A ball busting day

Left at 8:03 from Betsy’s house in Canterbury.  Betsy worries about just about everything and fears for my safety and her son Evan’s also.  So typically American, scared of everything, scared of getting out there and giving it all you got.  8.8 miles north on route 163 up hill to Brooklyn, Ct.  where I rendezvoused with Evan.  After thirty miles the day before from New London, it was a good warm up for what was to follow. Evan got his bike equipped reasonably well for his first long distance ride.  Too much weight in the rear with his bags mounted on a lousy rack.  With his bike light in the front and wobbly in the rear we headed off.  Once on route 101, the hills began and seemed to never end.  Trial by fire for Evan and not much fun for me.  We reach the high point of the trip in Rhode Island at 815 feet.  Once on route 102, the ride flattened out but once google sent us onto numerous back roads  the short but steep hills beat on us.  With six miles to go before reaching Hopkinton, Massachusetts, the skies opened up.  Waiting it out helped but not before we were both soaked upon arrival at our warmshowers host.  Matt and Carrie cordoned off an area downstairs on the side of their house.  They feed us both dinner and breakfast from a distance.   Like me, they don’t like turning away bikers on the road.  They taped up sheets and kept their distance.  My attempts to secure other warmshowers places to stay for next few days failed because the hosts do not want to take the risk given their living arrangements.  Tomorrow there is an 80% chance of rain so we will need to get an early start.