We Don't Stop for Sheep?

Rocktown Road, West Amwell

26 February 2017

Apparently I can't tell the difference between a cold headwind and a fever. I ain't moving for nothing right now, so y'all get to see what I type when my head is spinning and my legs are tingly. Enjoy.

I spent yesterday indoors, on my butt, ending a long week of burning the candle at both ends. I needed to ride today, even if it was winter-ish again and the wind was gusting at 30 mph. I managed to rustle up a few brave Slugs. Jim, Snakehead, and I headed up to Pennington to meet Pete and John K.

Right away we acknowledged in unison that we were working harder than usual. No surprise; we were going right into the wind, which blows out of the northwest most days anyway. We picked up Pete near the parking lot entrance. We were a few minutes early, so we waited around for John. I checked my phone for texts but there was nothing. After ten minutes, we headed out.

I didn't have a route in mind. Our goal was to stay under as many trees as possible. We were doing pretty well with that until Stony Brook Road, when Ed suggested we climb Mine. The best way to climb Mine Road is by surprise, so we took the left and up we went.

 View from Mine Road at Route 31

As we finished the climb on the west side of Rt 31, Jim requested that we don't do that again today. I was happy to oblige.

We zigged and zagged, and with each turn I was less inclined to go to Sergeantsville and more inclined to skip more inclines and go to Lambertville instead. From where we were, having descended New Road and turned left onto 579, Rock Road to Harbourton-Mount Airy was the most tree-lined and would face us in the right direction.

This, of course, meant that we'd climb that little steep thing where the increasingly dilapidated barn is (they're putting up new siding!) and find ourselves in front of the Mount Airy future hamburgers.

They're not fat; they're pregnant.

We hid in the trees on Alexauken Creek Road (still pipeline-free because we've managed to stall PennEast a little longer) and then turned into Lambertville, where John K was waiting for us, coffee in hand, at Rojo's.

He'd been running late, then later, and decided to ride to Lambertville on his own. Unfortunately, he'd dressed for yesterday, not today, and was dreading having to go outside again. I told him, "The thermometer at the high school up on the hill said 36 degrees." He stayed inside with us until we were all ready to go.

John took the towpath and we took the tailwind up Rocktown Road. We let ourselves get pushed past the hill and across the open fields, stopping only for a somewhat shy but slightly curious cow who was smart enough to stay in the barn.

 

 Er, that's not your good side, honey.

I was feeling more beat than I ought to have as we turned down Stony Brook. Everything was hurting a little. When I saw the lone tree, I had an excuse to stop, what with lone trees being my photo thing this winter.

This is at the top of the hill on the southern side of Stony Brook, where there's a four-foot berm on one side and a steep slope down to the stream on the other. So while it looks as if I were lying down to take this picture (in hindsight, that might have been a good idea), I wasn't.

When we got to the end of the road, the guys turned right because that's what I always do. I reeled them back in, made the left, and headed with the wind to Crusher Road.

Where three alpacas let me let them ham it up.

Farther along, I gestured to Jim towards a flock of sheep in the back of a pasture as I rode past.

"We don't stop for sheep?" he asked.

"Too far away." And also, I didn't want to stop anymore.

We parted company with Pete at Cherry Valley Road so that Jim, Snakehead, and I could take Carter all the way to 206 and check out the new bridge across the Shipetauken Creek. The sides are done in what looks like solid pinkish cement, for some reason, unlike any other bridge around here.

The guys weren't too pleased that I led them along 206 through the center of Lawrenceville, but I got back in their good graces by taking the slight downward grade with a tailwind on Franklin Corner towards Princeton Pike.

Snakehead wants to rename the stretch of the Pike between Franklin Corner and the top of the hill in honor of what has happened to him and Jim there. He wants to call it "Century Bonk Way," or something like that. I can't remember. I have a fever.

Oak branches and sky in my front yard