day 4: half-day off in valley falls, ny

well, we've just had some delicious tuna sandwiches here at tom's uncle rich's house just north east of albany, and we're going to take a swim at the neighbor's before taking a jaunt down to the schenectady area, so i will say only this for now: we made it from boston to valley falls in 2 days, and that feels like a victory. as you can see on the map below (you can move it around with the cursor), friday we rode on through the rain to swanzey lake, NH and yesterday we beat the heat from swanzey, across vermont, to valley falls. there were hills - big ones - along route 9, also known as the molly stark trail. we feel we have made molly's intimate acquaintance. we ate lunch at the "100 mile view;" we shoveled couscous into our maws while surveying 4 states.

at that point, i was pretty sure we weren't going to make it: i was feeling pretty beat, and vermont's famous green mountains lay ahead. thankfully, we had already made most of the day's elevation gains, and the ascent into the state park was roughly half the distance of our earlier climb, and was followed by a 4 mile descent. even with our unaerodynamic panniers and fat touring tires, according to tom's cyclometer, we hit 40 mph.

i will post some photos when we get to rochester on wednesday, but the other highlight of the day was an unexpected parade in brattleboro, VT. it's their take on pamplona's "running of the bulls:" this 3 day celebration of maple products, recycling and dairy is called the "strolling of the heifers." we followed the compost float and 40 bekilted bagpipers past the "green expo" straight to the "dairy fest," where we sampled delicious cheeses and saw a performance by the new england school of circus arts. trapeze. the young woman was very accomplished.

finally, i swallowed 3 bugs yesterday. i spent a lot of the time in between meditating on different kinds of knowledge: the first had a rigid exoskeleton - i could feel it struggling against me, and i was struggling against it. the second was tender. the third was a lakefly, i'm sure.