Fair Haven, Vermont

 

It’s been one idyllic campsite in the forest after another this past week, though none more Idyllic than two nights ago in the heart of the Adirondacks in a veritable wilderness.  Though the vast park contains quite a few towns and villages containing 132,000 residents, including the town of Lake George with a couple dozen motels including one with a marquee of “Stay Here, Hike There,” there are vast patches of nothing but trees and lakes and rivers.  There are some ten thousand lakes and over thirty thousand miles of rivers and streams.  I could have been in the UP or northern Minnesota or Wisconsin, except this at times felt even more isolated.

For better than three hours I had a twenty mile stretch on a dirt road virtually to myself.  It was slow going, as the road was mostly climbing and descending.  I didn’t climb much over two thousand feet though there were four thousand foot peaks here and there, forty-six in all scattered about the park. Climb all of them and one can claim memberships in the 46ers.   Colorado has a similar clan for those who climb all fifty-eight of its fourteen thousand foot peaks, known as the 14ers.

Signs of “hidden driveways” warned of pockets of habitations.  And “no trespassing signs” gave indication of private holdings.  Carved bears were a common site as well, as bears are among the fifty-three species of mammals in the park along with moose and coyotes and bobcats.  All I encountered were deer and the occasional carcass of a possum.

My best roadside find through the park, and of my first week on the road, was a heavy-duty vest that may come in handy in the days to come.  I begin every day with the thought “What am I going to find today?” as the road invariably offers up something.  Much of what I find I disperse, such as golf balls and tools and bungee chords.  I was able to leave two golf balls on the lost-and-found table of a library.

I’d been hoping for a license plate to add to my collection of close to half of the states and several countries.  I’d been shutout three years ago when I biked some four hundred miles in the western end of New York.  And I had no better luck this time.  I thought I was certain to find one when I saw a trailer along the road with an array of plates, a sure-fire promise of one ahead. But no.  I’ll just hope to find one in the days to come as I cross Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine on my way to Nova Scotia, as I often find plates from states other than the state I’m biking in.

No neckerchiefs yet either, though I’ve certainly no need.  My biggest bounty has been quarters, five of them in eight days.  Usually I’m lucky to find one a week.  Could be another indication of inflation—quarters are no longer worth the bother to stoop to pick up.  Two of the five came at a McDonald’s pay-window, truly indicating that a customer couldn’t be bothered to open their car door and reach down for a botched handover of change.  I usually just spot pennies and an occasional nickel or dime at fast food pay-windows.  Quarters are a significant step up and reflection of these times where wealth is measured now in billions rather than millions.

What could have been my greatest find along the road was a bicycle leaning against a post with a sign of “Free.”  It was a high quality Jamis.  It is a sad, sad reflection on these times that it wasn’t immediately grabbed.   But no great surprise as I’ve seen more stray quarters on the ground than people on bikes.  I can count just four—two young boys on BMX bikes carrying fishing poles and two separate teens in the large town of Watertown.  People just can’t give up their cars as they continue to commit ecocide.

Though my campsites have generally been far enough from the road to be undisturbed by traffic, I was awoken one morning by the hurried clopping of hooves of a horse in a region where signs warned of horse-drawn carriages.  I had an even odder wake-up when I camped across the road from Fort Drum—a bugler sounding reveille.

I’ve had deer rustling near my tent on several occasions and have been on alert for otherworldly beings, since it was north of the Finger Lakes that the angel Moroni communed with Joseph Smith.  I actually passed a church with a message board reading “There are angels among us.” I thought it might be Mormon, but it was of another denomination.  It did remind me to be on alert.

I see ghosts here and there among all the Halloween decorations, though the vast majority feature skeletons, some gigantic and others just heaps of bones.

October is certainly the time of pumpkins and skeletons.  Some people put quite a bit of effort into their decorations.  They are more entertaining than those of Christmas.

It’s always nice to cross into another state, so I could feel all the excitement and anticipation of Vermont from fifty miles away.  The border wasn’t a waterway or mountain ridge.  It came just before Fair Haven, where the first of the state’s five Carnegies awaited me.  

With its front door boarded up I feared it might be closed down, but it was just to ensure patrons entered in the addition to the back.  It shared a parking lot with a Dollar General.  I can’t report on its interior as its limited hours didn’t include any on Thursdays.  I was forced to go to a McDonald’s a mile away for the internet.  It was the first of these travels where someone stopped by for a chat, not unexpected as the first billboard I came upon in Vermont advertised a service station saying “Gas stations are friendly in Vermont too.”