Bicycling New England, the
Erie Canal, & around Lake Ontario 2005

Trip to New England

06/06/05

Well we are finally where we will start riding our bicycle. We reached Montpelier, VT about 2:30 PM today. We got off the bus just as it was starting to rain, we were fortunate that the lady operating the Montpelier bus depot allowed us to assemble the Rans Screamer tandem bicycle in her waiting room. It took until 4:00 PM to fully assemble the bicycle. The good news was that the rain had stopped.

Our trip from Pasco to Montpelier seemed to take forever and it seemed that it rained almost the entire distance. I sure hope that all that rain does not now descend upon the New England states. Except for being long, the trip from Pasco to Chicago was OK. However, the train leaving Chicago was an hour and a half late leaving and we were unable to get the first seating for the evening meal. We did not start eating until 9:00 PM. I ordered prime rib and the piece of meat that I was served had so much gristle in it that almost half of the meat was not edible. My mouth was still sore the next day. We arrived in Springfield, MA more than an hour late. The good news was that the Amtrak station agent lent me a hand truck which I used to move the bicycle the two blocks from the Amtrak station to the bus station. As a result it only took 15 or so minutes to transport the bicycle and all the rest of our luggage to the bus station from the train station. We were too late to take the last bus to Montpelier that night so we found a motel in Springfield for the night.

Today we loaded the bicycle into a greyhound bus operated by Vermont bus lines. The bike box had several new holes in it and I had to transfer the bike box from one bus to another bus during the trip to Montpelier. The bike box looked as if someone had spent several minutes punching holes in the side of the box and it was so weak that it would no longer hold its shape. I hoped that the bicycle was still in one piece as I opened the bicycle box. After the bicycle was assembled, we walked about 200 yards to a hotel that had a very large elevator were we got a room on the third floor. We then went out looking at the Vermont Capital building and several other old buildings before eating at a Subway where something was in the air the irritated both Mary Kay's and my eyes. We than came back to the hotel and began the process of repacking all our panniers so we can start riding the bicycle tomorrow.