Here’s a few totals of the stats for the first two weeks, to give an idea of how much progress has been made. I’m pretty happy, considering I took an extra day off back in Searsport. 2 Provinces and 5 States covered, with 9 more to go:

• MILES TRAVELLED: 704
• TIME IN SADDLE: 76h 00
• CLIMBING (IN FEET): 13,508
• CALORIES CONSUMED: 41,745

COMMENTS COMMENT: Apologies for slow reply to comments – I’m sure you’ll understand that when I’m on the road it can pretty difficult to stay up to date at times. Don’t be put off, keep ‘em comin’! (I’ve tried to catch up today, and I hope I didn’t miss any)

This must be the only day of my whole trip that has an actual itinerary.

STATE SONGS UPDATE: There’s been a bit of a pile up on the state song project. Here’s some musical housekeeping to get things back in shape. I present my new collection for New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Any of your contributions will be extremely welcome as ever (cracking suggestions from Judith McM for Massachusetts – Steely Dan: Boston Rag and Boston: More Than A Feeling:

NEW HAMPSHIRE: I knew about the Romantic American composer Edward MacDowell who came from this part of the country, so when I found out that his best-know work, Woodland Sketches. Op51, was written on holiday in New Hampshire, I shoehorned it into the blog immediately. The first piece in the set, To A Wild Rose, is his most famous single work, and very charming:

Edward MacDowell Woodland Sketches Op.51 (I’m pretty sure that’s not meant to be exactly what Mr MacD looked like)

If you feel like it and have the time, the whole set are well worth a listen.

RHODE ISLAND: This is from the lovely Blossom Dearie, ‘Gold comes from Nevada, divorces also do. But you, you come from Rhode Island, and Rhode Island is famous for you’

CONNECTICUT: A few years ago I played some of the music for a biopic about Judy Garland, ‘Judy’. Here she is in a duet with Bing Crosby – ‘I know a spot, peaceful and fair, I’d be happy, If I were there’ – guess where they’re singing about? I do agree with Bing, I am happy here. There’s a great uptempo mid-section in this one.

CAMP MUSINGS: I’m really so glad to have ended up here rather than either of the inns that had no room for me. It really is a pleasure to be surrounded by so many happy American campers, in full holiday mode. They take their camping pretty seriously, especially in the area of camp decorations. There’s a pitch just through the woods from where I reside that has a huge array of multi-coloured lights. Not something I’d want myself, except for one – there’s an amazing projector that sends hundreds of small rotating white dots up into the huge canopy of trees overhead, and the effect is really magical. It’s a bit reminiscent of the ‘forest at night’ scene in the movie Avatar. Every kid that cycles past the lights stops and shouts for their friends to come and see. I’d do the same, if I had any.

There’s a particular atmosphere on ‘the morning after’ for large groups of campers who have spent the previous evening whooping it up and having a barrel of laughs. I passed one young posse like this on my way to get a coffee; they were sitting in a ragged circle of chairs, watching one guy frying bacon, wiping their puffy faces and swatting away the pesky flies. It reminded me of ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’, when one of them has been chosen to have to eat a bush-tucker breakfast of Wombat’s testicles.

I committed a fairly blatant bit of leccy-sponging this morning, up at the Pavillion where I found the outlets for the neon Bingo Palm Tree not being used. Just about every device got a top-up, camouflaged by the palm fronds:

Before taking a swim in the nice big pool, I decided to work up a sweat by cycling up the hill into Ondeco, where there was a village store called Oneco Market. I needed to restock my travelling kitchen with a few of life’s essentials.

My shopping trip was so successful, it almost got out of hand. The owners were an Indian family, and they had a chicken curry and rice which the mother had just finished cooking. I couldn’t believe my luck, so got some for my supper later. It actually smelled so good that I decided to have a big lunch today instead. It was superb and fragrantly spicey. They also had some of those delicious Indian honey-drenched pastry things for dessert, which I added a splash of milk to as I remember being told once on tour in India. The shop owner said he thought that they were best heated up and served with ice cream.

CYCLING TECHNIQUE TYPE-OF-THINGS:

As you know, I’ve been doing a bit of cycling lately, which does induce many thoughts on the subject of turning your legs. Please feel free to scroll down for this bit if it’s not really your thing (as if you need telling).

1. Carry-over speed: if you approach a descent that has an ascent right after it, there are two possibilities. You judge the ascent to be steep and at least as long as the descent, if not longer. Result: don’t put much effort in on the way down, and just get ready to drop down through the gears, and start to sweat. HOWEVER, if the ascent looks less steep or shorter, go like a demon at the descent and use the ‘carry-over speed’ to send you flying over the crest of the hill like a roller coaster. This is fantastic fun when the conditions are right.

2. Consistency and Consistency: the first is the more obvious meaning of the word. I try to keep my efforts consistent, even and fairly conservative, so you don’t burn all your candles going for it on a steep hill, which YOU WILL PAY FOR LATER. The other meaning is like thickness or thinness. Imagine you were making a batter for pancakes: too much milk and the sauce has no resistance, making your spoon spin round and round producing not much of a result. Add too much flour and the spoon turns in a cloggy way, tiring you out. Get the consistency just right and the creamy smoothness is a pleasure to stir. Just like gear selection and pedalling. Anyone fancy a pancake?

IT’S CHRISTMAS! Santa handed out presents up at the office, and at least one the dads would actually made a pretty sensational Santa themselves, ink-and-all.

Elves are walking around in striped red and white stockings and mini skirts and the trailers are still being decorated as I write this.

THE CONNECTICUT RAIL SERVICE: this afternoon I was invaded time and again as I slowly packed my gear away ready for tomorrow by Santa’s Special, a train than ran all round the camp for an hour or two. Every time it passed I tried to greet them in a different way. Waving my washing-up cloth like I was riding a bucking bronco and shouting Yee-ha! went down best. The first time I just filmed them.

So that’s my free day in a nutshell. I think I’ll finish now and just switch off for a while, but I’ll leave you with a few signs etc. Tomorrow I’m heading for a lighthouse! More on that in the morning.

SIGNS THAT ARE FUNNY: