bridging the gap

Delaware is another rural area with plenty of farmland, woodland, and small villages. We're heading north west across the state towards the bridge that will take us to Maryland.  After another cold day we seek shelter in woods to camp, hoping the trees will help keep the frost off the tent.  Our plan at the bridge is to try and thumb a ride.  Bicyles are not allowed.  A bike path gets us to the bridge approach and a McDonald's is a warm refuge for lunch.  The only problem is the highway here has no pull-ins.  So we resort to hanging on the edge of a side road and try to thumb a ride from pickups pulling onto the highway.  We get nowhere fast.  We move over to a petrol station.  Nada.  Back to the McDonald's car park.  A man asks us where we're heading.  Unconciously we track him back to his vehicle, a pickup.  We hurry over and Gayle pops the question.  But no, he's just come over the bridge on his way home.  Dejected we head back to our original point only for the man to wave us back over.  Yes, he'll take us. No, he'll not accept any money.  Fantastic.  The bridge is a narrow fast double carriageway. He drops us at the first exit.  Thank you kindly.

In Annapolis we're hosted by the lovely Cindy.  She has a couple of gigantic dogs.  Like many of the Warm Showers hosts we've stayed with in the States, one of the dogs has been rescued.  This one growls at me and Cindy explains that it is frightened by tall men.  When I sit on the floor the dog relaxes.  I don't.  We have a good natter over a filling meal and sleep snugly.  Cindy suggests we might want to use the train to get across the city the next day.  We are heading to our friends out near Reston, on the other side of Washington D.C.  The train obviates the need for navigating a route avoiding all the big highways and turns out to be perfect.  After an hour's ride we reach the most easterly station on the network and the train we take crosses through the city and out the other side.  Bingo.  From Reston it's an uphill ride through a shopping area and out into woodland where the houses become sparser.  And here is Kamran and Emma's house.

Only Kamran and Emma are on holiday with their daughters Hannah and Olivia.  We have easy instructions how to get into the house and the neighbours have been warned about our arrival.   While our hosts are having a belated family holiday which they missed out on in the summer, we settle in to their home with helpful instructions from Emma and the offer to use either of the cars in the garage.  We take a look at the Merc and the BMW and decide to stick to the bikes.  Now, how do we get the cover off the hot tub?

wonderful warm showers in New Joisey

the southern tip of Manhattan Island

The snow in New York put the frighteners on us. How cold will it be by the time we reach our friends near Washington DC just before Christmas?  We have already realised what a strong community Warm Showers is in the US, but is it in the spirit of cycle touring to just jump from one host to another?  Ideally we would not stay just for one night - on the ride to Long Island we met really good hosts and it didn't feel right moving on again the next day.  Perhaps this is a hangover of our Couch Surfiing experiences.  Oh well, it's bloody cold.  What's the harm in asking - people can always say no.

Happily Dave said yes, even though his house on the New Jersey shore is really just a summer vacation home.  So, he won't be there to host us, and there's no running water, but he welcomes us to stay and tells us where the key is hidden. Wow.  Oh, just about the toilet. By all means pee in the garden, but anything more substantial can you use the supermarket toilets in the town centre?  It's an easy flat ride along the shore once we step off the very convenient ferry from Manhattan.  We can't see the sea or the beach most of the time - the shore line is built up with what looks like holiday homes and on the other side of the road is a sort of lagoon with more holiday homes.  And as it's December the place feels almost deserted.  When we reach Dave's little cul-de-sac we struggle to identify the house at first and wonder about just rummaging around someone's property. Try explaining that to the police.  Well, officer, we were just looking for the key to the house.  No, no, we don't know the owner. No, we don't live round here.  Yes, that's right, we're just a couple of bums looking for shelter out of this freezing cold.  What's that?  Put my hands apart on the roof of your car?

We identify the right house - it's a wooden bungalow which is possibly colder inside than out - but it offers the hope of being warmer at three in the morning.  Because we only have petrol for the stove, I cook in the front yard.  Only one other house on the street looks occupied.  We do sleep quite comfortably and yes, we do pee in the yard.  

ooh look, a rail trail!

The next day the scenery is very similar i.e. not so inspiring.  Except now we seem to pass through some living communities. Houses seem to be getting bigger and brasher, but still mostly of wood.  There's a tendency towards stilts for some new houses - perhaps after some of the big storms flooded the shoreline last year?  The sun is out, it's dry but there's a constant wind.  We ride wrapped up and take lunch in a, shhhhh, whisper it, a McDonald's.  That evening we are welcomed in to Fran and Brian's comfy home in Manahawkin.  

Fran and Brian

In the morning Brian cheerfully offers to ride with us some of the way.  This is great because it will help us to not get lost.  It's sunny again but even colder with quite a wind chill factor.  After we say goodbye to Brian we get lost.  Well, sort of.  We're in the woods and we're looking for a back road that will cross the Mullica River, but we take a few wrong turns that eventually bring us to the bridge in a roundabout way.  So far so good.  Now all we need is a McDonald's so that we don't starve and freeze in this forest.  Nothing. Zilch.  Oh, hang on, a bar.  In the woods.  We are desperate so we go in and they have food, and there are even some people dining here, so we take a table and order burgers and chips because that's what we wanted, okay?  The owner comes to have a chat beause he saw the bikes.  He's very friendly.  After lunch we ask the waitress for the bill and she smiles, telling us that the couple who were sitting at the table next to us had already paid.  They left a note and she hands it to us.

signed "The Friendly Pineys"

That evening we reach Cindy and Rob's house just as the sun is setting.  We have a good natter with them about their Warm Showers experiences and then eat a fantastic vegetarian tortilla pie before collapsing into a snug bed.  Their yard is dusted in snow when we awake.  Rob offers us a lift in his pickup but the sky is clearing so we thank him but head off on the bikes.  It's an easier day navigating because we stay on or close to the main road all the way to Cape May.

Cindy and Rob

Marc greets us with his two large dogs.  You can't miss them - they are everywhere.  "That one's a bread monster" Marc tells us.  "If he finds bread he'll eat the lot". No kidding. Within an hour of arrival , and while we're having a cup of tea and chat with Marc, the bread monster has sniffed out our tortillas, extricated them from the packaging and scoffed the lot.  Well, I won't be giving him any strokes or cuddles.  Mark's wife, Carol, is at a meeting having just been elected mayor of West Cape May.  Christian, their son, a wanderer like us, is about to head west for the ski season.  After dinner, Marc introduces us to Jeopardy and we impress our host by getting a few answers right. 

dreaming of bread

 

 Marc had suggested we take a day to look around, a nice offer, and despite the cold we enjoy walking along the beach and around the town centre.  We set off the next morning to take the ferry to Delaware and Marc and Christian hop on their bikes to accompany us to the dock.  It's so nice to be seen off like this.  We join quite a few tourists all heading over to Delaware for some tax-free shopping mall.  Another sunny day.  Only nine shopping days to Christmas.

with Christain and Marc.  Did I mention it's cold?

it's a wonderful town

Wow, cycling into New York.  We've cycled into Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul and even though this is not such an 'exotic' place, it's still very exciting.  And after about two hours on busy small roads we finally reach the Queens Greenway - a bike corridor that takes us all the way into that borough.

caption required?

Thankfully our destination is easy to find - you coudn't miss it.  We're going to stay with Barnaby, Hai Dung and their son, Andre, on Roosevelt Island - in the East River, between Queens and Manhattan Island.  It's a small appartment and we really appreciate their kind offer to put us up for 10 days because this gives us plenty of time to explore the city.

The Christmas build-up is in full force.  Ice rinks are busy, snow falls.  We roam different neighbourhoods, Lower East Side, SoHo and Chinatown along with Dumbo and Brooklyn.  We take the boats down the East River, walk the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of other visitors, and ride the slightly terrifying cable car (Barnaby tells us it got stuck in mid-air recently) back to Roosevelt Island.  Gayle is unimpressed by the grid of Manhattan - it creates wind tunnels and the east-west streets are all cast in shade.

getting onto the ice Gayle slipped and shoved some small kids over, but once she got some spped up there was no stopping her

 Highlights include the Metropolitan Museum, the restored first synagogue of the city, a Modigliani exhibition, ice-skating in Bryant Park, the thrift stores in SoHo, and sledging on a baking tray with Andre and Barnaby on their island.  We walk and walk and at the weekends when Barnaby and Hai Dung are off work, we visit Central Park.  The weather is sunny or snowy.  It is seriously cold some days.  We return to the Met because there is so much we want to see there.  All in all, we have a great time and tire ourselves out.  That's the big cities for you, I guess.

snow!

 

 The last time we saw Barnaby was when we stayed with him in Islamabad in 2008.  It was a difficult and stressful time for him there so it's really great to see him looking more relaxed and happy.  When we say our goodbyes we leave by boat.  It seems the sensible way to go - down to Manhattan and then onto the New Jersey shore.