July 15 - 23, The Home Stretch

Once I reach Wisconsin, the weather changes. The sky is filled with rippling waves of small white clouds that cast a spectral pall. I am heading Southeast on RT 10, and even though the road rises and dips as I go through the Wisconsin Dells, a tailwind is pushing me right along. At first I am happy to be out of the relentless sun, but this endless twilight begins to affect me, and I start to fantasize that I will lose my distinctive Suntan.

My face is brick-red, my right ear is as brown and curled-looking as long-leaf tobacco, and the other exposed parts are very, very tan. It's just that they alternate with totally white bits, making me look like a Red, or Lesser, Panda.

The weather stays on the overcast side right on through Michigan, Ontario, and New York.

July 15 -- Richville to Fort Gratiot, MI. 83.0 miles. I have learned that there is no pavement so bad it can't get worse. The shoulder routinely disappears, then comes back as a six inch-wide "grumble strip", or three feet of wavy gravel. I really want to get to Port Huron, and leave Michigan behind, so the shoulder turns into broken, crumbled bits of tar, like a dried-up African lake bed. If it was a Portrait, one could say "My, what exquisite craquelature", but it's pavement, and I have to just keep riding on it. It gets to be too late to try and go over the bridge to Canada, so I camp behind a car wash.

July 16 -- Fort Gratiot, MI to Woodstock, Ont. 100.8 miles. At breakfast, someone says to me, with a straight face, "Welcome to Port Huron, the City on the Water." On the Canadian side, it gets worse. The Immigration officials are either practicing a bizarre form of Psychological Profiling, or I have slipped into a Monty Python Movie. "What is the nature of your quest?" would be an improvement over the strange and irrelevant questions they ask me.

Once through Customs, I get an Official Map of Ontario, and learn that the exchange rate is bad. The U.S. Dollar has slipped, and is now only worth 2% more than the Canadian Dollar. The prices haven't changed, though. A bottle of soda that costs $0.99 in Michigan is $1.69 here, and there's a 14% sales tax. I realize that I may not be able to afford to eat while I am in Canada.

July 17 -- Woodstock to Caistor Centre, Ont. 75.9 miles. Bad map! Bad, bad, map! Canadians are evidently afraid of being invaded by an army on bicycles. The maps are inaccurate, the signs misleading, and the roads are actively bike-hostile. Haven't eaten much, but it doesn't matter. The farmers have been applying liberal amounts of cow manure (at least I hope it's cow manure) to their fields, giving the countryside a general ambience of, well, manure.

July 18 -- Caistor, Ont. to Pavilion, NY. 99.2 miles. Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side, is unbelievably tacky. It's like Bourbon Street, if it was ten miles long and all made out of plastic. Can't wait to go over the bridge. After worrying about how tough it will be to get back into the U.S., I am pleasantly surprised by how polite the American officials are. Make it through Niagara Falls and greater Buffalo, and head straight East down RT 20. Pavilion is also known as "Texaco Town", as it's really a former Truck Stop. Big Rigs stop here and make loud noises all night.

July 19 -- Pavilion to Auburn, NY. 84.4 miles. Raining, cold, incredible roller coaster-like hills. Stop to make sandwiches at a picnic table under a grape arbor in the rain. Start shivering, and realize I am done for the night, so I give-in and get a Motel Room. All of my clothes are wet. After I sink-rinse them, the Motel owner volunteers to put them in the dryer for me.

July 20 -- Auburn to Bridgewater, NY. 74.8 miles. Hilly, rainy, cold, and foggy. Stay at a mini-resort organized around a small pond. It is totally dark by the time I get there, so I don't appreciate its cuteness until the next morning.

July 21 -- Bridgewater to Nassau, NY. 93.3 miles. Go through Albany and over the Hudson River. Annie meets me in East Greenbush. I ride on to Nassau, then we put bike on the car and go to Kim's Dragon Restaurant in Pittsfield for dinner. This is an excellent Vietnamese place, started by an immigrant who was originally sponsored by Arlo Guthrie.

July 22 -- Nassau, NY to Amherst, MA. 76.2 miles. After breakfast, it is back to Nassau. During the night the rear tire has mysteriously gone flat. The tube seems to be fine, but I replace it with the spare tube just to be safe. Annie buys me some WD-40 to spray on the gears, as the chain keeps skipping. It's after 1:30pm by the time I start riding, and my legs are not in gear, either.

By the time I make it to New Lebanon and the upward slope of the Taconics, my legs are working and I am able to get up the big hill leading to Massachusetts. When I see the "Entering Pittsfield" sign, I have same feeling of accomplishment I had when I finally got to the end of Montana. The hill out of Dalton is a killer, though, and I walk the bike up most of it. By the time I get through Hadley to Amherst, it is really dark. Try to find quiet place to camp by the old railroad tracks, but get lost. Pick out what seems to be ideal spot by RT 9, using the old "hide in plain sight" method.

July 23 -- Amherst to Woburn, MA. 87.0 miles. Am woken up at 4:30am by hidden sprinklers, which pop up and begin spraying on a 3-minute cycle. It is like being machine-gunned with water. Scramble out of tent, pull up the stakes, and carry everything to nearby parking lot. By the time I get the bike, and look at how wet everything is, the sprinklers turn off and disappear. I put the tent back up and gingerly slide into my wet sleeping bag. I could sure use some more sleep, but my feet are awake and restless.

Am going up the hill towards Belchertown when I come upon the "Roadside Cafe". Seems like the perfect place to stop and get breakfast, but it should really be called the "Cafe Organico". Everything is hand-made, fresh, and good for me, but I didn't want a $12.00 breakfast. It's like hitting a Toll Plaza.

Go up and down the hills by Quabbin Reservoir. At a store just outside Ware, I run into the single most unfriendly person I have met on the whole trip. The sign is hard to make out, but it might well have been, "Pete's Gas and Go ---- Yourself". Slowly climb up to the hill towns leading to Worcester, fighting the rain and the gusting headwinds. In Leister, have to stop and change clothes, as I am soaked and shivering.

Continue on RT 9 right through Worcester and Framingham, then head up RT 126 to Weston. Have the strangest songs playing in my head: "Winter Wonderland" (maybe because I am so cold), a BeeGees Disco hit (no idea), the "Do they even know it's Christmas?" refrain (still cold, I guess), and then in Lexington, the theme from Mary Tyler Moore ("You're gonna make it after all"). I could have really used the "Winter Wonderland" back in South Dakota when it was so hot.

I sneak up Sturgis Street to my house, and crouching down by the wall, call Annie on the phone.

"I'm done. I can't go any further. You'll have to come out and get me."

"Where are you?"

"On the front porch!"

I take a long, hot shower and weigh myself. The scale says 198.5. That means I have lost exactly 28 lbs since I left for Seattle.

The odometer says 3,013 miles. Divided by 37, that is an average of 81.4 miles a day. Tomorrow, I will engage in some real white-knuckle bicycling, and go through Medford, Somerville, and Charlestown into the North End, and stand at the edge of Boston Harbor. Not counting the return trip, that will probably put my total distance at 3,025.