Lesson Number Two: Don't try and take your bikes with you when you do it!!!
It was a lovely hot day on Saturday, and we had a lovely ride up the estuary, reading information plaques on the way, finding out about the history of the estuary, and famous people. We marvelled at the beautiful open green city, and how much foresight there was to have riding/walking/running paths for so many miles. We noted the lovely skyline, and how many fit people there were out exercising.
We rode past Boston University and that University's boat houses. We saw the people enjoying the river on their boats, and surfboards (yes, surfboards, paddling down the river, we saw a whole school of people learning how to do it on our return). We saw the beautiful red brick River Houses of accommodation at Harvard. We rode into Harvard Square, then we realised our mistake!
There were people everywhere! It was absolutely hysterical. You could hardly move. Now, Harvard Square isn't exactly a square. It is a whole lot of roads converging, with people walking, and driving in every direction. It also covers a huge area. Somehow we managed to find our way into the main campus area of Harvard (very bucolic, lovely buildings, lawn areas, trees), and saw so many huge tour groups. The bikes had to be walked, and were frankly a total pain in the proverbial. We were advised that it wasn't safe to leave them anywhere, they had to be locked up.
We saw Harvard Law School, worked out where Harvard Business School was, walked out how to get on the 'free' student guided tours ('free' with a recommended tip of $10), I stood in line for about 20 mins to get a very expensive very ordinary sandwich for lunch. We then realised that we have been in locations with very few people, and not cities for so long now, we weren't handling all the people, the noise and the stress.
So, we escaped (after a disastrous visit to a bike shop to try and buy the much elusive Keen cycle sandals with cleats), and sat by the River in the sun (and then shade), read newspapers, snoozed and got some calm and equilibrium back. The plan is to return on Thursday or Friday, with no bikes, and well prepared for the chaos to do the tour!
We rode back into Boston via the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Totally different feel about it, lots of people in the library. Main buildings were dedicated in 1916. Has a campus of 168 acres, first students taken in in 1865. They are continuing to build new modern buildings, still adding them, last one completed in 2009.
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| MIT core building dedicated in 1916 |
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| More modern MIT buildings |
Cycling sandals and fashion!!!
Ever since we saw the touring cyclist from Washington DC with his cycling sandals with cleats, we have coveted them (riding all day in this heat with closed in shoes - that are wearing out - and socks is suffocating!), and have looked in bike shops and tried to find a pair, to no avail. We went out of our way to go to the supposedly fantastic 'Ata Bike' in Harvard Square only to get rude service and no interest at all, and no sandals and very few shoes. So, we resorted to the internet and found that Keen cycling sandals are stocked by REI. So, further investigation later, we found the subway and headed out to Fenway Park (home of the Red Sox).
There we encountered hundreds, if not thousands of twenty somethings on the 'Boston Beer Marathon' pub crawl, with matching TShirts, viking caps and very drunk behaviours. That aside, we finally found our sandals (ugly as they are!). Again, terrible service, no interest in us, just make the sale, but we have our sandals and will wear them today - hopefully it will be worth the hassle!
AND, my shoes are starting to wear out, so I got some new cycle shoes. Amazingly, they match my bright pink outfits that I am wearing (with my 'skorts', skirt over shorts, quite hot when riding, but look nice when not riding, thankyou Anna!), and I got some bright pink socks to wear too. So, not at all fashionable when wearing the sandals, but I can make up for it when wearing the new shoes (next trip1, no cleats in them yet, I'll wear the existing ones for the rest of this trip...).
Cape Cod
So SlovenlyWe only rode 34.55 km today and most of that on a paved cycleway. We feel so slovenly and lazy. We will have to make up for it tomorrow. It really shows how much we pushed ourselves in our first week, with the hills and the distances that we travelled.
Now that we have had two days off, with minor distances, we will have to try and make up for it tomorrow. But, we are at Cape Cod. It is enormous, these huge beaches of white sand (and cold water) and dunes. Miles and Miles and Miles of them. The bike trail is 25 miles of beautifully paved old railway bed.
When we arrived after a 1 1/2 hour ferry ride from Boston, we went to the Information Centre to ask where the bike trail starts. The nice man was very concerned about us riding on 6a, which turns into 6 and was delighted when I asked whether there was a bus or anything that would get us to the start of the cycle trail.
I'm not surprised about his concern. In the newspaper yesterday there was a small item about a 16 year old kid who was walking his bike along the road, got hit and killed by a 44 year old women from Florida. The information centre man said 'people just aren't paying attention on the roads'.
That got my attention, so we went and got on the heavily subsidised bus. $2 to anywhere. Fortunately for us (as the bus driver didn't have a clue where to drop us), there was a lovely retired couple who told the bus driver where to take us. Turns out they live half the year in Cape Cod, half the year in Florida, and with their cycle club in Florida, they go on cycling tours in Europe. Last year Germany (loving the bike paths there), next year East Germany.
They were really helpful. When the bus finallly dropped us off, we got onto this heavily used (it is summer and it was Sunday afternoon,will be interesting to see if there is as much traffic tomorrow), bike trail. We then rode, until we needed a rest stop (and, as it turns out icecream... well, we had only had breakfast and it was 4pm... and it was a really nice big breakfast!). When we got to the intersection to turn off, there was a car tooting and yelling at us, and it was the lovely couple, who had got off the bus, picked up the car and were heading home. They too were really concerned about us riding on 6 or even 6a because it was so dangerous to ride here. I listened!! Don't need any more broken limbs!!
People 'trundle' along the bike way. The funniest incident was when this guy in his early 20's came roaring down the road, skidded in the gravel, to get onto the bike path before Peter (when we were heavily laden after eating the yummy icecream). He rushed off, then obviously forgot about us, as he started riding really slowly. So we just kept riding at our normal speed of about 21km an hour on that kind of surface (we had all our pannier on, heavily loaded). I cruised up beside him, didn't say anything, Peter was behind, me, and all of a sudden, like a startled rabbit he took off. I couldn't stop laughing, it was so funny!
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| Provincetown, Cape Cod, one of the largest Gay communities in the US |
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| Starting on the lovely paved bike trail on Cape Cod, where the bus dropped us |
Dinner
One of the problems of riding on a bike path is that you have to go off the bike path to see the shops/services/traffic/ houses/sights. So, when we were getting near to our camp, we diverted off the cycle path into Brewster to get some dinner. We couldn't see any supermarkets so went into a 'market place'. Very flash with pre-prepared salads which looked nice. They had a wine tasting of Oyster Bay Chardonnay, which I was tempted to buy (getting sick of red wine), but at $20US a bottle decided to give it a miss and go for the Corona instead. We got three salads and the Corona and a bill for $37!!! Oh well! Live and learn. Then as we were packing it all into the panniers and back pack, discovered the supermarket about 100 metres up the road.
It was nice, but not fantastic!!!
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| Me in camp with the expensive dinner, no it isn't dark, that is the camera tricking us all! |
The camp that we are in tonight (which I pre-booked on the internet because of the warnings of how packed Cape Cod/Marthas Vineyard are at this time of the year) is another huge campground. However, we have our own little dugout (I can hear the neighbours as I type this though), so hopefully we won't get woken up at 4.25 am or 5.25 am by the starting up of a car. It is about a km up hills on soft gravel (tricky to ride on the bike) to the shop and the wireless internet, so I will probably post this and check the emails tomorrow morning (8am our time, midnight Monday your time), so hopefully nothing urgent or devastating has happened between now and then!
Love to all, C&P
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