One week of Riding Complete

After 7 days of riding I am still really enjoying the trip. I expected that I would be tired of riding at times but I have enjoyed everyday, even the really rainy ones. After my first stop in Connecticut I had planned to spend an easy day meandering through quite roads towards Providence. What I got was much different; from the onset until nearly the end I was on route 1 which was very busy at times and did little meandering. The highlight of that day was the encounter with a man named Allan. He passed me going the other direction as I headed east. He asked where I was headed and if I had a moment. He had just gotten back from a 3 week bike trip in Montana and Alberta. He was an experience rider and asked me the route that I would be taking. The route I had from google maps was not the easiest way and instead of just telling me, he offered to ride the 25 miles that would put me in the right direction. During the time he talked shop, bought me a donut and donated 20 Canadian Dollars to my fundraising efforts. He was a retired research manager at Pfizer and was really interested in my trip and the St.Andrews Bike Fest this fall. As the day turned into the evening I started to look for a place to stay. I was planning to end in Mystic, CT but was told when I arrived that a nicer camp ground was 11 miles down the road, 11 tuned into 21 and I finished the day at 75.21 miles. I spent that night at a state park and slept until well after 9 the next morning even thought I had fallen asleep before 10.
After a late start once again I headed towards Providence. My ride was more quite than the day before and included some back routes, the types that I had envisioned when I thought about the trip before hand. My ride didn't seem to fall in as easily as it had in the days before but as I kept going the warmth or the weather and the prospect of getting close to Boston pushed me on. As I continued around the city I started to ask about potential camping spots with little luck, I started to ride towards some State Forest and planned to try and find a place to camp there. As I started to think about logistics of this idea a guy in a car yelled to me asking "where you headed?" I responded "Canada". He replied back "want some dinner and to soak in a hot tub?" I thought for a moment about the potential consequences of this but to my mothers chagrin quickly yelled "Absolutely".
Luckily the yelling man was Matt Hopkins, an avid cyclist, who is experienced in bike touring and is actually on the cover of the Rhode Island bike map. In addition to a wonderful veggie meal that his Wife Lauren made, he helped fix up my bike, gave me great advice on a number of routes and rode the first 40 miles of my trip with me today. It was really great to ride with another person so knowledgeable about cycling. His sense of humor also made the ride go by very quickly.
Today was the first time that I felt at all soar on the bike. I don't know if I noticed it more because I wasn't concentrating as much on my next turn with someone else along, but my arms and butt were killing me for much of the day. In the last hour of the ride today I had my first flat that turned into way more of an ordeal than it should have been. My spirits bounce back quickly when I stopped to chat with a retired Kiwi couple that were in the middle of a bike tour that originated in Montreal. It was only the second group that I had seen in my whole trip.
I finally arrived to stay in Boston with a friend Bob who I made through camp. He lives in a beautiful neighborhood on a block where all the backyards meet in a massive park. It is the greatest city refuge I've seen. This evening I walked around the South End a little, had some great Pizza and will fall asleep early before exploring Boston of foot tomorrow.
Here's to a day off!