Connecticut and Colchester

 

After our adventures at Jim Thorpe, we left Pennsylvania for Connecticut via New York City.  We crossed over the Hudson on the George Washington Bridge, a bridge I have crossed on my bike during the two "Escape NYC" rides I rode before Covid.

Later in the day, we arrived at the Nelson Family Campground at a lovely spot next to their lake in East Hampton, CT.

The next morning we rode the AirLine State park trail, with the first stop being at the Chandlers Ice Cream shop a short ways from our campground.  Fortunately, we arrived before the store opened and were saved from an early energy rush.  When we returned from our ride later in the day, they were open, and we enhanced our recovery from our ride.  :>)

At the start of our ride, a cranberry bog supported many lily pads at this time of year.  Soon we are riding through the "Bishop's Cut," where the rocks were most difficult to cut during railroad installation being over 200 million years old, some of the oldest rocks to be at the surface of the earth in this area.

A short distance from the Airline Trail, we toured the Comstock Covered bridge over the Salmon River, one of several covered bridges in Connecticut.  Originally built in 1873, it has been rebuilt several times.  Today it appears very sturdy and is a walking/bike riding bridge only.

I had no idea Connecticut had so many bogs and swamps.  The birds and frogs created quite a chorus.

I can't remember what tree this is...perhaps some flavor of Dogwood?  :>)

We took the road less traveled to Colchester for lunch at the Red Rose Cafe.  

Sandy went to high school in the adjacent town of Portland, CT, and spent the day with a high school friend.  Kim, a resident near the Comstock bridge, rode up and guided us to a mural painted by residents of a senior center.

Kim is in the picture while another rider attempts to speed by when she could see I was setting up for a  picture.  Too late.....she is pixelated!  One of the woman seniors (who painted herself as the woman engineer) designed this mural and sketched it out on the side of this building.  Using a "paint by numbers" technique, the rest of the seniors painted the mural.

I attempted to capture the whole mural in Panoramic mode is but this mural is huge!  Two of our bikes are against the building and are tiny compared to the size of the mural.

Kim rode with us most of the way back to East Hampton.  She is a local ride leader, very familiar with all the trails in this area, and educated us on the many flowers blossoming on our way back.  It was great fun meeting and talking with her.

Here is a lady slipper, and I can't remember the name of the flower below.

As we passed the cranberry bog coming back into town, a family of geese was having an outing.

I could not resist the iconic picture of a New England church as we sped to Chandlers for our recovery ice cream.   This is the Congressional Church in East Hampton.