Proud Mary

Day one, Friday July 24, 2020

For this “sea to summit” shakedown cruise, then, the first step is to get to the ocean.

No easy feat, since I live on the wrong side of the Appalachians. They form a wall which has stymied travelers since the beginning, typically an impediment to westward migration, or in my case to eastward. Easy ways through are rare, like the Cumberland Gap or the Erie Canal, or for me, the Winooski River.

Not widely known outside Vermont, this river (Abenaki for Onion River) predated the Appalachian uplift, and carved the Winooski Water Gap, and allowed me to slip between the 4000-foot peaks of Mt. Mansfield and Camels Hump at an elevation of 300 feet. I was giddy as I followed it into our cute little state capital of Montpelier,

and couldn’t help belting out the CCR tune made famous by Tina Turner

Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis
Pumped a lot of ’tane down in New Orleans
But I never saw the good side of the city
‘Til I hitched a ride on a river boat queen

Big wheel keep on turnin’
Proud Mary keep on burnin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river

I loved how she prefaced the song with “We don’t do nothin’…easy” which will become the motto for my expedition. If things work out, I won’t need to pump any ’tane (octane) at all.

It has been pretty easy so far. The rig is cumbersome but manageable, the gearing so low that I’m chugging up the hills with something approaching aplomb.

Here’s our cute capitol—how many other states have a forest adjacent to the dome? That’s Ceres up there, the goddess of agriculture.

The photo is also notable for demonstrating another goal of this trip—doing something about that gut. Notice those yellow letters? Vermont may be one of the whitest states in the union, but we’re also one of the bluest.

So if Montpellier is touristy and cutesy, Barre, just down the road, is real working class Vermont. Home to one of the largest granite quarries in the country, it attracted skilled stonecarvers from Italy, who outdid themselves at the Hope Cemetery. Off the beaten path, this hidden gem was first brought to my attention by a magazine article entitled “Death Be Not Minimalist”. I had to honk up a steep hill (with some worrisome popping in my gearbox) but was well rewarded. These are only two examples of the memorials there.

Mr. Corti was tragically shot as he tried to calm a fracas between socialists and anarchists in 1903.

Another heroic sculpture graces Barre’s main square.

I got my comeuppance shortly after, crossing the divide between the Winooski, which drains into Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, and the White River, which drains into the Connecticut. I only had to climb to 900 feet, but the hill was so steep I didn’t want to risk that popping again, and had to get off and push. From there, it was an easy glide to my first campsite, Limehurst Lake.

Distance 50.22 miles, elevation gain 1,786 feet