Shawangunk & the Catskills

Day 76, June 16, 2011, Shawangunk & the Catskills (cool names)

69.7 miles, averaging 14.2 mph

Route from Montague, NJ to Creek View Campground, Rosendale, NY

Best Moment – Certainly seeing the Catskill Mountains was a high point of the day.  The mountains are beautiful!  So is the country around them.

Worst Moment – I really didn’t like Bloomingburg, NY very much at all.  I was cruising at probably 30 mph downhill alongside the Shawangunk Kill, (That’s what the map says - I think it means river in NY.)  There was a nice shoulder, when all of the sudden there was a huge pothole that threw the front wheel, nearly making me lose control and fly over the guardrail into the Shawangunk Kill and I may have been.

Then I was supposed to turn on North Street.  Well from my direction the sign for North Street was completely obscured by foliage – the photo is from the opposite direction.  I thought that Bloomingburg might be able to redeem itself when I saw the sign for cupcakes – the place wasn’t open – I don’t even think that they were at the same location as the sign.  I think that the chamber of commerce needs to do a little bit of work here.

Somewhere around Port Jervis, I crossed into New York.  Another state!  Of course we will come back through New York after we’ve been in Maine, so I don’t know that I’m really in a New York state of mind, yet.  And we are in Massachusetts tomorrow!

New York seems to take its history more seriously than some of the other states that I’ve cycled through.  Shortly after leaving Port Jervis, there were several historic happenings, some Indian raids, others included first churches, or slave burial grounds.  The dates of the events go back to 1680’s.  Maybe it is appropriate to have all of the commemorative signs, and while I tried to catch what happened, I gave up on stopping at all of them. 

I was on the Shawangunk Wine Trail.  The scenery was beautiful and sort of reminded me of riding in Sonoma County.  It was hilly enough. Of course in California, you see a lot more vineyards and there are a lot more wineries. The countryside here was mostly pastureland and not grapes. I think that I only actually saw three wineries, and didn’t stop at any.

I saw this interesting paint job on the car and had to take a picture of it.

Some followers of my blog have indicated that I always need to post my link to the Lance Armstrong Foundation in case you are interested in contributing to Livestrong, to support those who’s lives are affected by cancer, here’s the link http://grassroots2011.livestrong.org/billsbigride197