#acaNoTier Ripton to East Thetford, 62 Miles | Well Hello Mr. Bear!

Riding Stats

Accommodations

Route Tracker

From Tom:

We woke up in our comfy bed and Deb says, we are taking the day off and staying in bed all day long. Of course Tom jumps out of bed and starts packing up his things 😁. We can smell the bacon cooking downstairs and the coffee brewing and Deb decides maybe I will go ahead and get out of bed 👍.

Tom got everything carried downstairs and went out to the shed to check on the bikes and fill up the tires for our mountain climbs today.

Chris the owner of the Inn, got our tasty breakfast prepared: fresh fruit with yogurt, eggs, bacon, toast with fresh blueberry jam. Others staying at the Inn started ambling down and great conversations continued from last night. Chris was a teenager when Ben and Jerry used to deliver their Ice Cream in the 70s. He described them as long haired, pot smoking kids and nobody would ever eat their Ice Cream in cold Vermont 😁. Too bad his family didn’t invest in the company back then.

We knew our ride began with a very steep 5 mile climb so we were delaying our departure. Once we left, it was fun, everyone at the Inn was standing outside, looking through windows and waving as Deb and I jumped on our bikes and headed off.

We conquered the Middlebury Gap and had a great chat with Long Trail hikers at the top. The next several miles were 12% grade downhill, which can be a little bit scary on curvy roads. We knew we had another climb later in the day, but for the next 30 miles or so we enjoyed the slight downhill and Vermont countryside riding through small villages along the way. We grabbed a nice picnic lunch in a gazebo along the road with leftover pizza from couple of nights ago and Vermont cheese/peanut butter and crackers. 10 miles to go with another climb and we were ready to go to our destination of “Rest and Nest” campground.

We just started the climb and 100 yards ahead a Black Bear comes running out of the woods and ambles right over the guardrail in front of us. We immediately stop our ride and Deb reaches into her bag and hands me the bear spray. Thankfully no more bear sightings 😁.

We are now sitting at our campsite chillaxing and getting ready to cook up dinner.

Hard to believe a week from now we will be driving home 😁