34.5 mi / 9.3 mph / 1237 ft. climbing
Home: Extended Stay America

When we woke up it was 58 degrees and dry. Well, not “dry” dry; the wooden picnic table was still damp from the days of rain that it had been sitting under, but it was clear that the water from the sky had ceased hours ago. Which was what the forecast had predicted, and why we were even camping at all; rain at the start or end of a camping night is occasionally tolerable to us; rain at both ends is not. And that’s yet another reason that splitting our Mystic Pizza day into two was brilliant: the unusual rain hadn’t been moving through the region, it had been stuck in place and today it finally turned “off”. So if we hadn’t inserted an extra day and instead entered the rain-dome a day earlier, we wouldn’t have just had one evening of rain, we would have woken up and been riding through it all day today too.

Which was especially important because we began the day on a rough mountain-biking trail, one with enough big rocks, roots, and step-drops that Rett wasn’t the only one of us walking. After a quarter-mile or less it turned into a “normal” unpaved road, so it was still a way more-efficient way to exit the enormous state park to the east rather than backtracking west through the official entrance and circling back to head east and then north.

Even when we left the park boundaries, most of the day’s ride still had us riding through forest on quiet roads, in areas more lightly-populated than anything we had seen in Connecticut. That’s presumably because the deep cut of Narragansett Bay was forcing us north and inland to get around it (the bridges through Newport that would have allowed us to stay more coastal prohibit bicycles), and maybe we would have seen similar conditions if we had been through inland areas of Connecticut.

Things got really woodsy again when we took Bell Schoolhouse Road down a “Dead End” that turned into a sandy trail. There were a couple of giant mudpits that thankfully had well-worn bypasses trampled through the trees, and once we crossed those we stopped for a chilly (62F) lunch with the hooting of an owl(?) sounding in the distance.

Once we reached the arrow-straight “New London Turnpike”, the surface improved to a more-standard gravel road, though still not at all what you’d expect for a “Turnpike” referencing a city in Connecticut! For a couple miles we got pavement, and then at another “Dead End” at a gun club, we had to find a path around a locked gate to get us back onto a sandy trail.

It was incredible to see Rett’s confidence on the sand, something she has had almost no experience with up until now. Or at least previous experience had taught her “if you feel any chance of your tires getting sucked down, stop immediately” (which honestly is often the only thing you can do when sand gets deep, especially on bikes that dig in as much as ours do). But today, she was testing, experimenting, and thus, learning. She’d hit a loose patch and try to power through, or “float” over it, or some combination of the two. Sometimes she’d make it onto the next patch of more-solid ground, sometimes the sand would just keep pulling and she’d have to hop off the pedals, but then she’d get back on and feel out a different approach on the next patch. A year or two ago at the first drag-down, it would have been “that’s it, I’m just walking the rest of the way”.

Between the sand, there were big rocks knocking our wheels off-track, puddles to traverse, and, the most fun for both us, several sets of “rollers”, with an amplitude of 3 feet and a period of about 10 feet. A couple pedal strokes get you to the top with almost zero speed remaining, which is exactly what you want because anything faster would make the rocks on the dip too treacherous, then another couple pedal strokes back up, and repeat. There were fully-paved routes we could have taken, which might not have taken any more time even though the distances were longer, but being alone in the woods having fun with the challenges on fully-loaded touring bikes was totally the better choice.

At the far end of the trail we began to see some other cyclists and walkers, and most were wearing blaze-orange vests. I had vaguely noticed a sign near the gun club saying something about turkey hunting season, so I now realize it probably said “if your dumb ass wants to enter this area, at least try your best to not get yourself shot”. Whoops. Well, we don’t carry orange vests with us anyway, and we didn’t even hear a gunshot echoing in the woods anywhere, so it seems our lives were never in danger.

Five miles of “boring” normal roads then connected us to the Washington Secondary Rail Trail. It appeared to have been repaved in just the last few weeks, so its smooth, wide, low-decline surface was a joy to ride our last six miles on, especially since we otherwise would have been stuck traversing the busy roads of Providence’s outskirts.

The first seven pedestrians we passed on the trail were all walking on the left side, against traffic. To see such a strong (and unusual) cultural norm was baffling, even when I did finally see a (single!) sign directing such usage (no one ever obeys signs, even when there are a lot more of them!) In the end I think we saw only 2 out of 30 pedestrians unaware of the rule/norm, proving that driving/cycling/walking culture can be taught and/or changed!

We got off the trail just before our motel to go to Trader Joe’s, so that Rett could take advantage of Pumpkin Spice season. Just navigating the heavy traffic on the in-and-out (it was Sunday, the worst day to go to Trader Joe’s!) highlighted how useful the rail trail was.

We then got back on the trail briefly, because our motel is just steps from it, oddly not near anything else but woods. Before the weather messed up our ferries, we were supposed to be getting onto a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard before we even got this far north. Instead we needed to take a risk on a poorly-reviewed motel that, at $107, was half the price of most other options in the area. And it turned out to be fantastic! Friendly staff, clean enough, first floor room easy to roll the bikes into, and big enough that we didn’t even need to take any bags off. And a full kitchen, which, if I had remembered, meant that we could have gotten more fancy autumn-flavored Trader Joe’s dinners than we did. They even had laundry just steps down the hall, so we did a load of that too.

Trader Joe’s for dinner and dessert, HGTV, and a night not in our tent: what a way to celebrate our 3rd anniversary! No, not our wedding anniversary, it’s the third anniversary of our nomadacy, of rolling out of our Redmond, Washington townhouse rental for the last time. Which in some ways feels more monumental than our wedding anniversary anyway! Especially since this is Number 3. Before we started this, “Three to five years” was our stock phrase when asked how long we expected to be “homeless”. I’m quite proud of us for throwing such a wild goal out there and then reaching it. We’ve succeeded at living a lifestyle neither of us had ever truly lived, for a period longer than I was in college (and this is a much more-challenging lifestyle)! At this point, the “five years” part of our guess feels well within reach too. But, if we have learned nothing else from the last three years, it’s that road-weariness can rise up any any time, so for now we’ll just see what tomorrow brings!