher in the rain toward the pass. I think my answer was honest, if only because you gain appreciation for things like hot showers and warm beds
At the top of the pass we stopped to put on our warm clothing before beginning the descent. Rhona wore socks and gore-tex footies in her cycling sandals all morning while I had bare feet inside the sandals.
In an attempt to keep Rhona's feet warm and dry she put on a pair of Rocky Goretex waterproof oversocks which were originally ordered for me. Although I ordered the size indicated on their website there was no way they would pull on past my heel and ankle. Rhona can barely get them on herself and the the toe area is too long.
In spite of the cold rain throughout the ride today she was comfortable. We started touring with Keen SPD sandals last summer. With traditional cycling shoes if they get soaked it takes three days before they dry and then they don't smell very good. We like the Keen's although you need to buy a size longer than you would normally wear in order for the sandal to be wide enough. In my case with the Keen sandals I look like I'm wearing clown shoes. Because of so many consecutive days of rain the sandals don't dry either and they don't smell very good either. What a way to start the day..cold wet sandals as you head out into the cold rain.
A highway sign on the way down the mountain said we were on a 15% grade so that was probably the grade going up the other side. We've had lots of 8-10% grades on this tour so this was our steepest so far.
Cell service has been bad in New Hampshire and Vermont. It's funny to remember how out of touch we were on our cross country tour in 1996 and now we are annoyed if we can't be connected every moment.
It was a long cold slog up the pass and it didn't stop raining until we were almost to the top. We learned our lesson the other day when we didn't put on every bit of cold weather gear before starting down. Being dressed properly made the coast fun, especially with the moose caution signs.
On the road to Middleburg we recognized the Waybury Inn which was one of the inns we stayed at during a luxury cycling tour we took with Bike Vermont to celebrate Rhona's retirement three years ago. The front of the inn was the image used at the beginning of The Bob Newhart Show when he played the character of an innkeeper. When we were here the last time, the tour guide took us a little upstream to slide down natural water slides in the same stream we had just cycled along from the Gap. Bike Vermont is a great company and we highly recommend them, but even on that tour we concluded that we could have fun going self-supported by ourselves. We didn't realize the Northern Tier route went right past the front door.
Tomorrow we cross into New York, our 12th state at Ft. Ticonderoga where we have toured before. The forecast is for rain. I shouldn't have cleaned the bike today. In this journal, Rhona thinks I have focused more on her foibles (i.e. searching for a glove which was already on her hand) while neglecting my own rare failings. In the interest of fairness, she wanted me to report that the quality of our cellphone camera pictures should improve now that I have removed the blue cellophane tape from in front of the flash and camera lens (it was shipped that way by the manufacturer to protect the lens). It could happen to anybody.
Today's ride: 45 miles (72 km) Total: 1,177 miles (1,894 km)
