Day One Hundred Forty-three, 090721 - Attleboro, ME

Day One Hundred Forty-three, Date Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Time in Saddle: 2:02
Distance for the Day: 15.01 miles From Providence, RI To Attleboro, MA
Accumulated Trip Distance: 6687.0 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 114’/267’, Highest: 297’ Accumulated: 545’
Speeds: Avg: 7.4 mph, Max: 49.9 mph (unlikely)
Weather: 60° light-to-heavy rain in the AM, stopping in the afternoon, but still overcast
Expenditures: $5


(No pictures today – sorry! It was pretty boring.) I slept until 5am, and noticed the steady rain of last night was beginning to lightening up, and by the time I got up at 5:30am, it was only very lightly raining (almost convenient). I secured my tent, getting it as dry as possible by flapping it to shake off the moisture. To get the dirt off my ground cloth, I lay it in a big puddle and pulled it up – that actually worked surprisingly well. I took a bit longer, about 50 minutes, to break down this morning, trying to get things as clean and “dry” as possible. I left at 6:32am to find place to recharge my notebook, camera battery, and have breakfast. I found a Burger King with an outlet I could use, so ate breakfast ($5), and wrote blog entries while it rained, hard at times, through the morning and into the early afternoon (7am to 2pm). Being this kind of day, I was in no hurry to run out to cycle in the rain, and continued processing the photos that I would include with the blog. I did as much as I could without wi-fi at BK, and then rode over to the local public library several blocks away (in the rain), to upload all this stuff to the blogsite, and handle email. I did that from 2:00-4:25pm; won’t get too far, today! I set up my laptop at a computer station near the entry so I could look through the glass doors and see my trike. To do this, I tried plugging into the power regulator for the computer station, but it didn’t work, so I had to unplug the station’s monitor. None of the staff seemed to notice, or mind, but there was no chair there, so I had to stand as I worked. As I had hoped, during the time I was uploading the blog and pictures, the rain seemed to have stopped, and the sidewalk outside started to dry; maybe it would stay stopped for the rest of the day. I left the library in the late afternoon, and stopped to take some pictures of the Rhode Island State Capital building before continuing toward Pawtucket (pronounced, puh-TUCKIT, oddly enough) on Route 1. Early along the way, I found signage for an alternate “bicycle” route to get there. Great, I’ll take the bike route. So, I went on this route, and it was ‘okay’ (the streets around Providence were pretty old and “warped”), with more signs along the way indicating I was still on the right route, but then the signs stopped showing up. Did I miss a turn? I went back a mile or two, found the last sign, and then went forward again. No more signs. Did they run out of funding? As it turns out, I had already arrived in Pawtucket! It would’ve been nice if they said, “You’re here.” I was expecting a longer ride, but it was actually pretty close to Providence. Fooled again. I stopped at a Subway and got a meal deal ($8) pretty late in the day for me; around 7pm. By the time I finished and continued on, the dim light of early evening began to descend, and I began to keep an eye out for this night’s stealth camp, when *voila* - one showed up. At about 8:15pm, just as it was starting to get a bit dark, I saw a sign for a church on a side road off the main road, so I swung up a light uphill grade for about 40 yards, and found a slightly steeper and longer driveway up to a lovely empty parking lot, surrounded by trees. How do I do it? (N41 55.453’ W71 21.304’) I set up my still-wet tent in a mostly level parking space, and rigged everything for rain, because the sky still looked threatening. I was in bed by 8:45pm, and asleep by 9pm. As it turns out, it *did* rain during the wee hours. Kind of strange to have rain and yet still have such mild temperatures (upper 60s). I guess when I think about it, it’s better than rain and cold, so, no complaints, there. No fireflies this evening, though it might have been due to the inclement weather. There *were* mosquitoes, but none of ‘em got me (heh, heh!)