How to eat an elephant: on riding 90 miles in Vermont on a rainy long weekend in July*.

Posted on 07/04/2023 by Lesli W.

*Note: no elephants were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Desmond Tutu famously said that it is best to eat an elephant one bite at a time. Having spent a small amount of time in the presence of elephants and much of my life as a vegetarian, it is ill-advised (the food choice, not the lesson).

Several weeks ago, a friend and I started talking about distance cycling and bike-packing. He’s a long-haul kind of cyclist, where I am a weekend warrior, riding 5 or 10 miles, sometimes 20 or 30, depending on my mood. I’ve done a handful of 40+ mile (~64km) rides, but with no consistency or methodology. So when we started talking about the Cross-Vermont Trail, which had recently added a new bridge and some additional bike path sections, the ride sounded long but nice. It was more of a passing conversation and felt like more of an aspiration to me.

Somehow, the conversations turned into reality, then gear accretion. So now I was the proud owner of panniers and a new light set (add, later, fenders and additional rain gear!). And if you have the equipment, well, you’ve got to use it…

The Cross-Vermont Trail is a self-described “patchwork quilt”: ~90 miles (~145km) in 12 stages of trail and road, stitched together to traverse Vermont and follow the Wells and Winooski rivers from the town of Wells River to the banks of Lake Champlain in Burlington. It goes along gravel roads and wooded fire roads, country lanes, scenic bike paths and (where absolutely necessary) routes 2 and 302. Click here to see the route in its entirety.

4^th of July weekend seemed to be a good opportunity to take a stab at it. In my head, we’d do it in cozy legs: 30 miles a day, see some pretty covered bridges, eat some ice cream, do a little antiquing and town-wandering in between the segments. The plan evolved to riding it in 2 legs, bisecting the journey in Montpelier (note: pronounced “mont-peel-ier” to my non-native New England dismay and discomfort).

Reality: more legs than ice cream. Add in the gods of inopportune monsoons piling their own thoughts onto the subject.

So we ended up riding the first half (~40 miles or so) on day 1, somehow dodging the showers that were forecast; even seeing some much-appreciated breaks of sun. The ride was mostly pleasant: pine and gravel fire roads through old rail trail sections, manageable hills, nice river views, and few people about. Okay, there was the very stupid wipeout after I lost traction on a washed out sandy patch (a mere flesh wound…). And there was the sketchy stretch of route 2 in Marshfield or Plainfield with fast traffic, a surface that had been graded for repaving, and tight, gravelly shoulders which made for a nerve-wracking 10 or so miles (especially after one big truck with a trailer made a WAY too-close-for-comfort pass).

Perseverance pays off, though. Entering the charming city of Montpelier proper via their carefully-manicured bike path, wending across old railbeds, then riding squarely through the center of town, made the band-aided knee and those scary asphalt memories melt in moments!

Between the lingering haze from the Canadian forest fires, the heavy clouds, and what felt like 900% humidity, that night the air felt impending. Impending What was the question. We didn’t want to find out, so made the decision to wait out the rain, spend an extra night here, and play tourist for a day in Montpelier (mont-peel-ier).

Montpelier was quiet. Eerily quiet, in fact. We had passed the Barr Hill distillery on the way in, lending itself to ideas, as did the post-ride bees knees cocktails. So to dodge raindrops, we wandered around the city, visited Barr Hill for history and honey gin (their story is worth a visit on its own), and took in a weird matinee (Asteroid City) at the adorable Savoy theatre (their real buttered popcorn is also worth the visit!). I can’t imagine a better way to spend a rest day.

The ride: Day 2

When the early morning wake-up call featured light showers, I was worried that the day might be a washout that would see us pedaling for 11 hours in the rain. But somehow we again dodged the worst, and by 7:30 the streets were drying and the showers stayed at bay.

I don’t know which leg of the ride I enjoyed more. The 2^nd half was more road than trail, but the roads were dirt or gravel and transported us through farms and quaint neighbourhoods, over wooden bridges and along the Winooski river. In some spots the hills won, and my pride hurt more than my legs. Climbs aside, the ride – roughly 50 miles of it – was rewarding and inspiring in so many ways. I’m grateful to the weather for cooperating. I’m grateful to my riding partner for being patient and supportive and funny. I’m thankful for the CVT association for building such a nice trail network. We encountered smiling cyclists and courteous locals throughout the day, even a trio from Canada who were on day 9 of a huge loop through Vermont and Mass.

There’s always an elephant. Take small bites…

The bites: I spent the 2 weeks prior to the trip dodging raindrops at home, stealing short rides when possible, and pounding on a trainer in my living room after work (saddle-time, as it were). I took what was in front of me on each leg of the ride and tackled each section of the ride: the rolling hills and gravelly and slippery parts, even the hardest climbs, one by one… It wasn’t the longest ride ever, or the most difficult, but when we finished with a quick view of Lake Champlain and were met (us sweaty and probably a little stinky), by a smiling chatty driver who piled the bikes in the rear of the van and shuttled us back to the car in Wells River, it all felt just a little bit perfect.

The skies opened up during the car ride back, and I thought, as we watched a bear run across the highway and the postcard-esque New England scenes flash by: I feel good. I’d like to do this again.

Isn’t it ploverly?

Posted on 06/27/2023 by Lesli W.

Last summer, I signed up to volunteer at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Each year, the endangered piping plover comes back to the shores of the Atlantic to nest and breed. Currently, it’s thought that there are only roughly 8,000 remaining. In. The. World. So it’s significant that nearly 25% of those come back to my home state to nest.

Papa piping plover, checking me out as he forages for lunch

Parker River each year runs a Plover Warden program to help protect their nesting grounds. Largely, we are the hall monitors of the beach, reminding beachgoers (despite the GINORMOUS signs) that the beach is closed. The 6-mile stretch of pristine beach with its protected dunes is perfect nesting grounds, hence the beach is closed from the beginning of April each year through early August (even through greenhead season!), or when the last of the fledglings go. Only 1 of 4 eggs make it from nest to flight. In short, it’s our job to help them get there.

My first encounter on my first day last year included a pair of entitled locals and their dog who were indignant that they were not allowed to walk down the pristine beach. But you can’t even see the nests, local Karen said. Ken piped in and asked when the wardens’ hours were. Hand on my walkie-talkie, I persuaded them to cooperate, and they finally relented. It is Federal land after all. Nor are dogs allowed.

The guy with the drone was nicer, but still confused as to why endangered birds, whose primary predators come from the sky, would feel ruffled by an ominous robotic sky creature humming around and spying on them from the blue.

This year’s encounters have been more tame. In my official volunteer t-shirt and fluorescent hat, I’ve been able to ward off most would-be violators just by being a tad obvious, and most people I’ve encountered are genuinely curious – some even passionate – about the birds. Not so much the obnoxious college kids camped out in pop-up tents just beyond the (again GINORMOUS) signs, feigning ignorance when nabbed by the plover police, “we thought nobody was checking.”

So far, we have about 33 nesting pairs, with 16 or so active nests after some storms and predators took out a swath of nests. This weekend, the refuge noted that some hatchlings have emerged. Over the next weeks we’ll expect the little fuzzits to begin scooting around the beach. This little guy is from one of last year’s broods that, sadly, didn’t make it after a spate of coyote binges.

So if you encounter a sign, a volunteer, or even just a plover… please tread lightly, as nests are camouflaged and the little ones need as much help as possible. No kites, no dogs, no bikes, no feet… just for a few more weeks to give these guys a fighting chance at fledging!

Zoom in… can you spot the plover sitting on its nest in this photo?

Watch this space. I’m hoping to get some plover-ific pics as the little ones emerge.

On whales, sunsets, out-of-town visitors and other random dribbles…

Posted on 07/28/2019 by Lesli W.

I’m in something of a travel drought: work has been madness and springtime plans got thwarted by a combination of bad timing and worse inertia. So it’s been a summer of routine routines to discharge the static in the overloaded head.

Enter: sunsets. I bought a fancy new lens a few months back, and took a personal oath to get better at low-light photography. I still should take a class or find a mentor or something. In the meantime, I’m dabbling…

Wearing a camera: I read somewhere a while back that to improve one’s photography, you should put your camera on each day, wear it so it becomes like an article of clothing. So I’m probably that freak marching around town with dog leash in one hand and a camera slung across my body, stalking sunrises, ocean fog, evening light and the egrets that hang around the docks. Some of my recent favourites, in no particular order:

Whirlwind guests: And my first visitors of the summer came a week or so ago, my co-adventuring Calvin brought his adventurers-in-training to my part of the world at the start of their whirlwind tour of the Northeast. We made the most of a brilliant summer weekend: Salem Willows arcade, an authentic New England clam shack experience at Woodman’s, swimming and SUP-ing right here in Bev, and topped it off with a diner brekkie at Cape Ann’s best-kept secret and a whale watch out of Gloucester!

We had the luck of watching local humpback, Dross, lunge feeding for the better part of an hour. In some of these frames, you can see the sardines escaping from her massive mouth, the gulls at the ready for any fish she’s missed. Also seen this day: a few minke whales and an elusive ocean sunfish (on my hit list for diving, but never expected to see one in the North Atlantic)!

My next summer visitor comes in a week or so, and I wonder if it’s cheating to repeat the same classic New England summer rituals? I take for granted that these things are in my backyard, never going on these excursions except when visitors are here, but feel grateful every day to live in a place that people from out of town come for holiday.

I’m writing this not-really-a-travel-post post, in part, to appease that feeling of restlessness crawling in my bones, as the sparks of the next grand adventure take form. I’m writing to practice the artform because I’m feeling rusty. I’m writing because I still wonder quite often if I’m meant to stay in one place, and whether some inner Gypsy isn’t being squelched by this traditional concept of home; whether home is a feeling or if it’s a social construct, fabricated to display tangible wealth. And of course it is both, since the universe as it meets the human condition is this deeply-layered paradox.

So, stay tuned to this space. Even I don’t know for sure what will appear next… but there’s a nagging urge to swim with big animals, and see island-nations that have their own ecosystems, and see rock formations where, for thousands of years, people have built villages into the stone, and animals whose ancestors once existed on this continent, and structures far older than this country’s years.

On wings and sunlight, harbingers of spring

Posted on 03/14/2018 by Lesli W.

I’ll parrot an Instagram post I made today…

After a blizzardy day, the sun decided to make itself known again. This photo says something aspirational to me. Maybe it’s the light, tap-dancing on the storm’s receding waves. Maybe it’s the idea of flight; the allure of escaping, by wing, to warmer climes. The touch of warm sun on cool earth, like spring’s teasing foreplay, as dormant life finds new purchase and scrabbles for its footing amidst a slippery, snow-covered terra (not-so) firma. Or it’s just seagulls, doing what they do.

These cold days, as winter winds down and attempts its last hurrah, I’m drawn to the sea and to watching the birds: the real harbingers of springtime; nests built in a race against the seasonal clock, their spirits (and their birdsong) warming the skies with the slowly-warming days. Today I named seagull moods (despite a dear friend’s observation that maybe this hibernating mermaid needs more hooman interaction):

Hangry

Pensive

Curious

Sultry

Righteous

A blizzard this week, and who knows what the rest of March will bring (of late, it seems to come in like a lion and go out like a pissed-off yeti rather than lamb), it will be weeks before we feel true warmth here in New England. Until then, I’ll watch and wait, planning the next tropical adventure, a continuation of Year of Africa and a land-locked mermaid’s dream; my own spirits warming with the increasing daylight.

Countering my own Earth Day rant

Posted on 04/22/2017 by Lesli W.

It’s Earth Day, 2017. This morning, I felt like writing a rant about the things we’ve done to fuck up this beloved planet of ours, and to complain about the egomaniacal, thing-filled greed that fuels the raping and pillaging of Planet Earth and the butchering of its wild animals, the slow execution of our reef systems, and the rampant willful ignorance that paralyses a government from acting to save ourselves from ourselves.

This will continue for as long as corporations keep the heroin needle of constant consumption in our arms, necessitating individually wrapped everything; ubiquitous use of convenient, single-use plastic bottles and wrappers and bags and cups; easy, convenient, processed consumables, disguised as food, laced with deforesting palm oil; absurdly low gas prices, “disposable” electronics, a government-subsidized diabetes epidemic, funded in part by a corn syrup industry and a PAC-funded government denial of the merits of real food. Corporate pockets will get deeper in direct correlation with the width of our waistlines; they will grow richer in inverse proportion to the level of natural resources remaining; they will get more resolute and change their doublespeak as our majestic wildlife, our tropical fauna, dwindles and fades into mere memory… paradise paved to put up a parking lot (or office park or housing tract), as it were; they will point fingers as coral reefs bleach, then die, and watch as the base of our planet’s ecosystem fails in an ignorant dismissal of science at all costs.

I wanted to rant about all this, but then got sidetracked by a quest for beauty this afternoon. A self-posed question of what I love about Planet Earth. What have I seen that has taken my breath away? If the only will or want I can control is my own: what can I share that might change someone else’s?

So on this Earth Day, I share some photos of the things on Planet Earth I’ve seen in my near half-century, as ocean temperatures rise and carbon levels increase and sugar-induced disease becomes endemic; these are the things that give me pause every day to stop and appreciate the Wonder that is inherent in this magnificent ball of rock that we inhabit, for as long as she will have us.

Happy Earth Day 2017.