Rain

It rained on our wedding day and it rained on our honeymoon, so I guess it was only appropriate that it would rain on our anniversary bike ride.

The view from our motel room on a rainy morning.

We woke to rain, walked to breakfast in the rain, and watched the rain pour down outside from our table at The Red Skiff. Rob enjoyed his blueberry pancakes and I savored my over-easy eggs, bacon, toast, and homefries. The bacon was terrific, especially when I made it into a sandwich with the whole wheat toast and dunked it into the egg yolk. It took my mind off the worry of getting hit by a car that wouldn’t be able to see me in the pouring rain. Not to mention getting soaked. It was really coming down hard.

The Red Skiff, a cozy diner, was rather deserted on a rainy
Tuesday morning in May.

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A couple years ago we had a very long rainy day during a week's tour in Vermont. We got soaked in the morning, dried off at lunch, and were soaked again within 15 minutes of getting back on our bikes. But the barns and pastures in the distance had a mystical quality, colors muted by the gray sky, edges softened by the moist air. When Rob asked me afterwards what my favorite day of the trip was, I said, ‘The day it rained.”

It was still coming down hard as we walked back to our room. I checked the weather forecast on my phone.

“It’s supposed to let up around 10 o’clock,” I said. We could wait that long, but no longer.

And by 10 o’clock the rain had turned into a fine mist. We turned on our red flashing rear lights and put on reflective vests over our gortex jackets.

We took a different route back to Gloucester, passing through small towns with antique homes and libraries and quiet inland harbors. The fog and mist muffled sound and softened the edges of time and distance. 

It took about four hours to get to Newburyport, where we stopped at Not Your Average Joe's for a late lunch. We started right in on the fresh bread our server brought out with a generous serving of olive oil mixed with parmesan cheese and spices. That filled me right up, so I just ordered a Waldorf side salad - granny smith apples, dried cranberries, grapes, candied pecans, smoked mozzarella and romaine, with creamy sherry vinaigrette – a beautiful kaleidoscope of flavors and textures. Rob had a Tuscan chicken sandwich.

Rob had requested a table with a view of our bikes parked outside and while we were waiting for our food, we saw another cyclist, fully loaded, parking his bike next to ours. When he came inside, I said to Rob, “Let’s invite him to join us.” Having been on a solo ride myself, I know it gets lonely sometimes, not the riding so much as the stopping. And I love hearing the stories of other cyclists, especially the ones, like this fellow, who are obviously traveling long distances.

His name was Nick. He looked to be in his thirties, tall and solidly built. His beard gave him a friendly attitude. He lived in Ontario, Canada, and had caught a ride to Vermont where he started his journey, had ridden to Acadia National Park and down the coast, was heading to Cape Cod that night and then on to Boston to meet some friends, all this in about six days. (I was duly impressed.) He’d ridden a number of self-contained tours before this one, some with his girlfriend.

“I read about this guy who rode a hundred miles a day, so I figured I would do that. It’s gotten so I have to ride at least a hundred miles every day,” he said. “If I get to a campground and I haven’t ridden a hundred miles, I’ll ride around some more to get to a hundred. I have to feel like I’ve pushed myself.”

I once rode 500 miles in five days in the Colorado Rockies, just to say I’d done it. I was younger then, but, still, it wasn’t fun.

“You must be able to keep up a pretty fast pace to do that,” I said.

“Not really,” said Nick. “I usually ride about 12 miles an hour. But I can go forever at that pace. I’ve met up with guys who are riding fast and they were spent by early afternoon. I’ll could keep going another four hours or more.”

“That’s a long day,” I said.

“I get up early. I’m on the road by six o’clock,” he said.

But he admitted that his girlfriend isn’t really into the hundred-mile-a-day thing, so she gave this particular trip a pass.

Nick said, “I’m beginning to wonder why I’m even doing it. I don’t know anymore.”

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog, I hold to riding an average of 50 miles a day on long trips, leaving time for the spontaneous hike, visit to a museum, or a swim and nap at a state park. More than just riding, it’s about seeing the places you ride through and meeting people along the way.

I said, “Maybe your girlfriend has the right idea.”

Outside Not Your Average Joe's after lunch. The loaded bike on the right (cut off in this photo) belonged to our new friend Nick.

By the time we got back on our bikes it was after 3 o’clock and all precipitation had stopped, even though the sky remained overcast. Soon enough we were back at Hampton Beach, fighting a head wind; we couldn’t push past nine miles an hour. The streets were deserted, only an occasional pedestrian. It wasn’t the kind of day to invite strolling along the beach.

The town of Hampton Beach, above, and the beach itself, below, on a rainy weekday, late May.

Then we turned inland to Exeter where we stopped in the park along the river, to rest and eat something before the final push home. As we finished off the food left in our packs – some peanuts, an orange – I noticed movement in the grass on the other side of the chain link fence along the river bank.

“Look, there’s a mother duck and her babies,” I said.

She didn’t acknowledge my presence when I leaned over the fence for a better look.

“There are four ducklings,” I said. They sat in a tight pile against their mother, nestled against the fence in the wild grasses of the river bank. Rob, who gets excited whenever a family of wild turkeys wanders into our yard at home, didn’t get up, just took my word for it. He was conserving his energy.

A Philips-Exeter Prep School crew of eight rowed by. It was getting on to six o’clock.

The park in Exeter.
(Did I take a picture of the mother duck
and her babies? Nope.
Guess I was just too entranced by them to think of it.)

“We’d better get going,” said Rob. With the sky still gray above, we’d have to hurry to get home before dark. And we just barely made it. More and more cars coming by with their headlights on made me think we should be stopping to get out our lights, but we pushed on, getting home around eight o’clock.

Looking back, is this a trip to do again? Yes, but it would be fun to stretch it out over several days to have time to explore some of the sights along the way. Just outside of Newburyport is Plum Island, an 11-mile long barrier island. Then there are the art galleries and craft shops in Gloucester and Rockport. It could easily be a 4-day trip.

Leave a comment if you would like details on our route.

Celebrating 33 Years Together:

Monday, May 23, 2016        85.49 miles    11.37 mph     Riding time: 7 hours, 30 minutes
Tuesday, May 24, 2016        84.23 miles    11.20 mph     Riding time: 7 hours, 31 minutes