Morning thoughts:
Woke to rain. Yes, we have to
ride in it but at least we don’t have to pack up a soggy campsite. 😀 And since we already have reservations for a
cabin in Cooperstown, NY for tonight, we can ride as the weather dictates. With rain gear, of course.
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We stayed in Barre, Vermont last night.
We kept stumbling over the pronunciation so I finally asked at a
store. I have it from good authority
that it’s pronounced ‘Berry’. That didn’t
even come close to any of my attempts.
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Evening thoughts:
It was a mixed bag for weather today.
Light and heavy sprinkle...downpour...just cloudy...sunshine. Some of it stung the face...everything else
was covered by rain gear and gloves. The
only positive is that neither the temperature nor the rain was cold. The hard rain was bad as it was...adding cold
would have been a real game changer.
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It was a mixed bag for our route also....from Barre, VT, to Cooperstown,
NY. Majority of our route was on scenic backroads...lots
of curves, turns, and a maximum speed of 50 mph. We drove through small towns, along the base
of a mountain next to a river and through some beautiful hilly farmland in
upstate New York. All the time wondering
where in the world Rapunzel was taking us.
But there were times of driving 65 mph on highways and the New York
Thruway (turnpike). Bottom line is that
despite leading us on one of the most convoluted routes we’ve been on yet,
Rapunzel still delivered us to our destination.
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We made a stop in Randolph, VT.
Kim went into the store and I walked across the road for a picture. It
had been sprinkling, nothing major but we did have rain gear on. Kim walked to meet me and as we were walking
toward the bikes, a young man sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot started a
conversation. His opening line was, “Man, I thought I
had it bad but then I see you two on motorcycles in the rain. You got it worse than me.” We walked over
to talk.
After we talked traffic, weather, etc., he got real animated and said, “Okay, I got a story
for you. Yesterday I was over at a park
and there were these flowers, about this high (indicates as high as
his car window), and
they were right by my window. And this
bee came over to them to do his thing...it was right there so I just reached
out and petted this bee. It was so
cool! Then it flew away...and it came
back again so I thought I’d try to pet it again. Reached out my finger and it leaned into it,
like this (at this point he demonstrated how a cat leans into being
scratched)...just
moved his neck and leaned into it. And
you know, the bees do so much...man, we need the bees...we wouldn’t exist
without bees, you know? It’s like when I
was at this park, a couple pulls up and the man gets out and he’s smoking a
bowl of the weed...but no big deal, everyone smokes the weed. But he’s acting all arrogant about it to the girl. I’m just sitting there doing my own thing,
not bothering them. But then they reach
into the car and pull out this 2 month old baby. And I’m like, this is new life, man. This is
what it’s about...like life has come full circle, you know? I haven’t about the bees yet but I just had
to share that story with someone.”
We eventually said good-bye and got on the bikes. Now the kid in me really wanted to believe
that he petted a bee BUT the cynic in me was yelling, “Dude! Bees don’t move like
that.” 😐
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There were low hanging clouds
when we started out today and in places it looked like they were dripping into
the mountains. I wanted to try to get a
picture of the effect. When we stopped
in Randolph, not only did I have a clear view of the mountainside but there
were also a couple of whale tails sticking up out of the ground on the other
side of the road. Had to see what this
was about.
No plaque or sign indicating what two whale tails were doing on a random
hillside. It was nicely landscaped so it
looked to be recent and there was a parking lot nearby so it seemed to be
officially sanctioned but I still had no idea why. So I typed ‘whale tails Randolph, VT’ into a
google search bar and voila! lots of articles appeared. This is an article written by Adam Sullivan
on July 19, 2019, on the website wcax.com
RANDOLPH,
Vt. (WCAX) Anyone who has driven on Interstate 89 has likely seen
the whales' tails in South Burlington. What you might not know is that those
whales were originally born in Randolph. And now they have some company back in
their birthplace. Our Adam Sullivan has the tale of the whales' tails.
One at
a time, a crane lifts both new 3,000-pound sculptures into place off Exit 4 in
Randolph.
The
original whales' tails sculptures were on display here for a decade. But in
1999, the iconic artwork was moved after the land was sold to developers. They
found a new home in South Burlington where the original pair still remains.
"It's
thrilling," Jim Sardonis said. "I never expected this to happen.
Especially nice to have them back here on this original spot."
Sardonis
is the artist behind both sets of whales. He was commissioned for the first
sculpture 30 years ago after seeing it in a dream.
"It
all came from a dream. I was dreaming I was standing on a beach looking out at
the water and two tails came up. Water was cascading off," he recalled.
The
developers had big plans for this land, but local residents-- with help from
the Preservation Trust of Vermont-- raised $1 million to buy it back for
conservation.
The
Vermont Community Foundation then stepped in to commission the new art. The new
piece is called "Whale Dance." It's cast in bronze and is a little
taller than the original work, "Reverence."
"It's
about conservation and it's about art, but the primary push for four years was
to save the land from sprawl and development," said Marjorie Ryerson, who
organized the fundraising effort.
"It's
also a celebration of downtown," said Paul Bruhn of the Preservation Trust
of Vermont. "Part of why we were interested in seeing this property
conserved was that if there was a lot of development out here by the interstate
that would have made it very hard from downtown Randolph to build a very strong
downtown community."
The
whales will now live out their days indefinitely here on the property, helping
to preserve a small slice of Vermont.
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We took scenic Highway 12 to Woodstock where we got on U.S. Route 4...it
was about this time that the rain really started coming down. Raindrops caused a mess on my goggles...couldn’t
see with them and certainly can’t see without them. Then for some reason they fogged up which
took it from difficult to see to about impossible to see. Finally, I called Kim on the radio and said that
I couldn’t keep going, that all I could see was the yellow center line and the
outer white line. I could sometimes see
his taillights but not always. I may
have been whimpering, I don’t remember. (When Kim read this, he chuckled and said, "Whimpered? You don't remember? Well, I remember.') He looked for a place to stop...he found a gift shop parking lot and we
pulled in. Went into the shop and in the
time we wandered around the rain lessened and the sky actually lightened a
bit. A woman in the store pulled up the
weather on her phone and showed me that the worst of it had already passed
us. We started out with the hope that
she was right...probably 10 minutes down the road the rain slacked off and by
the time we cruised into New York it had completely stopped and the road was
drying. Eventually the sun even made an
appearance.
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We find ourselves needing to get home sooner than we thought. We have two options for a route home from
here, both of them taking us to Buffalo, NY.
From there Option 1 takes us through Canada to the Sarnia/Port Huron
area...Option 2 takes us around the bottom shore of Lake Erie through
Cleveland, OH. The time difference is a
couple of hours and the mileage difference is about 130 miles. Neither one of us is excited about going
through Canada but it’s the quickest way to get from Cooperstown, NY, to
Charlevoix, MI.
We could make it in two days but it’d be two days of big miles...as of
this time we’ve decided that going through Canada is the smart thing to do but
do we want to spend the night in Canada or try to make a big push straight
through to Michigan. That’s over a 400 mile
day....
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We are in a campground right next
to a field full of cows...they’ve been very vocal. I think they plan on serenading us to sleep. And now it's the coyotes. Oh, the sounds of home!! 😏
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Monday’s miles: 217
Total: 2684 miles
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