Day 80: Hot Biscuit, Maple Mania, Bread Loaf, Liberty Hill

Day 80: Sunday August 24th, 2014.

North Hudson, NY to Liberty Hill Farm near Rochester, VT.  73.4 miles. 

After a day of rest and a chance for my equipment to dry out, with sunny skies in the forecast, I was up and energized to leave the compound of Jellystone.  Avoiding a repeat breakfast of the biscuit, egg, and sausage sandwiches that had been thawed out in the warmer at the Jellystone Market, imagining that they were manufactured using a 3-D printer, I desperately searched the Internet for a nearby restaurant to fuel up.

The closest civilization was in the town I had intended to reach two days before, when rain and lack of sunlight detoured me into Yogiville.  That town was Ticonderoga, a little over 22 miles away.  In my search, I found the Hot Biscuit Diner and Bakery in Ticonderoga, which had great reviews.

I don't normally start riding for any significant distance without eating so as to avoid "bonking", an athletic term used to describe a feeling of suddenly running out of energy, when your legs feel like cement and you have to stop.  The term came from a comparison of getting bonked on the head, a sensation of dizzyness and weakness that overwhelms any willpower to pedal on.  It happens when glycogen levels in the liver and muscles get too low.  The quick solution is to eat something, and after 30 minutes or less, the feeling goes away.  It's happened to me at least twice on this trip.

So, I had a snack of protein bars before departing to get enough energy to make it to Ticonderoga.  Then, as Yogi made his rounds through the campground, I said my goodbyes and busted out of the place.

Emerging from the campground, I was transported into another world, one of soft green meadows with densely forested mountains in the distance, the mountains of the Adirondacks that I had pedaled through already.  It was impressive to see the scale of these mountains now in the clear.

Hesitant to follow the map's instructions to take a left onto River Road, where I was then directed to ride on the "dirt road" for 1.4 miles, I considered staying on the paved alternate I was already on that would add another 3-4 miles between me and the Hot Biscuit.

But, I convinced myself to trust the Adventure Cycling maps I had come to rely upon.  I'm glad I made that left turn, as the dirt road was smooth, slightly forgiving, and damp enough to keep the dust down.  I was lured into a magical and tranquil place.  No cars, no people, just the sound of the Schroon River alongside me to the right, working it's way South to the Hudson River.

A wall of rock lined with moss and ferns shot up from the roadbed on my left, with a waterfall bouncing off the block-shaped rocks on its way to the river.

Just before the end of this road through paradise, I came to Paradox Lake.  The scene in front of me was surreal, breathtaking, and begging me to drop my bike and run into it.

I reached highway 74 and turned left, making a significant descent out of the mountains and into Ticonderoga.

Established in 1764, Ticonderoga has some incredible history on display, most notably Fort Ticonderoga, referred to as "America's Fort", which has an impressive display of artifacts on America's early history dating back to the mid-1700's.

I headed straight to the Hot Biscuit Diner on Montcalm Street.  The staff was very friendly, greeting me the moment I walked in the door.  The glass high-counter on the left of the entrance was loaded with fresh baked pastries, doughnuts, muffins, and biscuits.  I could tell this was going to be good.

I ordered a plate with one of their famous fresh biscuits, a side of gravy, with a sausage pattie and scrambled eggs.  Reading in the reviews that they also had fantastic pancakes, I ordered one blueberry pancake on the side as well.

When I asked about whether or not they had real maple syrup, the waitress replied, "Well, of course we do - you betcha."  The biscuit and gravy was as outstanding as it looked.  And, the blueberry pancake, with a background matrix of real buttermilk batter, had almost as much blueberries as batter.  It was by far the best pancake I've eaten across the USA.

While enjoying breakfast, I did some writing.  I continued after the food was gone, lubricating my thoughts with coffee refills.  A sweet woman in her 70's, dressed in her Sunday best church clothes came up to my table to ask me about my travels on the bicycle she spotted leaning against a pillar outside.

Her questions were presented softly, and in a logical order, as if prepared in advance.  She told me about her son who likes to ride a bicycle, and competes.  We had a pleasant conversation before she gave me her best wishes and left.

Then, a few minutes before I finished up, a young woman in her 20's, was seated at the small window-side table next to mine.  I didn't notice her at first, my attention focused intently on my writing.  When I did finally look up, I caught a glimpse of her and noticed she was wearing a bike jersey.  I introduced myself, and quickly learned that she was also on a solo bike tour.  Sarah was her name, and she left San Francisco around the end of May.  Her destination using the same Adventure Cycling route I was following, is Bar Harbor, ME, before returning to her home town of Boston.  

After having spent some time writing, I was getting anxious to hit the road.  I signaled to the waitress that I was ready for my check.  She brought over the coffee pot, assuming that I wanted yet another refill.  Then, she told me, "You're all set.  The church ladies paid your check."  "Church ladies?", I thought to myself.  "Oh, you mean the woman that came to my table to speak with me for a while?", I asked her.  "Yeah, she and her friends have a reputation for doing such things - often for veterans - and they're always sneaky about it.", she explained with a smile.  I expressed my gratitude to the waitress, hoping that she would pass on my thanks the next time the church ladies stop in.

Before leaving, I wished Sarah the best of luck, telling her, "Maybe I will see ya on the road!", and left the Hot Biscuit.  

I wound my way through Ticonderoga, stopping to look back and take a picture with the town park and a waterfall in the foreground.

My route was taking me to the Eastern edge of Ticonderoga adjacent to the Fort, to the shore of Lake Champlain, to the stateline between New York and Vermont to the East, and apparently to the end of the road I was on.  The road bed dipped straight into the lake.

As I pulled up to the water's edge, a ferry was pulling away, slowly running by cable across the lake to Vermont, loaded with cars and people.  I glanced down at my map.  The next line of instructions read, "Take ferry across lake."  I was in the right place.  I looked on my map to see if there was another way to cross nearby.  The only option - another ferry North of Ticonderoga.  So, I waited a good 25 minutes for the barge to reach Vermont, unload the cars and people, pickup those that had been waiting on the other side, and then return to New York.  While waiting, Sarah rolled up on her bike from the diner.  We rode the ferry across together, and proceeded to ride for several miles in Vermont, sharing stories about our travels along the way.

Eventually, I rode on ahead of her, our paces not matching up, but told her that, "I'm sure I'll probably run into you again down the road."

Western Vermont near Lake Champlain was full of orchards.  I could sense the sweet smell of apples in the air.

I rode up onto a ridge for a while.  It was mid-day, and the temperature was in the mid-80's with humidity.  I was looking for an excuse to stop and take a rest in the shade, and found it at the Trade Winds maple syrup farm.  Of course, I wouldn't have passed this up anyway!

I walked my bike up the driveway to the stand that had an incredible display of real maple syrup options, including different grades of maple syrup sold in different sized containers from a single serving to a gallon.

Also for sale, maple cream and maple candy.  Emerging from the farmhouse, I met the owner, Tim.  He provided me with a detailed education on how maple syrup is made at his farm, in a semi-traditional way, using a wood-fired boiler.  "It's just sap from the Sugar Maple tree.", he said.  That's it.  "My job is to extract the sap, collect it, and remove some of the water from it, reducing it down to a higher sugar content per volume than the sap itself."  "Sounds simple.", I thought to myself.  

He explained just how simple the concept is, but as he continued to reveal the various stages of the process, giving me a tour of the forest behind the building where the magic stuff is made, following the sap as it flows down to the barn where the process continues, it became apparent that producing maple syrup the traditional way was a lot of work.  "This year, I tapped 53,000 gallons of sap.  After extracting enough water to get the right concentration of sugar, I ended up with 900 gallons of maple syrup produced.", he said.  He explained that it was a bit tough this year, partly due to the hard, cold winter.  Usually, the ratio is closer to 45 gallons of sap needed to produce 1 gallon of syrup.

The end product is classified into different grades. Each grade varies in color, but all have the same sugar content.  The difference with each grade is in the amount of maple flavor.  The darker the color, the more intense the maple flavor.  "Usually, the darkest, and most flavorful, are used for cooking.", Tim explained.

He gave me samples of each grade, and also let me try another of his creations - maple cream.  "If you continue boiling off the water, making the sugar/maple flavor content greater, then you end up with a spreadable maple cream". He told me that he uses the cream on vanilla ice cream all the time.  It was really good.

Tim then gave me free-reign to check out the facilities and learn more.  I hiked up the hill along the "Maple Trail" to take it all in.  In front of me, a massive Sugar Maple tree (Acer saccharum).  This species has the highest sugar content of clear semi-sweet sap, at about 2% sugar, and has been tapped for hundreds of years, starting with Native Americans.  It's the species of maple that has made Vermont famous for producing some of the highest quality and most delicious maple syrup on the planet.

A cross section of a log illustrates the tapping device.  In early Spring when the greatest fluctuation in temperature happens between night and day, the sap flows up into the limbs during the day, then returns to the roots at night.  It is at this time of greatest flow that sap collection can be maximized.

Tubes are connected to the taps, and those tap tubes feed into larger diameter feeder tubes.

The tubes are part of a gravity-fed network that transports the sap, with a consistency similar to water, down to a collection tank.

In other areas, a vacuum system can aid in the collection of sap into the tanks, especially when the slopes aren't steep enough for gravity to do the job alone.  

Because the boiler is wood-fired, and takes round-the-clock stoking to keep the process going, a reverse osmosis (RO) system is first used to remove about 75% of the water from the sap before boiling.  Similar to an RO water filtration system in your home, this system separates some of the pure water from the sugars and maple flavors.  Only, in this case, the pure water is discarded and the concentrated sap, now with a sugar content of 9%, is then used in the next step of the syrup-making process.

The wood-fired boiler has two stages.  First, the sap pan, is where the sap from the RO process is boiled, removing more water, and thus increasing the concentration from 9% sugar to 20% sugar.  Then, the sugary substance is moved to the syrup pan side of the boiler, where the boiling-off of water continues, further increasing the concentration of sugar to 66.9%, at which it can officially be called Vermont maple syrup.

Before bottling, the syrup is filtered to remove any sugar crystals, giving the syrup a non-cloudy appearance.

The different grades produced, defined by the color and subsequent flavor, are determined by the time of sap collection within the season, initial sap sugar content, outside temperatures, and how much the sap has to be boiled to reach the 66.9% sugar concentration.

I couldn't leave this place without sending some real Vermont maple syrup home to Victoria.  Vermont Trade Winds Farm sells their syrup online, and with reasonable prices and shipping for some of the best maple syrup made in the USA, I can't recommend them enough!

All sugared up, I departed the farm and the ridge it was located on, descending a short way into the valley near Middlebury (pop. 8,246).

Instead of riding directly into Middlebury, I took a slight detour that would end up in East Middlebury, passing through a classic Vermont covered bridge along the way.  At the maple syrup farm, Tim told me that when he takes his kids through the covered bridge, it's always a tradition for everyone to lift their feet as they pass through while honking the horn.

So, I rehearsed my plan as I approached the bridge.  My camera in one hand, the other hand on the handlebar with my thumb on the lever of my bike bell, and unclipped from my pedals, I was ready to pass through, albeit a bit wobbly.

I had enough momentum going that when my front wheel popped up onto the wood floor of the bridge, I lifted my feet up off the pedals and coasted through, ringing my bike bell as much as I could as I made my way towards the light at the other end.  It was a blast.

I stopped in East Middlebury for a quick bite to eat, preparing myself for a big climb up and over the Middlebury Gap at Bread Loaf.  The elevation profile on my map for this section was intimidating.  I hadn't seen such steep elevation gains since the Rockies on a topographic profile.  I was entering the Green Mountains, and Green Mountain National Forest.  These mountains are a mere remnant of what they used to be - the eroded down roots of a massive range rivaling the elevations of the Himalayas.

From the moment I left East Middlebury, the road pitched steeply upward.  I shifted down to the lowest gears from the start as I began the climb, and my breathing was hard, my heart pounding.  This would continue for several miles, with almost no switchbacks to provide relief from the slope of the mountainside.  It was as if the engineers simply draped the road over the mountain.  I was moving slow, and tried to focus on the beauty around me.  I noticed the intense aroma of the forest - fresh, sweet, and earthy.

Before the crest, a brief bit of relief along an area made famous by a literary local associated with the school of English at Middlebury College, Robert Frost.

The region has since attracted many writers and authors to the area as a peaceful place to think and develop creative ideas at the retreat and along the Robert Frost Trail.  The writer's retreat is here, near the community of Bread Loaf.

The old, grand retreat houses looked magnificent, and the scenery and peacefulness of this region inspires writers during their stay to develop some of their best work.

This brief reprieve from the steep terrain ended quickly as I found myself once again facing the sky as I pedaled upward.

I finally recognized that I was reaching the top, as I could see the sign ahead warning of the steep descent down the other side approaching.  The sign read, "12% Grade".  I think that has to be the steepest gradient I've seen on a road.

I was at the top, the "Middlebury Gap".  This was by far the most challenging climb of my entire travel across the United States so far.  I stopped to celebrate and catch my breath.  On either side of me, the entrance to the Long Trail, a famous hiking trail traversing through Vermont.

It was getting late, so I spent only a couple of minutes at the top before rolling forward and letting gravity take over.  At a grade of 12%, the descent was intimidatingly steep and fast.  I focused intently on the road, looking for imperfections as I sped down the mountain.  I was also using my breaks, alternating the front and back to maintain a speed that would allow me to stay in control.  In most descents, I just let myself go.  But, this was very different.  

At the bottom, I was now in a narrow linear valley surrounded by the steep slope of mountains on either side.  I turned right and headed South.  A few miles down the road, I came to the town of Rochester, VT (pop. 1,171).  I stopped to pickup a few things from a gas station mart before moving on another 10 miles or so, heading for a campground on the map in an area called Gaysville.

In the store, I found Long Trail Ale, brewed in Vermont.  Having just passed the trailhead, I thought this would be an appropriate choice, a way to celebrate the accomplishments of the day.  A statement on the bottle read, "Our flagship ale - as much a Vermont tradition as the trail itself."  Sold.  I packed the beer in my rear pannier, consumed the ice cream sandwich in a few bites, and turned on my front and rear bike lights to finish the ride for the day.

Around 5 miles down the road, I was looking at my map and was reminded that there wasn't anything else in Gaysville besides the campground.  "What if the campground is full?", I wondered to myself.  "Or Closed?"  When I am heading to an isolated place, I usually check in advance to make sure that I will have what I need upon arrival.  I haven't had cell phone service for days, and couldn't call to check the status of the campground.  "I'll just keep pedaling.", I thought to myself.  But, I sensed that I was forgetting something.  "The map addenda!", I realized.

Each Adventure Cycling map comes with a separate one-page addenda of updates since the map was last printed.  If there has been any permanent change in the status of the campground, it would be mentioned in the addenda.  But, I hadn't checked it prior to now.  I hit the breaks, pulling off the road.  Digging out the addenda, I turned the paper over to the section for "Map 143", and there it was, "The campground in Gaysville is closed."  "Crap!  Now what.", I said outloud.

I looked up and in front of me was a road sign with an arrow pointing to the right that said, "Liberty Hill Farm".  Below the arrow, a symbol for lodging.  I peered beyond the sign and saw a dirt road heading to the right.  Lodging at a farm?  The dirt road disappeared into a corn field.  "What are the chances of finding something affordable or available at a farm?", I wondered.  I certainly don't want to go on some wild detour only to find out that it's not what I'm looking for.  But, I didn't have much in the way of options.

I noticed two women out for an evening walk that had been heading towards me on the main road.  Before reaching me, they turned off onto the dirt road.  I thought they might know something about the "lodging" in the diirection they were headed.  So I rode the hundred yards to the turnoff and proceeded down the dirt road to catch up to them.

"Hi.  Sorry to interrupt your evening walk.", I said to them.  "Oh, no problem.", the older of the two women said.  She followed up with, "I would guess you're traveling a long way from the look of it."  I introduced myself and asked them if they knew anything about the lodging down the road.  Again, the older of the two replied, "Well, we might know something about it."  The younger gal laughed and said, "She owns it."  Beth, along with her husband Bob, are owners of the Liberty Hill Dairy Farm, a working farm that also invites guests to stay and learn all about the inner-workings of their small operation.  It was Beth I was speaking to, along with her niece, Nicole.

I proceeded to tell them about my plan to stay at the campground in Gaysville, but I found out that...  Beth interrupted, "Oh no, no, no, it's closed - the flood - it's gone.", she said to me with sadness in her voice.  She went on to explain, pointing out that we were just 4 days shy of the 3-year anniversary of that dreadful day, August 28th, 2011, when hurricane Irene moved inland, dumping massive amounts of rain over the steep hills surrounding the narrow valley we were standing in, creating the greatest flood this valley has ever seen in modern history.  "It permanently changed the geography of this region, and affected the lives of those who live in it in a way that no one will forget."

She then changed the subject, "Well, I guess you're looking for a place to stay.", she told me.  I have a pretty full house of eleven or so guests, but I think we do have one bed we can put you in.  I told her the price was agreeable and she said, "Great.  Well, follow us down the road and I'll introduce you to the place."  I walked my bike alongside them and we had a wonderful conversation along the 0.5 miles of dirt road to the farmhouse.

I couldn't believe it.  One minute I was heading to a campground that didn't exist in the dark, the next minute I was taking an evening stroll with two wonderful people, learning about the history of the farm and the valley, being invited to stay at a historic farmhouse on a working dairy farm.

Bob and Beth have owned the farm for the past 35 years.  But, the history of the place goes a bit beyond that.  The land was settled in 1780, and the barn was added to the property in 1787.  One corner of the barn today is still original.  The rest of the barn is part of an expansion that occurred more recently, in 1889.  The farmhouse I would be staying in, their home, was built in 1824.

Beth was incredibly accommodating.  She showed me to my room upstairs.

"Are you hungry?", she asked.  "Oh, I've got some food with me.", I replied.  She went on, "I'm fixing up a plate for one of the workers, and you can come down and eat if you want."  "Ok, sounds great.", I told her.  She told me to just quickly wash up and come down.  I did just that.

I went downstairs into the dining room, the table already set for breakfast the next morning.  "Breakfast will be at 8 am - it's included.", she told me.  

I then feasted on a plate of roast beef, yellow wax beans, fresh chard, broccoli salad, green salad, tomato basil salad, almost all of it either from her garden or her neighbors.  It was incredible, and so unexpected.

While I ate, she spoke to me from the kitchen.  One topic of discussion was the flood.  When she told one of the other family members in the barn about me, the random addition to the guest list for the evening, and my plans to stay at the campground that washed away, it stopped him dead in his tracks.  It was a sensitive topic for most people in this quaint valley, but in particular for her family member who lost his home in the flood.

She explained that the water rose so high that it flooded much of their corn and grazing fields, depositing massive amounts of cobbles and gravels that permanently changed the land, making it unusable for hay production.  "You can't mow it anymore", she said.  At the peak of the flood, their son was swimming out to one of the barns to rescue some of the cows, pulling them to dry land.  It was traumatizing, and devastating, all at the same time.  And, here we were on the eve of the 3rd anniversary, and I show up looking for a place now gone, the campground, one of many casualties of Hurricane Irene, August 28th, 2011.  "But, you've arrived at a time when the valley is in a state of renewal, rebuilding, still recovering, but making progress.", she said.

Beth speaks around the country, and world, on the importance of small farms, and the role they can play in educating consumers on where their food comes from, establishing a visceral connection between farm and table.  And, she and Bob practice what they preach, inviting guests to stay at their ranch and learn about how a small dairy farm works.

"Tomorrow, you can grab a pair of rubber boots on the porch and go into the barn to see the cow milking process.", she told me.  I was so excited to be here, and I was treated with such great hospitality, as if they had been expecting my arrival for months.