Plainfield!

Alright! We made it to Plainfield. We had a awesome ride on Friday – we ditch-camped next to a bike path, began the day with a series of breakfasts as we waited for the rain to clear up. Quote from the local banter at the cafe: “Waitress, I need a refill on my coffee!” “Hold on, I’m watching this commercial about the new model of my vacuum cleaner!” We ended up on yet another dirt road, but it turned out to be essentially our own giant bike path through the forest – pretty awesome. We then popped out into the Connecticut river valley – amazing! Pretty easy rolling terrain, low traffic, and gorgeous scenery. A bit chilly – low forties – and at a couple of points we got some snow flurries. Jamie picked us up just as the sun was setting.

Jamie and Petra’s place is pretty amazing – their house resembles a treehouse, and they have a spectacular view across the valley. Yesterday we checked out the Bread and Puppet museum, which was pretty amazing. We also went to the rehearsal of their new band, the “Stone Wall Band” and went ver some BLO tunes with them. Plainfield, and the surrounding Northeast Kingdom region, seems wholly populated with wonderful freaks.

A few words about routing through the Northeast: I’m used to figuring out bike routes in the west, where there is usually only one or two possible ways to get from point A to point B, and most of the roads follow the terrain. Here, there seem to be lots of different ways to get anywhere – a number of times when we’ve asked directions, we’ve gotten long descriptions of all the possibilities, which essentially amounts to no information at all. Also, it seems that most of  the roads were primarily planned out by farmer Smith’s cow taking a particular route between the barn and the field, with little regard to the terrain. Also, the roads seem to randomly loose their pavement, or deteriorate into ATV trails. But it all adds to the adventure!

Tomorrow I’ll be heading west to Burlington, to visit a bike touring buddy, Shannon, and hopefully Noah and Kelly. Alas, Sarah just left with her friend Jen to head to the White mountains in search of moose to ride, so I am now riding solo.

OK – enough drivel: pictures!