September 4 - Another chilly but sunny morning. We had a long hill first thing out of town so that warmed us right up. Saw lots of references to Cooperstown and baseball the first 10 miles or so. The National Baseball Hall of Fame was only 11 miles south of Highway 20 at this point.
Somewhere around Carlisle. Already had 40 miles by our ice cream break in Esperance at 12:30 - notable for the name of our choice - Death by Chocolate.
Very different channel shape compared to western New York. East of here we traveled on top of a long rolling ridge above the Mohawk River and then had a very welcome 15 mile downhill run into Albany (#2 of our trip) for a 63 mile day. At dinner Donna had the best scallops ever.
September 5 - The Empire State Plaza. We had quite the ride through town, contending with street sweepers, garbage trucks, and a bit of commuter traffic. Then we got here and had the place to ourselves. That's the state capitol building in the background.
They were renovating the capitol building so it was surrounded by scaffolding.
The view from the other end of the plaza. Doug took this quite complex and intriguing picture (Donna's unsolicited opinion)
We just wondered how they got the U-Haul truck up there in the first place. That's the highway in the foreground
Getting ready to cross the Hudson River. There was a very good bike route that we followed from the plaza to this point. That ramp on the right is only for bikes and pedestrians. It was a much more bike-friendly bridge than the one over the Mississippi though just as high off the water.
After a pretty gradual climb out of the Hudson River we cross I-90 once again. Our very first sign for Boston and we aren't out of New York yet!
Circa 1740. Makes even the houses in Brownsville, Oregon (one of the oldest towns in the state) seem pretty new.
This is Barney Bear (his Appalachian Trail name). He hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail in 1973, the whole Pacific Crest Trail in 1974, and biked a draft version of the BikeCentennial Route in 1975. Now he is involved in Civil War re-enactments and has a wealth of knowledge about the subject. In this same store, the owner of a garage/towing service gave Doug his business card, telling us to call him if we had any trouble.
This is the second Lebanon (also east of Albany though a bit farther apart than in Oregon) and just like the one in Oregon it has a speedway. How weird is that! This was a very broad valley that preceded the 6 mile climb out of New York ...
into Massachusetts!
and the Berkshires.
This is the Hancock Shaker Village just west of Pittsfield.
Donna's glove blew out about a week ago and she finally found replacements at the bike shop in Pittsfield. Hurray!
We stayed in Lenox along with hundreds of Retread bikers who were attending an annual gathering. Our sound of the day was live music in the restaurant at dinner, 2 local brothers on acoustical guitars. Their band name is Off the Cuff. We bought one of their CDs.
September 6 - The village of Lee. The central plaza was dominated by this First Congregational Church. The Norman Rockwell Museum is not far from here in the town of Stockbridge but we were feeling like we were running out of time so chose to leave it for another trip.
We have been following the Jacob's Ladder Scenic Byway and climbing pretty steadily since we left Lee. We crossed the Appalachian Trail at this point.
This is the summit at 1775'. This stone cairn commemorates the 1910 opening of this section of Highway 20 which was built to bypass Jacob's Ladder, a particularly steep and difficult hill. Made us happy too! After this the road followed Walker Brook, a beautiful, boulder-strewn, clear stream and the Westfield River, also beautiful.
There are quite a few State Forests scattered throughout the Berkshires. This is in the Chester Blandford State Forest. Boulder Park was built by the CCCs in 1934-36.
That bridge in the background is carrying I-90. We could hear the traffic as we passed under it but felt like we were in a whole different world....definitely a more shady and peaceful one. We reached Huntington just as the church bells were ringing in the noon hour, our sound of the day. We had lunch at the 4 Main St. Bar and Grill and then took the opportunity to mail our camping gear home at the post office that was right next door.
The towns just keep getting older. We found out later that the whole state is incorporated into towns. Each town has a village or city at its center with perhaps 1 or 2 hamlets scattered about. As the fellow who told us said "We've been at it a bit longer than you folks out west."
This is the Connecticut River which we crossed to enter Springfield.
That is St. George Greek Orthodox Church in the background. We had to ask directions several times to finally find our hotel.
Dinner was on the 12th floor which gave us a good view of tomorrow's terrain. It didn't look nearly as hilly as the Berkshires. We did laundry and finally figured out how to get our shorts dry in this humid environment. Up until now we had been putting them on top of the panniers for a day.
September 7 - We followed 20A through most of Springfield which took us past several schools and lots of students making their way to them. Lots of crossing guards too. We also encountered many of these bike-tire-eating grates. Also notice the curb - it is made out of granite which is true of many of the curbs we've seen in the villages in Massachusetts.
A logging truck Massachusetts-style. We actually had just passed an active logging site up the road, a very low-key operation which we almost missed because of all the trees surrounding it.
This is the Brimfield Antique Fair which draws people from around the world.
You could probably find anything you wanted.....it went on for at least a mile.
There were people everywhere and traffic came to a standstill pretty regularly.
Plus many of the visitors were carrying large pokey objects!
Something for everyone. Notice the skis under the canoe on the left.
We spent the night in Auburn. The dinner restaurant had a whole wall devoted to Robert H. Goddard who is from Auburn. He had his first successful rocket launch there March 16, 1926.
