As promised, this blog post will take you through a roller coaster of emotions and deliver unparalleled excitement. You may want to take a seat now if you haven’t already.
Thursday, May 7th, Day 5 of our trip, started off just like any other. We packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our host, and headed to Dunkin Donuts for a quick breakfast (thanks Hannah!). We picked up snacks at a grocery store then were on our way! I know you’re getting tired of hearing this, but once again we had beauitful weather and wonderful roads to bike on. Our plan was to bike about 80 miles to Montpelier, VT, where we had made arrangements with a couple from warmshowers, Alec and Shannon. It was relatively flat, so we biked an easy 20 miles before taking our first break in Littleton, NH. I stopped by a cemetery and ate a peach while Mark biked into town to check out a bike shop. We were soon on our way again, amazing ourselves with how quick and effortless the biking seemed. After another 20 miles, we came to the cute town of Bath, NH. There was a covered bridge next to a waterfall, and a quaint row of little shops. We stopped for another break, and I emailed our hosts to tell them everything was going well and that we’d be there by 7.
As I sat near my bike, I glanced down at my rear panniers. One of them was open. Dang.
Of course, since these things are bound to happen to me, there was a blank space where my wallet had previously been inside the pannier. I thought to myself “Nooo how could this be?!?”. The day had been going so well! I searched all my bags with the hope that I had somehow misplaced it, but it was nowhere to be found. It was action time. The last time we had stopped was 20 miles back in Littleton, so I knew my chances of finding it were slim, but I had to at least try. I unloaded my bike, and Mark valiantly offered to stay with the bags and wait for me while I set off on my quest, knowing that I could be gone almost 4 hours.
I passed a trash collection crew on the side of the road. I stopped to ask if they had found a wallet. One worker responded “Yea!” My broken heart soared. Then he said “Christopher’s?” My broken heart fell right back down and maybe even pooped it’s pants. I thanked him and continued on my way. I hope that Chris was reunited with his wallet. I biked all the way back to Littleton and scoured the cemetery I had stopped at. No sign of my wallet :( I started biking back towards Bath with a heavy heart, but still scanning the roadside in case I had missed it the first time. When I was more than halfway back I really started to lose hope. I was thinking about the gift cards that generous friends and neighbors had given to me before the trip, and was really hating on myself for being so wasteful. As I’m thinking these negative thoughts I zoom past a piece of mangled fabric and metal. Something catches my eye. Bicycles! That mangled fabric had bicycles on it! JUST LIKE MY WALLET!! I turn around and throw my bike to the ground. It was too good to be true. I almost started crying as I spun around in a fashion similar to Julie Andrews greeting the Alps in The Sound of Music. Even though it had clearly been run over multiple times and my cards were strewn about the side of the road, I was able to locate everything. My Starbucks card (from the lovely Michelle Naughton) had actually broken into 3 pieces, but I found each one! I pedaled back to Mark to share the good news.
Mark was equally shocked when I returned, but probably relieved that he wouldn’t be paying for everything for a while. We discussed our options. It was almost 5 pm and still at least 40 miles to our hosts in Montpelier, but they seemed like cool people and we had been excited to stay with them. I was running on the adrenaline of finding my wallet and was ready to take on the world, so I said LET’S DO IT. As I filled my water bottles at the library across the street, the kindly librarian told me “You’ll never make it to Montpelier tonight. There’s no way.” I thanked her for her support, and used her words to further fuel my adrenaline. We packed up and were on our way.
As we came to the next town, we saw another touring cyclist loaded up with gear. We stopped to briefly chat, and when he heard that we were trying to reach Montpelier he stepped back with his hands up saying “Whoawhoa, don’t let me keep you. You guys have a loooong way to go.” Even more motivation.
We continued through New Hampshire and eventually crossed the border into Vermont as we entered Groton State Forest. It was a lovely area and we threw around the idea of camping there for the night instead, but at this point I felt committed to Montpelier. I wanted to see if my body was physically capable of biking all those miles, and we had to prove the doubters wrong. We continued on as the sun started to set. Up to this point, google had been our trusty companion for maps and directions, so we did not question it when we were directed to turn onto a dirt path in the forest. At first it wasn’t that bad, but we soon came to multiple fallen trees that we had to climb over and under (with our bikes), puddles that covered the entire width of the path and required wading, and large muddy tire ruts. Mark fell off his bike and I laughed. 2 minutes later I fell off my bike. It was getting dark, and the path was becoming more difficult to traverse by headlamp.
After miles of dirt roads, we decided to abandon google’s directions and found the shortest route back out to the main road. We entered route 2 with still many miles to go, and our damp feet were getting chilled by the night air as we pedaled endlessly. After what seemed like ages, we finally entered Montpelier. We double checked the address of our host, and were greeted by a steep, dark road that disppeared into the woods. We embraced it, but it wasn’t long before we were stopped by a locked gate. We had been texting our host Alec to update him on our status, but we knew that he was out playing fiddle at a gig and couldn’t always respond right away. We sent a text explaining our puzzled state, but after no response we decided to crawl under the gate anyway (again, with our bikes). The road that followed was a steep combination of gravel and mud. At this point, our 80 mile day had turned into over 90 miles, and over 130 for me with my little wallet incident. My legs could barely take it but we perservered. We finally made it to their house just before midnight. Alec was still out, but had told us that Shannon was home. We knocked and were greeted by the cutest of dogs barking at the door, but no human. We were conflicted. They were expecting us, but was it okay for us to enter without permission? Should we just set up our tent in the yard? We were cold and exhausted, and also really needed a bathroom. We decided that Alec and Shannon would be okay with it and we walked in uninvited. We crashed on their two couches and immediately passed out.
In the morning we were relieved to find that Alec and Shannon were even cooler than we had expected, and they were totally fine with us breaking into their house. We chatted, played with the dog, and Shannon made us a wonderful breakfast of eggs and toast with wild leek. We had a short day ahead of us to Burlington, so we took our time getting ready. After saying our goodbyes, we headed into town for lunch and a peak at the Vermont State House. While the previous day’s misadventures had seemed terrible at the time, we learned to embrace the experience and appreciated the fact that everything had turned out well. It’s all part of the trip and the never ending adventure! Plus, it made for a much more exciting second blog post.
