The adventures of Curtis: Day 13

It all just started out with hills. When we got into our campground last night, we all kind of arrived together and the guy that ran the campground just took his own sweet time getting to us. Once he did, he told his son to take us to our area and he jumped on the four-wheeler and took off. We all followed him and just as we entered the gate we started descending and we descended like crazy down to our camp. So, this morning we started off by climbing out of that hole (The campground was pretty much a hole as well, the worst so far. They charges $1 for a crummy shower) and it has been that way all day. We only traveled 40 miles, but in that 40 miles there was 3,996 feet of climbing. It was a killer. I actually had to push my bike up one hill. My legs just couldn’t take anymore. I have to hand it to some of these elderly riders. Man, they are tough. They do have some low gears and if I ever do this again, I guarantee that I will have a few lower gears as well. Experience! We went through Bigelow Hollow State Park today. Do you know what hollow means? “A small valley between mountains” These hills were 9% grades and they were just bad. Our leader told us last night in our map meeting that when we went down the hills to not lose our momentum coming back up. I did the best I could, but you always have more work than the downhill gives you. I guess that is enough complaining.

We had to carry groceries as well today because there is nothing around here. There wasn’t really anywhere to shop for groceries at all! We shopped at a convenience store and bought Spam to eat in spaghetti. That sounds great doesn’t it? Well when you are starving, it tastes pretty good.

We had three detours that we had to go around today. All of them were caused by Irene and were the result of downed power lines and trees. On a lot of the ride today, we heard and saw the generators running at people’s homes for power. They still don’t have power back on in many areas. By the amount of generators, I would assume that this may happen quite often.

I’m afraid that tomorrow’s hills are not going to be much better than today. We are sleeping in beds, which will be nice. We are in Union, Conneticut.