Days 1 and 2: Who Knew Connecticut Was Nice?

       Well, alot has happened in the last two days. Most importantly, everyone is safe and sound. Day 1 got off to a rocky start as logistics conspired against us to force a fractured start. Beth decided to join our crew at the eleventh hour (literally!) after months of wrestling with the decision to go or not. Ultimately, Dustin won her over and when Saturday morning rolled around they had to jury-rig a few things for her and do a whole load of last minute packing and gear arranging. Erin, Beth, Dustin, and I were so delayed that we missed our start time with Ben and Mandi at the beach in Sandwich by a few hours. All's well that ends well, though, and we're happy to have Beth along and she performed admirably on her first two days despite not having clipless pedals. After a long day in the saddle, we four pulled into Fall River shortly after nightfall and a couple hours behind Ben and Mandi. We shoveled some food down our throats at Ben's family's home and hit the hay.
       The ride from Sandwich to Fall River was beautiful though. We started the day with a very sweet send-off from the beach by Erin and Dustin's family and had a beautiful first leg along the Cape Cod canal bike path. The mid-afternoon sun's heat was blunted by a thunderstorm that blew through the area just before we left, and the sky a bit overcast, but the scene with the light playing off the water and the cormorants lining the bulwarks of the canal or diving for fish was very serene. We wound along our path, paralleling route 6 at first along picturesque back-roads with cranberry bogs and farms to keep us occupied as we rode the gentle rollers that follow the coast. We made good time on the bikes and had a total trip time of around 7.5 hours for the fifty something miles we covered.
     Today has gone much more smoothly so far. The six of us rolled out of bed between 6 and 6:30 and Ben cooked up a pile of eggs and bacon to fuel us up for the day. We started out from Fall River around 8 or so and made our way towards Providence followed by a light rain that seemed on our heels all the way through Rhode Island.. Getting through the twists and turns of Providence's warped bike infrastructure was like pulling teeth- I may always remember it as the City of Ramps. Things got a little more direct as we exited town and got to the rural northwest of the state where Ben earned the dubious honor of first flat tire. Big hills and big rollers beat us up a little bit for the rest of the day and we pulled into Woodstock, Conn. in groups where the Porter family has shown us an excellent time. I want to thank them on more time for the great pasta meal, sweet corn, salad, and cake with ice cream. It was a dream come true after our 63 mile day. Bed time now, but expect more updates and I'll be uploading pictures very shortly.