Today couldn’t have been a better first day! It started at 7:30 in the morning with our friends Katie and Anne. They helped us organize our stuff, gave us water, and Anne even risked her life standing in the middle of the road taking pictures of us.
We spent a majority of the morning on the Farmington River Trail, which was a very pleasant way to adjust to biking with our heavy new panniers. We chatted, listened to music from a speaker, and eventually got to Massachusetts!
We biked to Northampton, and on our way we discovered a cute ice cream shop. Of course we had to stop! Kelly said it was the best ice cream she had ever had, though it may have been because she was so hungry and tired. I got a flavor called Superman and I have no idea what flavor it actually was but it was delicious. It was just the pick me up we needed, and just in time! We had some solid rolling hills after that were tough. I finally understood why touring bikes have so many gears- hills are a lot harder when you’re lugging all your stuff on the back! But we were rewarded with a beautiful downhill! We didn’t realize the giant size of the hill we had climbed!
Soon we made it to Northampton, and immediately stopped at a bike shop because I have no control over my bike now that she has panniers and I dropped her at the ice cream place, which tilted my handlebar a bit. We stopped at Northhampton Bike Shop, where they fixed my bike for FREE and we met a really nice girl named Ryse, who recommended a swimming hole for us to stop at a few miles away. Mary Kate got a rainbow bike shirt at the store that looks amazing and she is VERY excited about.
The swimming hole was everything we needed and wanted and more. It was so refreshing! We felt so revitalized. After a few minutes of feeling like sweaty mermaids, we were ready to go to our professor Zita Lazzarini’s house.
Zita and her wife Denise welcomed us to their beautiful home and fed us SO unbelievably well. Delicious seltzers, salsa and chips, grilled chicken, corn and veggies, rice salad, and leafy salad. I ate an obscene amount of ice cream and cherries for dinner. It was so filling, fresh, and healthy- just what we needed to recover and fuel for the next day! It was so much fun to see the two of them and talk to them. We had an amazing time and felt so welcome.
We met lots of kind people throughout the day today, and somehow avoided the rain all day!! It truly could not have been better. Excited for the next day to Alaina!
Talia
Coast to Coast for a Cause 2020 