General principles: begin and end at our Parker's house in Easton, NH.
Use paved back roads. Bike about 50 miles per day. Stay at reserved,
modest (if possible) accommodations. Phyllis is sag wagon. As Emerson
said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” so we are fully
capable of violating principles in the service of our expansive minds.
Join us or leave, us on your schedule.
Accommodations will be proposed in the next edition.
Day 1 - Wednesday, August 8, 2007:
Start at the Towle house at 836 Easton Valley Road Franconia, NH 03580
to East St. Johnsbury VT, Echo Ledge Farm Inn B&B: 51m. Rts. 116,
112, 302, 135, 5, E.Barnet to Lower Waterford, Rts.18, 2.
Day 1 Notes (Dave's mileage: 50.31mi):
Dave didn't want to know about the weather - whether it was bad, at least.
Started out in the rain, but cleared by the time we cornered at 112.
Lunch in Monroe town center in the triangle park under the flag pole.
The bridge was out, but the nice Post Office lady gave us water, sans white powder.
Passed the Mormon Home School crowd; mom with various aged identically haired curly kids.
Parker lost water bottle on bridge, Alayne rescued.
Several long patches of dirt road with McManions in-between: Swiss Chalet and Cape Codder.
Alayne came within inches of a yawning German Shepherd NOT-guard dog.
Passed white wife-beater Tshirted trash, white barking dog, white-tailed deer hide on saw horse...
Cornered at Rabbit Hill Inn near the Williams' house.
Kid sitting at the corner of his homestead jacking the internet from the Inn, probably for porn.
Day 2 - Thursday, August 9, 2007:
E. St. Johnsbury to Island Pond, Lakeside Camping (will need sleeping
bag): 31m. Mt. Pizgah-E.Lyndon Rd., N.Kirby-E.Burke Rd, Rts. 114, 105.
Day 2 Notes (Dave's mileage: 34.12mi):
BEST Breakfast EVER, EVER, EVER!
Cornmeal crusted apple fritter, maple syrup with pecans and raisins
baked in, bacon to die for, Jordan Marsh Bakery secret recipe muffins,
whole grain waffles and fruit straight from the cook's personal garden.
She shared that the Northeast Kingdom got its name from a speach that George Aikin gave.
There were pairs of names on each door of the B&B signifying family members married in the place.
Gride was out again, so she gave us directions through Lyndonville; more traffic, less backtracking.
Parker barrelled us boldly through town while Dave dinged his bell.
In Island Pond, while eating ice cream, met the Italian bike couple from REI - DeRosa and Colnago.
Dave with Raspberry cone, Alayne with Warwick-style shake: vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup.
Camping that evening near young French family with sparklers.
Loud train stopped nearby and later another rode on through.
Day 3 - Friday, August 10, 2007:
Island Pond to Errol NH, 150 Main Street Lodge: 51m Rts 105, 102, 26.
Day 3 Notes (Dave's mileage: 50.75mi):Dave is battery challenged on his bike computer.
Lovely ride up 102 along CT River.
Ride up Dixville Notch through 2 contstruction sites over the white toxic powder on road.
Lost water bottle.
Lunch at Howard's Restaurant in Colebrook; good split pea soup and clam chowder with bacon.
Met an Island Pond Native - glass half empty.
Govenrment planted trees, complained about taxes.
Red glowing toxic sludge on the road; Dave followed truck, Parker tried to avoid.
Saab convertible yelled at Parker.
5 "K" cars by an Aframe
Main Street Lodge with pile of horse poop in parking lot.
Very social horses with one wanting haunches petted by Alayne.
Alayne and Dave took a dip in the frigid Androskogin; Dave almost carried away.
Moose and calf in Androskogin; Dave cut trying to bushwack to them.
Delicious meal at Trader Restaurant - More like hunting lodge.
Day 4 - Saturday, August 11, 2007:
Errol to Gorham, Libby House B&B: 36m. Rts.16, 2.
Day 4 Notes (Dave's mileage: 36.24mi):
Lazy start, biker breakfast, bumpy road, lovely view of Androskogin.
A tour of Berlin; drive-by of Hospital.
Back to Dairy Bar for Milk Shake, BLT, Clam Roll and ice cream.
Dr George at Libby House.
Toast to Team Phyllis - Phyllis, Parker, Dave and Alayne.
Joined-up with Team Parker at Libby House and Motel.
Dan had been ready to leave at 7:00am from Easton.
Wireless Internet at Motel.
Steve and Elizabeth almost killed walking to dinner, Town and Country 300 feet ahead.
No Elizabeth on the ride, but happy to have her join the group.
Town and Country dinner.
Libby House is a historic monument, so no bikes inside.
Missy Johnson Story.
AT hikers were equated to the homeless.
Dead Porcupine, Great hardware store and toy store.
Day 5 - Sunday, August 12, 2007:
Gorham to Fryeberg ME, Peace With-Inn 43m. Rts. 2, 113.
Day 5 Notes (Dave's mileage: 30.90mi):
World's slowest McDonald's.
Liz came to help move us along.
Dave's mechanical issue kept him off the road from mile 4 to mile 12.
Tricky railroad tracks; Eliz crawled over.
First portion of 113 - most beautiful road to cycle on trip.
Saw Parker's tripple backflip spot and the Van-that-stuck is for sale for $300.
Parker fell at driveway of Peace With-Inn.
Elizabeth managed 2 meditation sessions on grass and at ice cream stop.
Little boy with 3 wheel bike.
Dave and Phyllis split bean burito in Littleton while spoke gets fixed.
Woman in fancy black car, "Are you O.K.?"
Sun salutations at our B&B - Miss Hate me now, thank me later.
Universalist Chapel.
Many ill feelings at and about the B&B we stayed in.
Passive agressive Innkeeper - Kathy threw Dad out for checking in early.
Mother cleaning railed at her son about a bit of dirt.
Kitchen is off limits.
Day 6 - Monday, August 13, 2007:
Fryeberg to Easton NH 63m. Rts. 113, 112,116. Can be ended in
N.Woodstock:47m (Clearly, the Kancamagus alone is a day in itself!).
Day 6 Notes (Dave's mileage: 66.27mi):
Team Parker left early.
Team Phyllis stayed for great Bfast.
Very tough day - long climb up Kankamangus.
Scenic ride up through Franconia Notch.
(need more notes from the teams...)
We welcome all family and friends within reason. Parker provided accommodations and lunches, you will share the dinners out.
Here is
Steve's Garmin Motion Based Log...
Better yet, here is Dad's (Parker Towle) poetic extrapolation of the trip. Please be forewarned, many of these poems are
Copyright © 2007 by Parker Towle, so don't copy...
TRI-STATE RUMBLE II
An Essay in Poems
Nine poems in my new book of poems,
This Weather Is No Womb (Copyright
© 2007),
were either written along or about sites we passed on our 270 mile
ride. Actually, the first one is an exception but fits in this
anthology for obvious reasons.
BIKING REMEMBERED
That first one had narrow tires. Dad held the seat.
Off I went down the maple-lined street.
The first breath of freedom drew into my mouth.
The next year we got the balloon tired Schwinn,
Wide handle bars and a Worcester Telegram
Route. Balance mastered, six mornings a week
I learned the meaning of dawn and cold, till
Vacation, the strain of hours uphill,
The exhilaration coasting down, the cramps
Of the long road and the rewards of gaining its end.
Endurance, sure, but the logbook of youth filled
After school on John’s Evening Gazette route:
A daily conversation of spinning sprockets,
Flying papers, shouts, and jousts, experiments
Of flight over curbs and mounds,
Down lawns, through trees and brush. The bikes
Rarely broke, even on full speed leaps
To overhead limbs or piles of fallen leaves.
We rode railroad beds, dirt roads and ditches.
We raced no hands, double, down steep mogulled
Lanes; chased girls and every lower animal
Species. Nothing held us back. Dust
And grass stains, grime and breathless glee shot us
Clear through those years until
Girls caught us unprepared, tore us unawares from
Our wheeled steeds. We ate the apple of the future,
Clicked into the numbered shackles of sport,
Opened books, kissed the girls and
Put away the bicycles, our cult of speed,
Went to work, married, had kids and
Bought them…skinny tired bikes.
Not 200 yards from our beginning (and end) at 836 Easton Valley Road we
crossed “Town Hall Bridge.” The difference was that it was summer
and not spring.
SPRING AT TOWN HALL BRIDGE
Where winter stream arrests in ice
Water forges now in sheets,
A pulsing foamer and molder that bites
And licks the top of the bank, teases
Away pine needles and pieces of leaf.
Tongues of mist in morning air
Wave over the hiss and roar;
A man stands perfectly bare
In the middle of the chilled flow,
His body a pale cast of snow.
As yellow buds at stream edge open,
Round walls of sound crash,
Sparkle and flutter; and the surge rolls,
Sweeps its arm's urged flesh
To the plow point in warming earth.
I have no locale poems for Day Two, an unfamiliar
Northeast Kingdom route. On Day Three we pedaled from Island Pond
to the Connecticut River. The section from Bloomfield to
Colebrook was familiar to me from many returns from a work day at the
Indian Stream Clinic in Colebrook driving down the Connecticut River on
the Vermont side. Often I would pull over, get out, and sit on
the bank. The next two poems were started in that setting and
location.
THREE AND TWO
He bothered no one,
sitting on a elm log
that said, "No
Trespassing" on a rusting
sideways sign.
Mosquitos zig-zagged
about his head in rhythm
to the hum of trucks
down Route 10 across
the bridge. His shadow
shot out twenty feet.
Blown ash leaves turned
a supernatural shine
in horizontal light.
He grew longer, even
as the light failed,
and he was gone. The dusk
spread west in broad
strokes, palming the river lows
and molding the hills.
It stroked him like
the late inning stopper rubs
a last new ball, fingers
the stitches of the mountain
ridge, and throws.
AUTUMN DUSK BESIDE THE RIVER
This shore of grass
and weed
browns in its
pale, long-limbed, brittle age,
the grain
delicate as
lace of finest unbleached
thread, flaxen, bowed down
to the warm
earth's loss. Under snow
these secret seeds will wait
to sing.
A joy will grumble up out of
the soil into pure
melody,
ring in the air, skip light
in the morning
sun.
Phyllis joined us at the bridge across the Connecticut River in
Colebrook. A couple years ago she and I took a day paddle down to
this point from West Stewartstown.
It was eventful.
PASSAGE BY CANOE
It could have been an elm skeleton
Eroded from a bank of the upper Connecticut,
Floating to this narrow turn ten feet deep
And swift, hung up by its limbs, like an iceberg
Mostly under water bisecting the flow, yet
Drawing it
to itself as
if
sucking water
From root tips to branching arms pointing
Downstream like a drowning man or a Bedouin
In quicksand, one hand visible, twitching,
Pleading for air.
In this near flood stage,
Late spring we were being lofted from beneath
More than ruddering the canoe. As we
Approached the tree, one of us said left
By the sandbar, the other, right
On the peripheral curve. Broadsided between
Two ideas, we were drawn up and
transfixed on the jutting limb. We tipped
Eccentrically and filled with raw snow melt.
“Swim to the sand bar,” I pleaded twice.
She launched off whooping in the frigid pour,
Thrashing sparks in the river bend. I
jockeyed the hull off the slimy limb,
Submarined it under another branch and
Eased its royal waterloggedness
To the sand bar farther down.
Paddles and pack unlashed, we stripped
To wring out and dry in a hazy sun, to
The distant grind of a tractor across
Floodplain fields of corn.
Cast off, we meandered by ducks
Diving in shallows, quarreling kingfishers,
The whir and sweep of swallows. In a wide
And gentle whirlpool miles down the river,
We dipped our paddles deep for the last time,
Swung to shore, two weathered
Salts in an old green canoe.
Twenty-five years ago Phyllis did an internship with me for her Masters
Psychology degree. She traveled with me on my itinerant north
country clinics. On this winter day we drove from a morning
clinic in Berlin to an afternoon clinic in Colebrook. On the
Rumble we drove this in the opposite direction on Days Three and Four.
WE TRAVEL NORTH
Berlin, New Hampshire, midwinter,
We drive the tight, pot-holed streets.
Smog that smells like cabbage rot
Rises from the pulp-encrusted mill
Across the frothy Androscoggin.
I grasp your hand. Above the mill
Log ramparts jut in the stream
Now black and cleaned; we follow north,
Wind along sways of the river,
Backwaters frozen tight.
Alertness grows. As the river thins
You snuggle in the low-blowing cloud,
Sun-edged, toward the long climb high
To Dixville Notch. Puffs of snow
Pulsate, billow, nudge our course.
Higher up we lurch, wild-eyed, climb
Higher--snow gusts swirl between
Black-faced cliffs, crystals flare --
We peak the brim, weightless, weak,
Then coast around the Balsam pool.
Our pace uncoils, releases down
New watershed. Chimney smoke
Wavers and dissipates above,
While below this arctic plain
Seeds of trees and water wait.
On the way to Berlin we viewed the Mahoosuc Range on
our left. The highest pointiest mountain was Old Speck.
Elizabeth camped at Speck Pond near the summit many years ago.
SPECK POND`S LIGHT
You, woman, my last born
sunning on a boulder,
yesterday were the pulse and swing
between Mahoosic and Fulling Mills cliffs.
As you spanned chasms, hand holds
on roots, the dark
rasped and gurgled.
Today, on a granite floor direct sun
flares our slab up to the basin pond
and lights your face as we
sit and talk on the brim.
Abruptly, a robber jay starts
to fret and ground squirrels
halt their scurrying. With a hum
a ruling hawk flutters in and lights
on a branch dangling close
to your boulder sun.
Last night that same sun
fired the full moon's rise
above the water. Candle lamp swinging,
we stumbled around shore on a stony
tightrope to the outlet of the pond,
an edge of earth.
After Evan’s Notch on Day Five we pedaled by the
Baldface Range on our right. Phyllis and I spent 4th of July
weekend traversing this range years ago.
A LONG BACK PACK
It was not so much the puzzle of the way
through logging slash, the stop and search,
heft pack and start again; nor the heat dripping,
nor you, really, in tears having started
a wrong direction into brambles and flood rubble;
our trail on the map had long dimmed
to moose and deer tracks. We were
slipping apart, today, on the Fourth of July
in America, alone, pressing into a valley
beyond chainsaw and firecracker, miles
from any other person. In late sun we
lay down together on a grassy clearing
beside a stream crossing.
Next day
on our long climb up the stream bed
onto the bald ridge we had barely gone
half-way by noon. A long traverse
and third peak lay ahead. By then
we weren’t lost but lagged. I felt
as if my face were sliding off,
the only thing that held me together
was the dirt and sweat of my body.
We raged against each other,
and ground behind the last mountain
into a deserted lean-to. Strain
slipped off with the packs. At the stream,
amazing, your naked body turned a waterfall
upside down. We lathered off grime
and soothed our scrapes. You --
made up your face. A stove roar under splash
of rain on the corrugated roof drifted us
toward sleep.
Next
morning we arose to mount
the last peak, a hope-draining stretch
over boulder, root and granite slab,
but beyond the summit we eased down pine needle
and gravel slope to the car and camp,
and embraced in a pond it seemed for hours
until three days heat drifted away
like a fragment of leaf.
On another late afternoon stop after a clinic in
North Conway I stopped along the edge of the Swift River on the
Kancamagus Highway and started this last poem thinking about Phyllis’s
mother, Betty Bartlett. This ends my tour with the book and the bike,
our Day Six on the Kancamagus.
DUSK, A STREAM, AND A WHITE OWL CIGAR
A purple crested duck
wallows in the bouldered rush. Now
it mounts a wet stone, peers
in the brush along the shore,
and launches off upstream, turns
and flies a determined line down
and gone. A deer will
soon appear to drink.
This coffee's cooling fast.
I'm a grandfather twice. I roll my
suitcoat collar up and button it.
Four springs ago this month
mother was dying. When she knew
father would be cared for, she perished.
I begin to shiver. Smoke
burns out my fingers. The pen jerks
in my hand. This swirl could be
the subway tube, a turnstyle,
but it's the Swift turned up full,
zagging in front of me, inches
from my numbing toes. I flick
ashes on the whirlpool bubbling mix
of a life, sanded down.
When did she realize she was
getting old, that she was not
the smooth rock but the stream
curving over it, when were too many
glistening tufts like silk
clouding the setting sun? Smoke spreads
over the damp motion of the waves,
swings, darts and dissolves away.
My stiffened fingers
burn on the stub. I fling it
in rippling sky, float out with one
perfect orange maple leaf. Not her, me.
Above poems are
Copyright © 2007 by Parker Towle
