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August 31, 2008
Cycling from Cardiff to London (via Amsterdam) for the Kids
I am, once again, doing a mad cycle ride. This is the biggest one yet. I’ll be starting in Wales, cycling coast to coast across England, popping across the North Sea and then riding for another two days across Holland to reach Amsterdam. I plan to hang out there for a couple of days, take a deep breath (hopefully of air not too laden with THC), and then sprint pell-mell for London.
Did you notice the phrase “coast to coast” up there? This is not an exaggeration. We start in Cardiff on the Bristol Channel. This is so much the Western Coast of England that it’s actually in a completely different nation. Then we head East across the entire nation of England until we run out of land and smack into the North Sea. The plan is to do this section of the trip in just three days.
The only Canadian equivalent would be starting in Hyder, Alaska and cycling until you hit Halifax. So, in a way, it’s as if we were travelling 6,742km over three days! Assuming we didn’t have to stop to sleep or take pictures of enormous easter eggs, we would have to maintain an average speed of more than 187kilometers per hour in order to be able to accomplish this superhuman feat.
It doesn’t stop there, though. We then have to cross the North Sea. Keep in mind that no one has ever successfully accomplished this on a bicycle.
And then there is the Netherlands… This is a country that by all rights should be under the unrelenting suffocation of the sea. At any moment, the dykes could fail and we could all drown. Not to mention the threat from windmills, which are, effectively, gigantic cuisinarts. And the cheese! My God, People! The country is awash in cheese and tulips. To be honest, I’m not sure what the danger is here, but isn’t that the point? Who knows what dangers await in this land of curds and petals?
So, assuming I make it to Amsterdam, which, as we all know, is a city filled with dopers, prostitutes, and museums, I then have to find my way home. The plan is to take five days to get there at, as I have mathematically proven above, 187 kilometers per hour. However, the timetable to return gives us only two days. Again, using almost irrefutable mathematics, this would mean I would have to cycle at more than 280 kilometers per hour. To put this in perspective, this is the top speed of a BMW M5. Let's see Clarkson top that with any of his infernal combustioney toys.
Surely, all this means that you should take out your VISA card and donate a few quid at http://www.justgiving.com/ibcbikeride/.
You can also follow our progress and our preparations at http://www.ibcbikeride.co.uk/.
Posted by YandaMan at 7:01 PM | Comments (0)
August 6, 2008
House of 1833
More pics of the House of 1833
My new favourite place in the world is a B&B called The House of 1833 in Mystic, Connecticut. Mystic is almost directly north of the eastern tip of Long Island. From New York City, you can either drive along the mainland, or go directly east until you run out of Long Island, and then catch a ferry across to Connecticut. We decided on the latter.
We left Manhattan about 11:30am on a Friday. It took us half an hour just to get from the rental agency on 31st and 7th to the midtown tunnel, and another two and a half hours to get to the far end of the Long Island. We stopped at the town of Greenport, just fifteen minutes short of the ferry terminal at Orient Point. I’d made a reservation for the 4:00pm sailing so we had plenty of time for a late lunch at a place called Claudio’s on the Greenport marina. The crossing to New London took about an hour and twenty minutes and was fueled, on our part at least, by gooey chocolate chip cookies. From there it was another twenty minutes to the House of 1833 about 3 miles north of Mystic proper.
At the B&B the next morning we talked to a couple who had left New York about the same time we had. They took the interstate along the mainland and it took them about the same amount of time it took us, mainly because of traffic. I suspect we had a more enjoyable trip.
The hosts of 1833 are Robert and Evan. Evan is a charming, talkative man who greeted us with sherry and fresh-baked cookies, then took us on a tour of the house. It is one of those B&B’s that is jam-packed with Stuff. Evan told us about much of the Stuff. I remember being entertained at the time but none of it stuck in my head, which, come to think of it, is how much of my schooling went as a child.
One thing I do remember him telling us about is the Jacuzzi in our room. “It’s the largest rectangular one they make,” he said. “And it has a two and a half horsepower motor for the jets and another one and a half horsepower motor just to keep the water at an even temperature.”
“Fantastic!” I said. “Do you mind if we take it downstairs and take it for a spin around the pool?”
“I absolutely insist,” he said. “The Jacuzzi is there to use as you wish. But you may want to try out our sea-monster instead. It’s already down there and much lighter to carry around. We’ve also got a turtle and a giant lobster.”
After we checked in we made a bee-line for the pool and, sure enough, found a sea monster, a turtle, and a giant lobster stacked in a pile. These were inflatable toys big enough for us to ride around on in the pool. Vicki and I had a couple of races. Two lengths of the pool astride the plastic sea creature of our choice. I won the first race. She won the second.
That evening we went for dinner at the Captain Daniel Packer Inn in Mystic. Robert and Evan happened to be going into town and they kindly offered to give us a ride. The car was very comfortable, perhaps because the backseat was carpeted in a thick layer of dog hair.
The restaurant had a warm friendly feel. Shortly after sitting down I was hit in the foot with a chunk of lobster shell. This served as an introduction to our neighbours at the next table. However, I don’t think this is a traditional means of breaking the ice in Mystic. Later in the evening I eavesdropped on a couple of silver-haired gentleman intent on hooking up with a table of four foxy ladies born only a decade or two later than they were. If the lobster ploy had been a common one, I feel sure they would have used it. Instead, they employed the time-honoured technique of leaning on the ladies’ table and making shouted small talk until a waiter asked them to return to their seats.
Once there, they had a few dozen more drinks and plotted their next move. One typical chat-up line they rehearsed was “Would you like to get dinked in a dingy?”
The next morning we experienced another great aspect of the House of 1833 – the breakfast. We started with peach cobbler and slices of melon followed by a choice of two quiches: a Mexican quiche and a spinach and cheese quiche served with delicious home fries. Robert made the quiches with rice flour as one of the guests was gluten-intolerant. I had a bit of both and then another bit of both and then some more home fries. It was perhaps the best B&B breakfast I’ve ever had.
What else? It had free WiFi, and there was a little mini fridge by the kitchen with complementary bottles of water and cans of pop for the guests. Monopoly and Scrabble and other games were available in the lounge. There is a tennis court. And the town of Mystic and surrounding area promised many cool attractions which we didn’t get a chance to indulge in. There is apparently a beautiful Victorian music hall in nearby East Haddam which specializes in American musicals. Both Man a la Mancha and Annie premiered here.
But the main attraction was the warm, welcoming attitude of Evan and Robert. I truly felt they had welcomed us as friends.
Posted by YandaMan at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)