I'm going to start with today and fill in the time since the last post in a kind of a lightning round. As you can see from the picture, I am in Vermont! It's pretty exciting to be back in New England. The riding and landscape are so beautiful, not to mention the weather, that I half wonder why I went to all that trouble to cross less appealing and welcoming parts of the country. It is just a heavenly day. A touch chilly in the morning, not really hot at any point of the day. It is hilly of course, but there is plenty of easy riding to go with the climbs and the fun descents. I spent most of today, a short day, riding along the Battenkill River, first in New York, and eventually in Vermont. My friends Sally and Charly on the Cape have been enjoying and talking about this region for many years, especially for its trout fishing, but somehow I never made it up here before. It really is gorgeous. Right now I am in the library in the very tony little village of Manchester Center about to meet my Warmshowers host for the night. Life is seriously good.

The problem with blogs of course, as with any kind of journal, is what to do when you get behind. It has been almost two weeks since I posted about the trip itself. And i guess i really don't feel like going over the trip since then day by day. Here are a few highlights. 

I got caught in a deluge very late in the day as the remnants of Isaac came up through Ohio. I set up the tent still in a driving rain at a state park and was pretty soaked, but most of the gear stayed dry. A nice family invited me right off the street for their Sunday dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant. I had a delightful Warmshowers stay with a charming young graduate student in the Cuyahoga National Park (a little jewel between Akron and Cleveland.) She took me to the local hot spots and gave me a great car tour of the highlights of the Park. Another nice couple took pity on me on another rainy late afternoon near Windsor, Ohio, and drove me to the next town for groceries then returning me to where I left the bike, locked to the local post office. 

Next day, in Correy, Pennsylvania, I asked a nice convenience store clerk for suggestions for a campsite and he suggested his own backyard, which was a few miles along on my route and just a few yards short of the New York border. Next day I stopped in an attractive roadhouse restaurant, The Bird Walk, and saId I'd like to have dinner but could I set up my tent in their backyard after? No problemo--great food, conversation, and a great night sleeping under the double sycamore tree. The southern tier of New York is fabulous riding and I stopped along the way on a side road which led to a disused tractor path down to a clearing along the creek for an exciting night of wild camping. (meaning, not in an actual campground) . Next day I stayed with a friend I had arranged to meet near Elmira, NY, a refreshing respite. At this point I soon found myself in my college town of Ithaca. I spent a couple of days reconnecting with my inner college kid, including having dinner, hanging out for the evening, and sleeping in the "Alumni Room" of my old fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. The personalities were all the same, only the names had changed. That was a great experience, I must say. 

From Ithaca i start to angle northeast again, because I'm going to visit a few folks in Vermont before I finish the ride at the end of the month in Falmouth. The riding and the scenery on the backroads from there to Ballston Spa (only a few miles from where I lived in gradeschool and highschool) were just magnificent over two glorious days. A warmshowers host, Janet, rode out to meet me as i approached the Mohawk River crossing (it was too early to stop for the night) and joined me for lunch a a funky little diner. Conversation revealed that she had been a volunteer with the same outfit that I started out with as a volunteer staffperson way back in June. What a coincidence. While we were riding together we had a close call of the canine kind. A loose and un-trained dog came running out to harrass us, crossing the highway, and almost got run over by a ten-wheel dump truck, which skidded but did not lose control. I spoke intemperately to the dogowner who was unimpressed. There are no bad dogs, maybe, but there are one hell of a lot of moronic dogowners along the highways and byways. That was yesterday, and it was a long hard day of riding, 96 miles with a lot of climbing. I did not reach my Warmshowers hosts' house in Ballston Spa until after dark. Not a great idea to ride in the dark,  but it worked out all right.  On the last lap I rode through the little village of Galway where my high school girl friend's family had a camp on a little lake. Such memories!

I'm going to do some visiting in Vermont and I may not post again until the final leg in a couple of weeks: down to Cape Cod to dip the wheel in the Atlantic.