Home from the Adirondacks

It's not often that we  have two sunny, warm, beautiful weekend days, but the weather was smiling on us for day 2 of our Adirondack trip. We were greeted with fog when we woke up, but by the time we walked into town and enjoyed another delicious breakfast at Jane and Cathy's restaurant (check out the Elron breakfast sandwich on a hard roll) and strolled back to the motel, the sun was shining and all the fog had burned off.

Wayne and Colleen headed north toward home, and Mike and decided on another circular route before we turned toward Vermont. We started out going west on Route 28, and turned north on 28N in Blue Lake. This is a wonderful spot:  small, friendly town on a large lake ringed by the mountains. We didn't have time to stop at the Adirondack Museum, which is another reason for us to head back to this area.

We followed 28N east until it joined back to Route 28. We rode about 2 hours in a large circle, ending up just 18 miles east of our starting point. It was a gorgeous 2 hour ride with forests as far as we could see, lots of steep climbs and downhills, and again almost no traffic.

Home was calling us, so we set a more direct course back to southwestern Vermont. I never get tired of riding east, seeing the Green Mountains in the distance. The Mettowee Valley runs from Granville, NY through Pawlet, VT with mountains bordering dairy farms on both sides of Route 30. Some favorite stops on this route include Mach's General Store in Pawlet where you can sit outside and enjoy the scenery with a snack, the Dorset Union Store on the green in Dorset (don't miss their fresh-baked treats), and the Dorset quarry (an old marble quarry that supplied stone for the New York City public library building and now is a favorite swimming spot).

We rode 145 miles, starting in the middle of the Adirondacks and ending up back home in the Green Mountains. That's one of the great things about riding in the northeast:  there are always mountains to explore!