June 4, 2022
Day 56 - Danbury to North Haven
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I thought that yesterday was going to be the most difficult climbing day of this tour. WRONG! Today was very challenging with many steep hills that I couldn't pedal up. Kerry walked the bike several times. Kerry will tell anyone who asks that "It wasn't bad at all." I would not say that! Again, since I am the photographer and I had no inclination to take pictures, there aren't many from today.
Kerry always looks forward to the Holiday Inn Express cinnamon rolls. When he went down for breakfast this morning, there were none. When he asked Theresa, the breakfast hostess, where they were, she told him they didn't serve the cinnamon rolls on weekends. When she saw the look of profound disappointment on his face, she immediately volunteered to go fix him some. Kerry happily returned to our room with four hot cinnamon rolls. Thank you, Theresa!!
We went through old downtown Danbury after we left the hotel. This is just a view of the street. It was an attractive city center with a number of old buildings and large churches.
I was surprised when I uploaded the pictures from my camera tonight and found this one. It wasn't done intentionally, but sometimes when you point and shoot, good things happen.
We were on these quiet back roads almost all day. Most of the miles were not flat like this.
I didn't take any more pictures until we got close to our destination. We didn't ride by any of Yale University except the athletic fields. There was a big lacrosse tournament going on today.
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The museum stop Kerry had found for today was the Eli Whitney Musuem. We expected a museum about his life and work and certainly displays about the cotton gin. This had none of that. One of the young people working there told us it was not really a museum, but an "experimental learning workshop". It is housed in a building on the site of Eli Whitney's gun factory, established in 1798, at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
The most interesting thing we saw there was a display of artifacts from the A. C. Gilbert Company. Alfred Carlton Gilbert was a Yale student who financed his education by working as a magician. The A. C. Gilbert Company began as a magician's supply business. Gilbert created the Erector Set and manufactured many other toys, becoming of the largest toy makers in the world. The Eli Whitney Museum exhibits many A. C. Gilbert products.
It wasn't at all what we expected, but we enjoyed looking around and seeing what they had - even if it didn't include a cotton gin!
We never sat down and had lunch today - just snacked at our rest breaks. When we got to North Haven we found a Subway and stopped for a late lunch. The store was hot, there were almost no seats and there were no public restrooms. In spite of all that, we had a good lunch and a great time in the store. This was all because of Rob, team leader extraordinaire, who let us rearrange the chairs and tables, use the employee rest room and kept us entertained with his large and gregarious personality. He said he wasn't camera ready today, so there's no picture, but we want to thank him (and the other sandwich maker whose name we didn't get) for taking two tired, hungry and a little grouchy cyclists and turning them into happy, well fed and relaxed customers. We enjoyed meeting you, Rob!
Today's ride: 49 miles (79 km)
Total: 1,951 miles (3,140 km)
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