48.1 mi / 10.7 mph / 2042 ft. climbing
Home: Kenneth L. Wilson State Park

Our beautiful lakeside campsite remained nice and dry all night, so we were able to keep the rainfly on Rett’s side of the tent rolled away, giving her the panoramic picture window onto the glassy water reflecting the lightening morning sky. Following our dinner idea of bringing frozen meals from the dollar store, we had also gotten some Jimmy Dean egg-and-sausage frozen breakfast bowls, and heated those up for a hearty, easy breakfast.

Two nights ago, we camped on a mountaintop because we were crossing over a high ridge to get from one river valley to the next one, and it was essentially “on the way”. Last night, we had a less-valid reason for wrecking ourselves on the 1000-foot hill to get up here, because this morning we would be returning right back down to the same river/reservoir we had left yesterday (using a different road that would drop us 5 miles further upstream, but still…) Thus there was a lot of pressure on the campsite itself to make our investment worth it, and it did not fail. We were glad to have the found the time and energy to enjoy it (or maybe the place itself gave us that energy?)

Then, the 1000-foot downhill itself was beautiful, adding its own payoff to the tally. Did we come out ahead overall? Perhaps not, but at least it was close. My half-together pedal was still clicking, though less-badly than yesterday, and more-importantly, it was spinning smoothly (and not falling off!) I was still trying to go easy on it though, using my right leg to provide most of my pedaling force (the busted left pedal was sitting further out than normal). Probably not a good idea long-term, but hopefully my ligaments can put up with a day-and-a-half of it.

Today was our biggest-mileage day of this stretch, after a series of tiring days, so at least we had a non-draining 10 miles along the Pepacton Reservoir to eat some of that distance (and this was the first day of five where we’d be ending at a significantly lower elevation than our start). Our reprieve came to an end though and stress returned when we reached the town of Margaretville (definitely not to be confused with “Margaritaville”!) While it was a big enough town to have a real grocery store (seems like we get one every other day around here), it apparently wasn’t enough to have good cellular bandwidth, so that made it extra frustrating to do Internet work in this place that I expected would mark our return to Internet service.

Essentially our ease of traversing the Catskills up until now had a lot to do with the random chance that we’d started our crossing on a Monday. The state park activity here is extremely weekend-focused, with campgrounds going from nearly-empty during the week to booked solid for Fridays and Saturdays. A couple weeks ago we had booked the last remaining site at tonight’s (Friday) campground. Nothing had been available at our Saturday target; I’d planned to figure something out along the way (partially hoping for a cancellation that we could grab), but then the lack of Internet at night or more-pressing matters have prevented any of that planning that I’d planned.

While Rett did the grocery shopping, I found a picnic table where I could explore our options and check the weather forecast. With some rain coming, we decided to convert my rough idea of three more rides to Chappaqua into two, with a day off at a Poughkeepsie motel. That meant more long rides added to Rett’s accumulated exhaustion, but hopefully the day off would restore enough energy for the final push.

As fans of ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’, some of our attraction to “The Catskills” was the nostalgia of those mid-20th-century summer resorts, even if it’s not a part of our own cultural background. In the end, we didn’t have the time to go out of our way to taste such an experience (and it sounds like most of those resorts now exist only in memories anyway). But we had an opportunity to take a road paralleling the highway that would take us through the former vacation-town of Fleischmanns (the name itself sounds much more like the name of a resort than of a town), so of course we did that.

I knew the era of the “Borscht Belt”, of this region being a summer escape for New York City Jews, was long gone. But I thought that the pretty houses and atmospheric echoes might still remain. So it was a surprise that the sidewalks of the main street were still filled with Jews! Except, these were not the cultural descendants of Lenny Bruce and Rodney Dangerfield (among the many Jewish comedians who apparently helped develop the art of “stand-up comedy” at these resorts), and they were certainly not practicing show-stopping dance lifts in the lake with Patrick Swayze. In fact, despite theoretically sharing a religion, these dour, black-clothed Hasidics could not have been more culturally-different from the baseball-loving, polo-playing Fleischmann family (the yeast magnates!) who founded the town.

Despite having dozens of men, women, and children walk by us while we were eating lunch, no one exhibited even a hint of curiosity about us and our bikes (except for the one guy who went by twice and definitely was checking out Rett in her tight bike shorts and likely wishing his wife could wear something besides simple voluminous dresses). There’s certainly nothing wrong with being uninterested in odd strangers, but I can say from years of experience that it’s extremely unusual for us to experience such a studied lack-of-interest from passers-by. Even sartorially-similar Amish/Mennonite families we have encountered have exhibited a lot more curiosity. I later read that many (all?) of the Hasidic Jews here come from a specific congregation in Brooklyn, and there is actually quite a bit of controversy about them executing a cultural-takeover of Fleischmanns via (reasonably-convincing accusations of) voter fraud. So, Fleischmanns provided not quite the (historic, nostalgic) version of drama we had been hoping for, but drama nonetheless!

Our cultural whiplash continued as we rolled through the next town, Phoenecia. Cute cafes, public artwork, and bustling sidewalks made it the most open-to-experience town that we’ve been through since leaving Skaneateles! In the few miles on the rural road following it, we saw “Trump is a felon” spelled out on a signboard (“oh yeah, he actually is!” was my second thought after first thinking “…that’s a bit hyperbolic”), a rainbow Black Lives Matter yard sign, multiple “Kamala for President” yard signs (including a handmade one that one family had posted before they got their hands on the official one placed next to it), and, in case we still didn’t fully get the vibe-shift, a “We Will Aid & Abet Abortion” sign!

A gorgeous Zen Monastery building, a spa, and an art retreat center all solidified the idea that we have reached a region that a certain class of modern New York City-dweller “escapes to”, for “wilderness retreats” or “self-actualization”. It was an unusual feeling to be entering the bubble of Greater New York City not as the urban liberals we’ve been for most of our lives, but piercing into it from the true rural areas outside the shell. Unfortunately the more-cosmopolitan mindset emanating out from the City came paired with the much more anti-social driving of New York City drivers. The consistent respect we’ve gotten from upstate New York drivers seems to have reached its end.

After a couple nights of reasonable campground check-ins (actually I don’t know about last night, Rett took care of it while I was still on the road dealing with my pedal), we were back to the bad type. We arrived to a line of “only” 5 cars, but each car was taking at least 5 minutes! I kept encouraging Rett to head off to our site and the showers, and finally she got frustrated enough and did so. Part of the delay was giving bear warnings, and when it was my turn, they said they don’t have bear boxes. Crap. Having just literally seen a bear next to our campsite last night, I knew that proper food storage here was more than just a bureaucratic concern. So, at least they had a solution for us, and one we’ve never been offered before: at 9pm, go to the caretaker’s house and store our food there.

Despite another shaded, heavily-wooded (and huge) campsite, the air was unusually heavy and warm there. So I found Rett at the shower building, which was oddly disconnected from anything else at the campground.

The check-in line hadn’t been a total surprise on this Friday afternoon at a fully-booked campground, but by dinner-time it was clear that the campground was actually nowhere close to fully-booked. Brian, a friendly Park Ranger came by to chat, and he confirmed my suspicion: now that we’re inside that Greater New York City bubble, people from “The Center of the Universe” (his words, and referring not just to NYC, but Brooklyn specifically!) will book for the weekend well in advance to reserve a slot, but then if something else comes up in their lives, just not show up since the cost is relatively minimal to them.

Thus we got a good laugh when he broke the ice between us and the couple who had been setting up at the site next to us, and they said they were from…Brooklyn! It was actually very cool for Brian to do such an introduction (it seems to be his thing, introducing “neighbors” to each other), especially since when our neighbors had turned up and we saw a similarly-aged couple emerge from their car (with no kids, and no party), Rett and I had given each other a silent thumbs-up. Getting to actually know Eduardo (originally from Chile) and Julie (originally from Mexico) a bit confirmed that they were cool, like-minded people worthy of much more than just a thumbs-up. And they generously agreed to take our food in their car overnight, greatly easing the complexity of delivering it to the park’s caretaker. Thanks Brian, Eduardo, and Julie!