Clear sky and sunny this morning, so we finally got our bike ride in. We rode out of Williamstown and up the Taconic Trail to Petersburg Pass. The climbing portion rises 1200' in 4 miles; a beautiful ride under any circumstances, but what makes it special is that I have ridden it many times at relentlessly advancing ages, though not always on a tandem. So it is a reality check on our ability. Since the grade averages 6%, never above 8%, we could climb steadily without getting winded. Not a demanding test, but we did pass it. We had a fairly long way to drive this afternoon, so we turned downhill the way we came rather than riding down the NY side of the mountain and circling back through Pownal VT.
The campground in Pownal VT where we stayed the last two nights ranks among the best of any we've visited: sits in a high mountain cove, grassy, small, quiet, and extraordinarily clean. If the shower thermostat were set a notch higher it would have been perfect.
After breakfast we broke camp and traveled 4 1/2 hours to Tupper Lake NY in the Adirondacks. I set the GPS to keep us off major highways (i.e. NY Thruway), so it was a scenic trip through rolling farm country, then through the forests and mountains of the Adirondacks. We crossed the Hudson where it is just shallow rapids and also crossed the Erie Canal. Staying at a muncipal campground with a sandy beach on a two-hour (canoe) lake. At 12:15 in the morning a warning siren sounded for several minutes. We heard a few quiet voices, probably people as curious as we were, but nothing else stirring. No threating weather, no earthquake, no air raid, no nearby nuclear plant. After S went back to sleep I thought maybe they had located the two convicts who escaped a week ago from a nearby state prison. So I locked the door and went back to sleep. Still don't know the reason for the siren.
Overnight temp 55F. We aren't in FL any more.
S and I both have colds; hope we shake them before the tandem rally at Saranac Lake on Friday.
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