Banquet Day, in Burlington, MA June 28th, 2008

Burlington,MA to Revere Beach, Boston, MA Friday, June 27th, 2008

Brattleboro, VT to Burlington, MA Thursday, June 26th

Albany, NY (Latham) to Brattleboro, VT Wed. June 25, 2008

Well, today was the day that we were to ride through my old stomping grounds. Just over the NY border, is the town of Bennington, VT. I lived in that general area for 6 years; living in Bennington, Dorset (on the oldest 9 hole golf course in the nation) and then buying a home in the woods in Pownal, which is just a spit from Williamstown, MA. I had intentions of contacting some old friends (that I hadn't seen for about 20 years!) My friend Cathy Klebbe and I worked together in the CCU in what used to be Putnam Memorial Hospital, now SouthWestern Vermont Medical Center. She and I were great friends, and had a lot of laughs. After passing the sign below, I stopped at a new (since I had lived there) Dunkin Donuts, as the sag stop was there, and asked if I could use a phone book-long story short, the gal behind the counter knew my friend, and said that she had BEEN IN THERE EARLIER THAT MORNING!! I got her number, gave her a call, but she was at work in Albany, NY. We had a nice chat later and vowed to stay in contact.

Janie and I at the Vermont border-Janie is looking very serious-this is her second to last day of real riding to make EFI, and she was on a tear. When I stopped on the Bennington outskirts to talk to Cathy, Janie took off up the 7 mile climb to the ski resort. I was left to my own devices.

It was so awesome to ride through an area that I had lived in before. It is beautiful here.

Self portrait at the road side

Quaint as you would expect.

The other thing I did was recognize another friend's house that was actually on the route.

On a whim, I pulled in and knocked on the door. Her daughter answered; 20 years older than I remembered, and said in fact that her mom, Lorraine was at home.

We were glad to see each other, and had a very nice but brief talk as she was on her way to work. She is now a dialysis nurse. It was great to see her and I headed on up the mountain.

One of the more entertaining sights

Ron and I caught up with each other, this is at the top of HOGBACK MTN. The second ski resort to which we had climbed

After one of the most hellish traffic experiences that I had; travel trailers and trucks passing us at high speeds and coming very close on roads with no shoulders; I finally arrived in Brattleboro.

It was great to be here as well, as Brattleboro is a great little Vermont town that I had frequented often when I lived in that area.

The BEST part was that my friend Tanya, who actually lives in Denver, happened to be there visiting her friends at there bed and breakfast.

She was kind enough to pick me up from the hotel, and I had a home cooked meal in a most bucolic setting. Met 2 wonderful women, Deb and Lucia, and enjoyed relaxing conversation and even got my laundry done.


Tanya and I next to the guest house

It was so great to see her and meet new friends.......

All in all a great day as our tour winds down to a close.

Peace,

Mary Ann

Little Falls, NY to Albany, NY (actually Latham) Tuesday, June 24

Here we are at an unofficial SAG put on by the Catholic Charities group. Don (second from L) is riding to raise money for them. Amy (who is a ROCK STAR) was FIRST to the hotel (far L) and myself then Scott. This was a very interesting group, as I was adopted from Catholic charities about 48-49 years ago (in NJ).
The ride today was nice until we reached the Schenectady/Colonie/Latham area. I have to say, after riding across the entire country, these were the most aggressive, dangerous, clueless drivers that we have encountered. Not only did our group of 6 almost get clipped several times, the drivers would give us lip about it. Unbelievable.


Janie, Sister______ and Tyrone, the very cute dog at the CC SAG



My new CC friends.

Me, Laura K. and Janie. We were the fast girls today.
We got to the hotel at a few minutes after 1:00, and headed out to Friendly's for lunch.

All in all a good riding day-I reached this SAG (55 mile mark) with a 17mph avg speed.
Ass kickin' all around today,
Tomorrow should be a tough one-through the hills in VT and NH.
Only 76 miles, but with a s*&t ton of climbing. We are passing through Bennington, where I used to work when I lived in VT. It should be fun.
Peace,

Syracuse, NY to Little Falls, NY Monday

Here is the only "riding" photo....a boat and barge on the Erie Canal


Today was one of my favorite riding days. 78 miles total, good weather after threatening rain this morning. Janie and I got in a paceline with Don, and then Darryl, and Janie and I were the first into SAG 1 at 34 miles. We took off, but I was getting hamstring cramps, so I pulled off to stretch, and told Janie to go ahead, she was on some kind of mission to get into the hotel first, and she did. Mostly because Don had some friends who set up an informal SAG stop, and he was delayed-that being said, Janie and I both had one of our finest days of riding, just not together.
The picture above is of the Mohawk River. Janie and I went down there after dinner, sat on some rocks and solved the problems of the free world. We had more pictures, but the blogspot website is not cooperating with the upload. This blogging is time consuming enough without the technical problems.......


At the park by the river, there is a stage............do you need to know more??

tomorrow will be another nice day of terrain, and hopefully weather, although there is a thunder storm happening at the moment. We all can't believe that there are only 3 real riding days left, not including our 18 mile ride to the beach in Boston.
Many have mixed emotions about the end drawing near, and I am certainly one of them.
I was thinking of all the ways that we have become a big nomadic family.
Here are just a few of the things that I know of just today: folks doing eachother's laundry, loaning a friend a pair of bicycle sandals so he could ride with a broken toe, L-2 is currently cleaning my water bottles for me with efferdent, Alex let me borrow his arm warmers when someone mistakenly took mine, Rich bought us all lunch and beers in town this afternoon, and the list just goes on and on-oh and Jim is letting me use his laptop to type this blog, because the wait is always so long on the hotel computer. I will miss some of my new family profoundly, and some I will see in the future.
More photos later,
Peace

Canandaigua, NY to Syracuse, NY June 22, 2008

Janie and I at Seneca lake..........beautiful spot.
Today was supposed to be short,but 70 miles and 3000 ft of climbing later, I am exhausted.
Yesterday was hard, and today was no easy recovery day.
The high light for me was the visit to Seneca Falls, NY, the site of the first women's rights convention. The photos are below. I was very moved at this place, and was glad to see bus loads of young girls being exposed to those woman pioneers who paved the way for all of us.

Notice the statue on the far left, between Barbara and I......bike helmet and sunglasses......

In the photo, (live) are Barbara, me, L-2, Laura and Janie.

This is a real girls day out!!!!!

Peace,