In short, I biked up big hills, and then at the end went down a 20km stretch of highway, where I had to pedal for about 100m total. Was it fun? Not exactly. I knew I'd be having to climb it again tomorrow, and I knew that I was at greater risk of losing control of the bike. It was also, to be frank, boring. Things flew into my eyes (even through the sunglasses! There are these little seed pods all over this area that are currently saturating the air with retina-bombs), cars honked at me for going too slowly, and I was terrified that I forgot something in a store I walked into, and would have to climb the same hill twice.

So far, Massachusetts has been terrible in terms of bike trails. I've done some serious searches online for trails, and all I could find was some proposed system of interconnected labelled highways. The optimal route that Google gave me passes through regional highways with sporadic shoulders, and some local farm roads with poor signage, and no amenities.

I did find a good trail from Northhampton to Amherst, but it fizzles out and I will have to continue along the dreaded shitty shoulders of highway 9. Did I mention that there are no distance markers on highways here? So I can never know how far I really am from the next town, unless I have cell reception, which I didn't for the entire day. Ugh.

I'm probably not going to tent anymore, since ever since I've entered Massachusetts, I've been in the suburbs of Boston, and the area is relatively urbanized. Besides, the nights are still really cold, and I've become spoiled from all of this money that I have.

I've noticed some possible issues with the bike, that I'll probably fix in a bike shop in Boston. Small things that are probably just from all the use it's been getting. Things like the new tires come really close to the frame or to a mounted front-reflector. Things like the seat falling apart, or the handlebar wrap getting old.

Today I went from Pittsfield to Hadley, MA. I did not listen to music, and had no cell reception, so the scenic ride through local roads and the mountains was particularly theraputic. You can see the zig-zaggy 84km that I did right here:

I used a different version of google maps for this. You like it? I like it. It's now the new norm! By the way, that straight bit at the end is a paved path along an old railroad (Northhampton and Amherst are amazing bike towns!).

I didn't take many pictures today. It was more of the same as yesterday. Creeks, mountains, trees, and so on. Here's some cliffs that reminded me a lot of the roads in the Canadian shield.

Here's something that might remind you of the spices in the marketplace in Jerusalem:

At some point I took a break and sat on a rock in a stream to think. I thunk'd a lot about what I want to do in life and how I want to live, but that's definitely a blog post for another time. I didn't take a picture of that stream. The highways I took were mostly along these streams, and looking at the direction of water flow was a pretty good indication of whether the next few kilometers are about to be uphill or downhill. Anyway, here's a picture of a different stream that I took. I'm normally not a streamer, but this one's for the chat:

It's my blog, I can make jokes for myself, especially in this non-bike related half. Anyway, at Northhampton, I crossed the Connecticut river, which flows to some other state whose name I forget and can't spell. This was part of the old railroad trail, and it was full of cyclists! One of them took a picture of the bridge, so I did too:

That's all of the pictures I took today. I wasn't really in the mood to take pictures, and to be honest, I'm not really sure what there really is to take pictures of. Yeah, I could pull out my camera beside every bridge, town sign, or general store, but who cares?

Actually, I do have one regret. I passed by a general store in Windsor, MA looking for a water refill and a quick bite. In the store was an exceptionally kind Indian woman who sold me these amazing samosas, and told me the spices she put in them. For my own notes, here they are: cuminm, turmeric, corriander, fennel, fenugreek, salt, pepper, some red pepper, and mango powder. She said to also use some garlic paste, and possibly ginger. The vegetables were peas, potatoes, and onions. These samosas were so good! If I ever make this trip again, definitely gotta come back here. It's along highway 9 in Windsor, between Dalton and Cummington. Can't miss it!

Fuck I'm craving Indian food again... Anyone in Boston wanna go? I'll be there in a few days :)