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Chapter 17: Not An Invitation to Refuse

Day 9: Sunday, July 2, 2017 (Continued)

62 miles

Ticonderoga, NY, to Essex Junction, VT

I met Wendy and her husband, Steve, at Maine Fiddle Camp the week before we started this adventure. Maine Fiddle Camp is the kind of place where, after you go through the food line and pick up your dinner, you can sit down anywhere, strike up a conversation with the folks sitting around you, you find out you have a few things besides music in common, and you’ve made some new friends. That’s how Wendy and I met. And when she found out Rob and I would be bicycling through Vermont, past her house in Essex Junction give or take ten miles, she told me to stop in and stay overnight.

I was a little hesitant to take her up on the offer. Maybe she’d have second thoughts. Or the timing might not work out; we might hit her neighborhood in the morning and not want to stop for the day.

I sent her an email, trying to word it in a way to be both noncommittal and to give her an easy out, at the same time being appreciative of the offer:

“It was really nice of you to offer us a place to stay while we are bicycling through Vermont. It's looking like we'll be hitting Burlington either next Sunday or Monday (July 2 or 3). I know you mentioned that you may be hosting folks sometime soon so if you can't put us up that would be fine. We may also be hitting Burlington early in the day so we'd be wanting to get in more miles and head to the islands.”

Looking at the email now, it feels a tad bit rude to me. But I really was trying to be as diplomatic as possible, honest.

Here’s what Wendy sent back:

“Pleasure to meet you at fiddle camp and we're delighted you and your husband can come stay with us! We have a friend likely coming from Boston­ very nice French gal ... (no promises but she is the maker of the best pear tart I've eaten outside of Paris) but we have plenty of room so that's no problem. There's also a good selection of playables - ­mandolins, guitars, a tenor banjo, and, of course, my fiddle!

“There's a chance that Steve and I will be helping a friend bring in his hay over in Waterville at some point but that depends on the weather and I don't think that would interfere with your plans. Great to get your blog address.

“We'll be sure to leave the house open for you ... We have two Maine Coon cats that are indoor cats but we keep some bedding and pillows that are cat free ­so tell us if you or your husband are cat sensitive/allergic and we'll figure something out. Do you or your husband have any dietary restrictions?

“Enjoy your biking and let's be in touch closer to the time you'll be visiting us! Here's a picture of our house as you see it from the road. There's a sugar shack closest to the road and a long drive leading to the house.”

How can you pass up an invitation like that? We couldn't.

We exchanged a few more emails firming up the date of our stay. And days before Wendy wrote: "ALSO we have a bike rack and can easily pick you up wherever you are. You may call on us in this filthy weather."

And again, later: "We can easily pick you up from the ferry if you would like."

I guess she meant it.

The last big hill before the ferry ride did Rob in. And since we would be getting to Burlington after six o'clock, I was ready to call it a day and call Wendy and take her up on her offer of a ride.

Wendy and Steve's hospitality was every bit as gracious as Wendy's emails promised. What every cyclist wants at the end of the day is a beer and a shower and, especially as rain-soaked as we were, the chance to throw in a load of laundry.

We were offered all of it and more. Raw vegetables and dip to go with our beer and then time to relax.

Nothing beats drinking beer and watching cows and the sunset in Vermont.

Wendy and Steve transplanted themselves from Boston to Vermont recently when the property next to Steve's parents came up for sale. They don't own the cows in the picture above, but they own the fields they're grazing on. In return one of the cows finds its way into their freezer every now and then. And they've put in a dance floor in one of the old barns so when they feel like it they can invite their musical friends up for some jamming and dancing.

Bruce Springsteen put out a CD awhile ago called We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. It's very different from the usual Springsteen fare and, to my way of thinking, one of the greatest CDs of all time. He got a bunch of musicians together to play the American folk songs that Pete Seeger made famous, recording it in several sessions with no rehearsals, just jamming on his New Jersey farm. 

Steve, Wendy, Rob, and I sat outside enjoying good conversation, beer, and the serene Vermont countryside laid out in front of us. The songs from that CD sang in the background in my head and I thought, it must have been recorded in just this sort of place, cows listening in the distance with the sun sinking behind the hills.

Chapter 16: Waiting...

Day 9: Sunday, July 2, 2017
62 miles
Ticonderoga, NY, to Essex Junction, VT

We had plans to spend the night with friends in Essex Junction, Vermont. By my calculations we had about 70 miles to ride and no reason why, with an early start, we couldn't get the miles done by late afternoon. We'd ride along the New York side of Lake Champlain then take the ferry from Port Kent to Burlington. I looked forward to getting to Port Kent early and picking up a Sunday paper to read while waiting for the ferry.

But I forgot to take into consideration the possibility of hills and their impact on Rob's pulmonary hypertension.

We did get an early start, around 7 a.m. Some time in the morning I stopped to wait for Rob, sitting on a small stone wall that circled a little garden, on a little traffic island on top of a hill, and he came alongside me, head down.

"Hey," I said.

"Oh! I didn't even see you."

I don't fault him for that. One time I rode into a parked car because I was riding with my head down. I was so embarrassed I tried to make up some lame story when my son Tim asked me about the bruise on my arm. I don't remember what I told him, but whatever it was he didn't buy it.  I had to tell him the truth.

"Here, I'll share some of this waffle with you." I was eating some of the food I'd saved from the continental breakfast at the motel. It was all too sweet to eat first thing in the morning but suited me now. 

"Thanks."

We had many views of Lake Champlain with the mountains of Vermont across the lake and farmland on the New York side.

The day was gorgeous, blue sky with a few clouds, hot, but not scorching, no sign of rain. Rolling hills with a few harder climbs thrown in for good measure. We sat on picnic benches eating our lunch in Ballard Park in the town of Westport, overlooking gardens, a green lawn, and Lake Champlain. We could hear people swimming down by the water. I thought, "A swim would be nice right about now." But we didn't have the time.

I stopped in Essex at a cafe that promised ice cream. I so badly wanted to pop inside and order a strawberry shake - Rob's favorite - to have all ready to hand him when he caught up. But given the risk of him passing by without seeing my bike parked outside, I didn't dare. Instead I sat at one of the tables outside on the sidewalk and watched people come and go on this beautiful Sunday afternoon in July, thinking about how good a chocolate shake - for me - was going to taste.

The Essex Ice Cream Cafe isn't a place you can easily pass by on a hot summer's day. (This photo comes from their facebook page.

And when Rob caught up and we had our shakes in hand, mine was every bit as good as I'd anticipated. After each pull on my straw, I let the chocolatey cool deliciousness wash over my tongue, treasuring each mouthful.

We struck up a conversation with some bicyclists at the next table. They warned us; we had a long hill coming up. Until then we'd been making pretty good time and I was still looking forward to catching the 4 o'clock ferry, arriving with time to pick up a Sunday paper and find a cafe read it in. 

The first five miles out of Essex weren't bad. Then we started climbing and I left Rob behind. I clicked into my final climbing gear. Sweating and working hard to keep my cadence steady I wondered how Rob was faring. I didn't find another place to stop until, after five challenging miles, I got to the top of the hill. I set my bike down, got out some snacks to munch, grabbed my water bottle, and climbed onto a stone wall in front of a house to wait. I ate some peanuts and waited. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty. Where could he possibly be? 

I'd given up my comfortable seat on the stone wall and was standing alongside the road, hoping to see Rob come up the hill, when a red pickup truck stopped. A grizzly guy on the passenger's side rolled down his window and said, "Your husband asked us to tell you he's on his way. He shouldn't have married a younger woman."

But I am not a younger woman. And I can only be proud of my husband for not letting a chronic illness get in the way of doing what he loves.

I may be proud of him, but that doesn't stop me from getting frustrated with such a long wait by the side of the road. 

Forty minutes and finally Rob showed up. 

"I saw the sign for a swimming spot and thought maybe you had stopped there," said Rob. Evidently he took off down the turnoff looking for me. 

"You know I wouldn't pull off the road without waiting for you," I said.

Our mutual frustration melted away with the miles-long downhill that lasted until we crossed a bridge over a dramatic rocky gorge called Ausable Chasm. There was a visitors center and a campground right there and lots of tourists. We parked our bikes and crossed back over the bridge to take a look. It was quite spectacular.  And we'd never even heard of it. Too bad; it would have been nice to have time for a visit. But since this was our first time bicycling in upstate New York I'm sure we'll be back.

A few miles later we arrived in Port Kent with time to spare.  Not for the four o'clock ferry, but the five o'clock. Even so, forget the Sunday paper and the cafe. Nothing on the map gave any indication of what a nothing town Port Kent is. It's just a ferry terminal. But we saw a small beach next to the terminal and it didn't take long before we were swimming in the cool clear water of Lake Champlain. 

As ferries go, this one wasn't much. No upper deck, just a bench alongside the cars. The lounge below felt like a basement cavern but it did have a snack bar where I purchased hot tea and a chocolate chip cookie to share with Rob above deck. With wet hair and sticky sweat washed off in our swim, the breeze coming over the lake felt cool and refreshing as we relaxed during the one-hour crossing.

Here comes the ferry!

We were done riding for the day. Our friend, Wendy, had offered to pick us up at the Burlington ferry terminal. We decided to take her up on it.

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We rode 62 miles from Ticonderoga to Port Kent. I felt pretty strong, averaging 9.92 mph. Rob didn't fare so well, averaging 8.14. Overall it took us from 7:15 a.m. until 5 p.m. to complete the ride. I felt frustrated with our pace. I had spent 6 hours, 14 minutes in the saddle, Rob  7 hours, 29 minutes - a difference of an hour and 15 minutes in our riding times. 

Today's statistics made pretty clear how much Rob's lung disease was impacting his riding. This tour is most likely the final "shakedown"  before we take off on a one-year cycling adventure. The big question remains. Can we ride together compatibly? Sure, you can go out for a day's ride with someone who is much faster or slower than you and one of you will wait for the other. But how does that work day after day, week after week, month after month?

The difference in our respective tempos - one and a quarter hours - represented, for me, time waiting alongside the road rather than stopping to swim or a nap in a park or do other fun stuff. And for Rob it represented a physical and mental challenge in trying to keep up. At what point does the riding for him get to be a hard slog, no longer fun?

Today's ride brought these issues to the forefront.