Day One Hundred Forty-one, 090719 - Cobalt, CT

Day One Hundred Forty-one, Date Sunday, July 19, 2009
Time in Saddle: 6:31
Distance for the Day: 50.12 miles From Stevenson, CT To Cobalt, CT
Accumulated Trip Distance: 6621.87 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 313’/506”, Highest: 784’ Acumulated: 3415’
Speeds: Avg: 8.5 mph, Max: 39.2 mph
Weather: ??°
Expenditures: $

I woke up at 5am, but didn’t get up until 5:30am. I decloaked my trike, and wasn’t surprised to find a lot of insects attracted to the human scent that must be imbedded into it. This was new: I found 3 or 4 small *slugs* on my gear, along with the usual daddy long legs. I brushed them all off, and packed my gear away to prepare for the day’s journey. I notice the sun seems to be rising earlier – the sky gets brighter earlier – by 5am, it was pretty bright already. I took off at 6:03am stopped for a breakfast of bagel and cream cheese + hot cocoa at Dunkin Donuts ($3) and to charge my notebook and dictate notes on the upcoming route. I’ve taken to dictating route turn points and distances into my voice recorder so I wouldn’t have to drag my notebook out for every turnpoint verification, which because I have such a rotten short term memory, I have to do quite often. I’ve made some fairly costly errors in navigation due to my poor memory, so this was my solution to get around it. Unfortunately, I still have to drag out the computer, but I don’t need to do it nearly as often. At 11:50am, on an emergency bathroom reconnaissance mission into the Lock 12 historical park (note to self: don’t get the Subway footlong tuna fish sandwich anymore – it took 3 or 4 more such missions before it cleared the system), I met cyclists Frank and Pedana(?) and we chatted about my trike and trip. I took pictures of his ultra cool Cat in Hat shirt, gave him my blog site address, and they gave me a frozen Gatorade (how nice!) I stopped in the small town of Cheshire to get Subway sandwich (chicken breast!) at 12:07pm. The road was starting to become a little less hilly during the second half of the day, but remained very pretty, with historic buildings and cemeteries every now and then. I stopped at a mini mart for drinks and ice cream ($8) at 4:04pm, and a little later, got a donut and milk at Dunkin Donuts ($3)as an excuse to also charge my notebook and check the route. The problem with routes in the east US is: there are so many different roads and options, it takes an inordinate amount of time to navigate them, to the point where it slows me down significantly. I can barely get 40-50 miles a day, and the hilly terrain doesn’t help, either – not that I’m really complaining – it’s just the way it is. I made Middletown, CT at 5:08pm. At 7pm, I found a somewhat marginal stealth camp site in one of those “public storage” lockups that was raised fairly high above the highway (N41 33.801’ W72 32.441’). The highest set of them was isolated and not visible from the road or any habitations, but it was somewhat loud from traffic noise echoing around, and it had bright security lights in the row of lockers. I lucked-out in that the middle light was not functioning, so I had *some* dark to set up my tent in. As usual, I read my book to verify no traffic in area, and then set up the tent at 8:30pm, and was in bed by 9pm. There were no fireflies that I could see, but I suspect that in more quiet areas of the region, they were there. With earplugs firmly in place, I drifted off to sleep, and hoped no one would find me in this somewhat vulnerable site. Even if they did, though, I think I’m so completely harmless, the odds of getting into any serious trouble were remote.