Day Four: Human Kindness
7AM: Woke to sunlit glint gaslight chandelier hanging in living room of Tom’s rural farmhouse in New Gretna, New Jersey, nestled along pellucid Mullica river draining south from Bass River State Forest. Room lined with foresting insignia and tined by leather lamps with carrying straps fixed to base. Handy!
Slept in a bed , incredible — what far-fetched wishes the mid-Atlantic Warm Showers community grants you! Liz slept on foldable Swedish cot. Tom climbed down stairs, jolly and ready for a ride, made omelets with rye toast, and we brewed the final allotment of Brooklyn coffee rations.
Twenty five miles of planate forest roads punctuated by a few gales of rain, not worth stopping to don waterproof gear. Stop insisted upon itself as Lizzie’s tire punctured by thin wire jabbed upwards into rear tire. OK, first flat, we’ve got this! Stripped off trunk bag with dirty clothes lashed on top, peel off trunk bag and panniers, unscrew wheel axel, yank it out, out goes air, in go levers, yank yank there’s the hole, patch it up, reinflate…
Twenty feet later, tire sinks again, repeat the ordeal but this time throw on spare tube. Discover spare tube has a hole as well! (Later we find Lizzie had written “flat” on the tube and circled the hole, but somehow brought the tire anyway. We could not see markings thru roadside rain. {*nor during packing process! ~Lizzie}) Back to tire one, we call on Tom’s expert opinion to sleuth out the problem. Turns out our initial patch worked, but there was a second hole beside it we had missed. No time records set but no matter. Two turkeys gobble-gobbled from 20 feet away all the while and we intermittently gobble-gobbled back at them.
Flat aside, we basked in serenity of southern Jersey Shore forests and their farm and forest inhabitants. Animate beings:
- Alpacas (they seemed to stare at Lizzie as we road by; maybe miffed by her giggling at their “wide-leg pants”)
- Horses, and exquisitely charming pony desperately desiring to fit in with full sized horses
- Osprey nests replete with circling ospreys
- Fiddlehead ferns
- Bluebirds!
Tom spent most of his life in southern Jersey, when not touring in Nova Scotia, Croatia, Colorado, Czech Republic, Germany, or one of hundreds of mid-Atlantic expeditions collected over this years. He undertook his first tour at age fourteen, lodging at American Youth Hostels peppered up the Atlantic Coast between New York and Maine. (Note to any Stones reading along to check whether the Youth Hostel still operates on Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard.) Tom was highly knowledgable about all things New Jersey. We rode together 25 miles to his favorite Starbucks in Galloway before parting ways, Tom tossing his bike onto the bus and hitching a ride back to New Gretna.
Rob and Cindy
We made our way another ten miles down southern NJ routes and Wabash Ave bike paths to Ocean Avenue then Dorset Street nestled in Egg Harbor Township.
Cindy grew up in Detroit, was trained as a linguist and moved to New Jersey once ESL teaching grew tedious in the Detroit area. She met her husband Rob through their church and the rest is history. Cindy “was always the shortest girl in class,” and quite contented to be so, rides a fold up Bike Friday bike with adjustable pedals and handlebar extensions. It’s an impressive rig for a small biker and weighs less than 20 lbs even with Brooks saddle!
We regaled various triumphs and blunders with Cindy, Rob, and later their daughter Debbie, clocking nearly six hours and despite several exclamations of “I never stay up this late!”. I’m too joyful and contented to recount the inner mechanics of our meanderings but I must comment on the ebullience I’m feeling to discover wonderful people like this. Prayers were issued on our behalf at dinner. Religious or not there’s nothing trite about angels and never will be.
“…and a rich deserving book she was recovered and understood / and I awoke”
