McDonalds - All Coaches Welcome

Listening to: Eels, Love of the Loveless

Well, it’s been a little while since my last post, mainly because not very much happened in New York and I’ve been taking advantage of the motels I’ve stayed in and rested.

New York from Empire State Building

In New York I was hoping to meet and stay with me friend from uni, Chelsey. However, she managed to fall off a pavement and required surgery to fix her collar bone. With my guide gone I was left to my own devices and spent most my time wandering the length of Manhattan. For the first time I held a human brain at the Bodies exhibition that I stumbled across trying to make my way towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Also for the first time, I saw a rotund kid in a onesie playing baseball. If you wish to get noticed in New York though, head over to New Look where you can get a Superman hoodie for £20. Makes a change to have cabbies stop you to take a photo, compared to the usual “look Mommy, it’s Superman!”.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed my injury count go up. Nothing serious, and expected. At some point I smacked my peddle into the back of me leg to give me a cut and a bruise. I wasn’t going to include this in the injury count, but it made things a bit painful walking the length of Manhattan.

Hudson River from Tallman Mountain Park, NY

Leaving New York, the plan was simple: head north, go over the bridge, head east at Yonkers and follow the coast up to Connecticut. The reality was somewhat different. The heading north bit went without a hitch. Saw a bike lane heading over a bridge and thought ‘yeah, looks good’. A couple of hours later at the edge of some park I found out that I was on the wrong side of the Hudson river with no crossing for many more miles. Was a beautiful place though, even if there was Lycra everywhere (some race on apparently). Continued north following a bike route (NY bike route 9) and making the odd detour though State Parks. From these detours we can add to the wildlife I’ve seen, and none of it roadkill this time. I saw some deer, a chipmunk and some wild turkey. Eventually ended up in Bear Mountain Park. The Bear Mountain Inn had rooms starting at something stupid, so bugger that, I went off to the Econolodge and even haggled a cheaper rate out of them.

Bear Mountain Park, NY

From Highland Falls I headed over the Bear Mountain Bridge. The hill on the other side was relentless, but if you’re driving I can recommend that road (Route 6 and 202) – amazing scenery and fun to drive. Found a bike trail that took us into Brewster and eventually crept over into Connecticut to stay the evening in Danbury. Not much going on in Danbury, but I got an alright and much needed curry at least.

Connecticut Science Center, Hartford CT

Connecticut is New England proper and there were more and more British place names that I’ve passed through: Plymouth, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, Bolton, Glastonbury and of course the State capital Hartford (named after Hertford). In Hartford I stayed in the cheapest motel yet, in the dodgiest part of town yet. Walking back towards Downtown I was talking to a guy who started the conversation at 11am with “Hey man, you got a blunt?”. Lunch at a brewery café with a beer complete with orange slices. I’m sure this had no impact on my enjoyment of the Connecticut ScienceCenter, but it was amazing! Maybe even amazing enough to contend with the Newseum for favourite museum. A little child orientated, but still, stuff to press and touch and play with and twist and turn and watch everywhere. I raced a robot in creating a pattern with different shaped blocks (I lost miserably), I flew across the surface of Mars, I endured 80 mph winds (or so it said. It did dry my hair nicely though), I played with harmonics (no Carl, I still don’t understand anything about vibe) and I dropped a weight onto a dummy’s head to look at the impact of collisions comparing different safety gear (I chose the scrum cap – that dummy definitely died).

Tony - My host in Hartford CT

After the Science Center I met up with a guy from warmshowers who agreed to host me for a night. Tony was a great host. He cooked some food for us, found us a decent bar for a pint, gave us a bed for the evening and then gave me directions to get to my next town following the Hop bike trail, part of the East Coast Greenway.

So, I’m currently in Willamantic. I spent hours wandering around Eastern Connecticut State University asking the students if they had a spare couch, and got a couple of promising leads. Nothing came from it though, and I'm back in a motel.