Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Day One Hundred Forty-seven, 090724 - Saugus, MA

Day One Hundred Forty-six, Date Friday, July 24, 2009
Time in Saddle: 3:07
Distance for the Day: 22.23 miles From Boston, MA To Saugus, MA
Accumulated Trip Distance: 6741.83 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 324’/136’, Highest: 201’ Accumulated: 548’
Speeds: Avg: 7.8 mph, Max: 45.8 mph
Weather: 60°, overcast with periods of light rain
Expenditures: $8

Got up around 7:30am and had breakfast of cereal and banana. Carol went off to work, and I stayed to finish blogging and checking the weather (not very good – yuk!) and suddenly realized I forgot to get a picture of myself and Carol, Demitol! I found out where she worked from the web, got the address, called her up, and arranged to meet her at her office (the Boston office of GLAD) so we could do the picture. I rode into the very heart of downtown Boston, found her office, and we went out to the local park to do the picture. I also stopped in at the Radio Shack, there, to replace my watch and cyclometer batteries ($8), and Carol bought me a chocolate chip cookie as a going-away treat from Starbucks. It was yummy, Carol – thanks! She recommended my going through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard in Cambridge, so I took off from Carol’s office at 1:30pm, and found my way out of Boston up through MIT and then into Cambridge; now I can say I’ve been to MIT and Harvard! That was a bit of a side-jog off my direct route, so I made my way back to said direct route, and continued north on Route 99. At around 5pm, the road became very busy (weekend rush-hour traffic), and by 7pm, it got a bit intense, my having to do a bit of merging to stay on my route. Not much longer after that, I saw the now familiar sight of a police car with lights a-flash, with the uniformed man standing and waiting for me to reach him. “Problem, officer,” I asked. “The board’s been lighting up with 9-11 calls about you – you can’t ride on this road.” He was not a hard-ass about it, and was friendly, helpful and interested, but said I’d have to take side roads, even though this road had side streets, businesses, and stoplights along it. Hokay! I didn’t argue, but one of Carol’s cycling maps, and my computer, said this was a cycleable route. I pulled off to the side, and checked my computer maps for alternate routes, all of which went zig-zagging out of my way for miles. I decided to look for stealth camping at this point, and found one behind (another) furniture store (N42 28.570’ W71 1.348’). It was a bit exposed, and indeed, someone went back there to throw away some trash in the bin, and a car drove up to investigate, but both intrusions were short, minor, and didn’t result in any interactions or expulsions, which was fine by me. I had a fine sleep the rest of the night, and thought I’d just try that road again on early Saturday morning.








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