Day 53: The 'Gunks!

120.01 mi. max 38.5 10:33.35 avg 11.3

What do you do to work out? Walk? Lift weights? Run? Hike? Imagine doing it for 10 1/2 hours. It was a long day in the saddle. The one redeeming thing about the day was the weather - another gorgeous riding day. I'm well into New York now...state #15? I'm not really sure if I should count Pennsylvania twice, since Maryland was in between.

The majority of the day was uneventful. This morning, I woke up and took a couple of pictures of the cornfield in the early morning light. It was cold last night - anything warmer than what I had with me would have been appreciated. Additionally, the dew fell very heavily...even if I wasn't soaked, I had to get out of the field, which meant walking through chest-high grass. I'm glad I started out with an uphill. It meant a great warm-up!

I met more wonderful people today. Heather (age 12) and Kelly (age 17) were on their own local bike ride. They were pretty impressed with my trip. While I talked with them, I ate the worst sundae ever. I bought it at a country store at a remote crossroads. When I walked in (after I figured out how to make the door work - it was on a heavy spring), all the locals turned to look at me. You could have seen the light flash above their heads. It screamed: "INTRUDER!" That was in Layton. The town that I passed through before Layton was Peters Valley - apparently it is a artists' retreat during the summer. Despite the fact that it follows the Delaware River for a while, the road to Peter Valley is very hilly and often VERY steep.

The sun coming up over the Delaware River was nice, too. I crossed it a total of three times between yesterday and today. In Lambertville (yesterday), I stopped for a yummy soft pretzel and ice cream. I might have reached my limit on ice cream - I'm actually getting tired of it. The last crossing today was in Delaware Water Gap...it also marked my second crossing of the Appalachian Trail. I'll be crossing the Delaware River on exactly the same bridge. There, I ran across a cyclist out walking her dog. She gave me directions to her house, and I met her there so that I could pump up my tires...she had a floor pump designed for road bikes.

As night fell, I began looking for a place to pull in. I didn't realize how suburbified the east is. I tried stopping at a bed & breakfast...their asking price for one night was almost enough to send a child to college for the better part of a doctoral program. I didn't even bother asking if I could camp in the backyard - they didn't seem like the type that would want a smelly cyclist contaminating their property.

I relented and decided to check in at the campground listed on my map, off-route by 2 miles. No problem, I thought. I'll call ahead just to make sure, and to get directions. This was at about 8:45. No answer. I couldn't stay where I was, so I rode in the general direction I thought it might be. Ooops, that added on about 4 extra miles. When I realized my mistake, I turned around. In the opposite direction, there was a sign pointing to the campground I was supposed to be going to. I followed that sign, but the directions on the map weren't clear, because I wasn't supposed to be on that road until I'd been on another road which didn't seem to be anywhere near where I was, wherever THAT was. By this time, it was well after 9 pm. I needed a place to stay. I didn't want to pitch my bivy sack on someone's front lawn...and I was just about out of energy and out of options.

OK, get ready, here it comes: thank goodness for cell phones. I tried calling a number of friends, but no one was home or answering. Andy pulled through for me, though, and he was in front of a computer too (perhaps most importantly). So, standing in the dark in the middle of the road somewhere in Shawangunk, NY, I tried to give Andy the details of nearby intersections while he triangulated my location on a Google map, sitting at his computer in Massachusetts. The funniest part is that I probably could have thrown a rock from where I was standing at that moment to where I eventually set up camp. Well, if I had a great arm, I'd have been able to throw it that far.

The best part of the day was getting a hot shower. It's a luxury that we sometimes take for granted...but when you don't have it, you definitely miss it.