AB.Bikes.the.East.Coast: Fri., September 20 -- DAY 12

Hampton, NH, to Provincetown, MA

Entered state number three today. The route was once again started with a lack of street signage matching my cue sheets. Therefore I gave it up to the Google Maps bike route in order to get into Boston and the ferry. And even the Google threw me a curve ball. It told me to take a Community Path, and that ended up being just that. I could not find it for the life of me. I asked at a gas station that appeared to be AT the trail. The guy there showed me a little path near "the trash bags there." It was a very overgrown path, only the width of the bike tire, so I was slapped here and there by all manner of plants. It was single track at its best, albeit flat. There were two wooden bridges that had to be crossed after dismounting, because many of the boards were gone. But okay, eventually I made it into Boston proper. And much sooner than I would have arrived if I had taken the East Coast Greenway as routed. Don't know why or how. S'okay with me.

Malden, on the way, was delightful in many ways. One was that the New England Coffee company building filled the area with coffee roasting, and it was almost more than I could bear. Then that was immediately followed with some commercial bread factory, I'm guessing. Also, Malden had this cool little sculpture along the off-road path through the city.

As you can imagine, Boston was crazy trying to figure out where to turn when. I don't like driving in Boston. I surely didn't like riding there. There were traffic jams and crazy drivers. At one place near where I crossed one of the I-93 interchange streets, a city bus actually threw me a block so I could cross over "safely." But one of the typical drivers sped around the bus and almost hit me, 100% illegally. That bus driver blew his horn like no one's business, and the woman driving did see me before it was too late. I felt grateful to have made it across safely. At almost every intersection, I crossed on foot with a walk light from there on out. Needless to say, there was a good bit of walking to the harbor pier for the Provincetown ferry. S'all good.

I had an hour and a half wait for the ferry, but met a couple of guys, and we chatted about the ferry, the "rough sea" advisory, anti-emetics, and the Friday art walk. We all did some people watching. Once we boarded, I sat on the bow to watch my bike and to have a good view of the horizon. Some of the cool sights from the Boston Harbor. The tug, the sculpture, and the lighthouse.

DL had already made her way into the campground with RV in tow and had headed to do laundry. I made it to the campground just before her return. We walked back to town for dinner, and then we walked around back towards the pier where I had arrived for sunset. It was a beautiful day and night. Tomorrow is a rest day. Glad to have scheduled one for P'town! It has been quite a while since we'd been there. It was a November, maybe 15 years before.