Day #1: Boston to Ayer (45 miles)

Day #1 was great! My nephew, Charlie Zuckerman, and I started out from Fuller St at 7:45am

and headed over to Carson Beach in Boston to dip our tires in the Atlantic.

Then we headed out the Minuteman bike path to Concord center.

At lunch we had a lovely conversation with a couple from Georgia who were both teachers and were heading to Maine and then Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. He asked why I was riding across the country and I answered that I wanted to do physical activities until I died and that to guarantee this I wanted to bike and hike full time. He loves teaching American literature, especially the novels of Cormac McCarthy.

Then at a bike shop in Littleton we chatted with another cyclist who turned out to be a pediatric surgeon from San Francisco, working at Stanford. We exchanged contact info and proposed having lunch when I get to the West coast. All day people responded to the Quixotic optimism inherent in riding 4,000 miles, and shared their stories or advice or life dreams.

Finally, in Ayer we got celebratory ice creams and had another lovely conversation with Andy who is a really experienced long distance cyclist and a Congregationalist minister. He was full of wisdom and concrete advice. If the trip continues like this I will have made a lot of new friends :-)

At 5pm Charlie took the commuter rail back to Boston. It was so fun riding together, I wish he could do the whole trip...

Here's the summary of the ride: