36.7 mi / 10.5 mph / 1031 ft. climbing
Home: Massasoit State Park

We got rolling out of our motel at 9:30am, and within 15 seconds we were back on the Washington Secondary Rail Trail, heading north. The trail was again freshly repaved and perfect (except for some of the road crossings which still have concrete work to complete), and made for the easiest morning start we’ve had in months. It felt luxurious to let our muscles warm up gradually (rather than being strained to fatigue by steep hills), and let our minds wake up gradually (rather than being assaulted to distraction by traffic and lights and noise).

Six miles brought us to the trail’s end, especially thankful for that easy start because Providence is the biggest city we’ve been through (on our bikes) since…Auckland? Overall it was a fairly easy crossing, partly because the trail got us within three miles of the center, and then it was only two more miles until we crossed the Seekonk River and were out of the urban area.

We passed through Brown University, our second Ivy League school in a week, though unlike Yale, we made zero attempt to see the campus. This is partly because we had just climbed a rogue 10% hill in the middle of the city and Rett was in “I just want to keep moving” mode, and partly because I’d had no idea that Providence was home to an Ivy League university! I needed to peer at several sweatshirts to even confirm that it was Brown whose campus we were traversing. Anyway, it looked nice from what we could see on Waterman Street!

Before leaving the city we stopped at Whole Foods and shoveled up 2.58 lbs. of couscous, goat cheese, and veggies from the salad bar to eat for another easy no-cook dinner tonight.

Bridge crossings are frequently a challenge on bikes, so I’ll frequently use Google’s StreetView and/or Satellite View to investigate any shoulders, separated paths, and what hoops we need to jump through to access those paths. That wasn’t possible for the bridge over the Seekonk River, because it was undergoing (or had undergone) some sort of construction, and the latest StreetView/Satellite photos didn’t reflect whatever the current reality was. Oh well, not a big deal, I’m sure there will be some sort of signs directing us.

Yes, there were signs, but they were in direct conflict with each other! “No Bikes” vs. “Begin Bike Route”! Presumably one was permanent and one was temporary, but there was no indication which was which! I went half a block in another direction to scout a different access route that Google showed as a bike lane, and could see a freshly-paved off-street path heading toward the bridge, but it was half-heartedly roped off. Returning to the disagreeing signs, we decided to just go for it on the road. The bridge on-ramp at least had a shoulder…?

It turned out the shoulder continued across the entire bridge, and traffic wasn’t too heavy or fast, so except from some drainage grates, it was a pretty stress-free crossing, even if it wasn’t legal. The path I had seen also continued across the bridge with no apparent obstructions, so even though it hardly seems necessary, we probably could have used that too.

The harder part was that the downhill of the bridge dumped us directly into a brand-new roundabout, which wasn’t on the maps. So I had to guess on the fly which exit best-aligned with the road we were supposed to turn onto. Luckily I guessed right, which I don’t always do even when I have all the details of the roundabout on my maps!

We crossed the jagged, mathematically-defined border between Rhode Island and Massachusetts without realizing it (State #19!), which isn’t surprising since it doesn’t correspond with any physical feature, and even looking at a map of the road network in the area wouldn’t give you any clue that there is a border present.

I don’t think it had anything to do with Massachusetts in particular, but the next 25 miles were near-perfect bike touring. Highway 44 is the main east-west route in this part of the state, but the heat maps indicate zero cyclists use it, and instead take a slightly-less-direct roads that zig-zag around it. The wisdom of the crowds wins again, because these alternate roads were nearly empty of traffic, but filled with beautifully-wooded properties. It was stress-free riding that nearly felt like riding the residential side streets of a leafy suburb, except those side streets ran for 25 miles, and the houses were much more widely-spaced.

Our reverie was broken when we neared Taunton and suddenly traffic hit hard (maybe timed with schools letting out?) So were the last five miles really that stressful, or was it just the contrast with the previous perfect 25?

Most states these days seem to charge a lower fee for residents to camp at their state parks. At Massasoit State Park, Massachusetts residents pay $21.50. We pay $58.50!! That’s by far the biggest differential we’ve ever seen, and at that delta, it’s less a “tax on tourists” and nearly an explicit way to communicate “our parks are for residents only”. But, it’s still cheaper than any other option around here, so we sucked it up and paid. At least this park is a “cheap” one; some of the Cape Cod parks cost $74.50!

The last users of the empty site across from ours had left unburned wood, so I carried it over to our site, and with Rett’s help and piles of pine needles scraped off the road and collected twigs, we were able to start our first campfire in at least a year (campfires aren’t really a thing in New Zealand). With the cool evenings and early sunsets of late September, it was a welcomed luxury that almost made the campsite feel worth it!