Day 3 - 69 miles to Thompson's Lake State Park

Ahh, to bike downhill again! Those signs with the trucks going down triangles were beautiful sights to us, and for the first part of the day there were a few of them. So, we ended up flying out of the green mountains in no time. A note on the previous day which Alison neglected to mention: she ended up riding my bike for a short period of time and in that time managed to break the cable to my front de-railer. I was not able to fix it untill our last day of the trip. So, I crossed most of New York with only 5 gears. 

When we got to Bennington we decided to stop at a coffee shop that our good friend Jill had taken us to the last time we were there. Jill went to school in Bennington and now lives in California. We almost called her when we were at the cafe, but then realized it would be 5:30 am there. We were thinking of you Jill! Recognize that couch? 

Coffee!

Anyway, we had to decide where we would stay that night. We had heard from a couple of sources that it was supposed to thunder storm that day and we had an alternative campsite we could stay at if the weather was sour, but we couldn't check the internet untill the library in Bennington opened at 11:00. That was too late so we decided to just head out and play it by ear. A good decision because the day was clear and warm. The landscape was beautiful as well; Alison's favorite part of the trip.

The view outside of Bennington

Then we came to New York and slightly flatter terrain. We didn't noticed it until then, but the wind was to become quite a factor. Up until that point we were either going up very large hills or down them. Once it flattened out a bit we assumed it would be easy going, but we were wrong as the wind slowed us down considerably. All things considered, however, this day was a fairly easy day... until the last three miles. We had to scale 12oo feet in the last 3 miles in order to get to our campsite. 

For lunch, we figured we would stop somewhere in Troy, NY as it looked like a fairly big city from the map. It was, but what the map did not show was how depressed Troy was. In biking through the city I felt like Will Smith in "I am Legend." There was almost nothing open and hardly a soul on the street. Most shop front were boarded up. We finally did find one very nice sandwich shop that was open and had  good lunch. But it was a very strange feeling to go through such a large city with no one on the streets.

Alison at the one open restaurant in the Almost Empty City

I'm cookin' dinner!

When we did get to camp we realized that, despite thinking it wasn't necessary when we were near a liquor store earlier in the day, we did really want some beer. Spying some guys who we thought looked like they were beer drinkers, we decided to have Alison try to procure some beer from them. They loved her, calling her "babe" about 12 times and giving her 4 beers. Way to go Alison!

It rained again that night, but after we went to bed and it stopped before we got up the next morning.