The Kingdom

Oh, The Kingdom. How lucky are we to have the Northeast Kingdom of VT and its business savvy community members?  So lucky.  This place is a mountain biking mecca (for New England - and I must make that specification because I have never been to Bend, OR, but I have biked Moab, UT and we often bike Western NC - and everything in New England is pretty compact geographically - it has to be, I guess, since it is all private land).  The designers and concept masterminds behind The Kingdom are smart.  They have squeezed in about 100 miles of single and double-track (about 50/50) that snake around epically beautiful farms, and dense forests - trails that traverse (over and over) ravines, sending the rider through, up and over whoopdie-doos (some so freaking steep I was strangling my grips while I went careening down to the bottom and was hurdled up to the crest of the next one).  They have made many, many solid relationships with private landowners, helping them to see the benefit of mountain bikers in the area - the businesses in the area benefit, the health of their community benefits, the surrounding states' bikers benefit.  Although all the love has caused it to become darn eroded in places, (I can significantly notice the difference in erosion since my first visit seven years ago or so) it makes me giddy (and a little envious) that they made it work.

I was talking with our nutrition director for the district (at the Farmers' Market this past Friday) about the Kingdom, as she had just returned from a conference in VT related to local food in schools (both high schools and colleges).  And I asked her what the difference is between Maine and Vermont (I had my own list) and she said, "Maine is just not there yet, we will be."  Gawd, I hope she is right.  We can do it!

So the Kingdom...  Sarah, Kat and I had a great trip over.  Al told me about a 20 mile dirt road shortcut that made the trip that much better.  We arrived around 3:00, bought our passes and met Al and Karen in the Darling Hill parking lot.  We rode about 15 miles that evening and then went back to camp for a killer meal.  We all brought food to share with one another, and I cannot explain how excellent it was to share food with these healthy people.  Everyone brought food that was vegetarian, fresh and healthy.  Sarah is a vegan, and she had a dish that was full of chick peas, carrots, currants, curry, walnuts, celery - oh my goodness, it was good.  Kat brought a big black bean and cilantro salad, I brought all the fixins for a Waldorf Salad, Al had a quinoa salad loaded with veggies from the garden, squash cakes and a sweet potato salad.  Soooo good.  We ate around the fire and talked until midnight. 

 

My new bike. I am still figuring it out (it is really different from my old bike I rode for 10 years), but I love it! 

Tent Land - aren't we funny?  We each had our own tent.  I have had my tent since college and have given it some good use this summer, as I have done a good chunk of camping weekends without Jim. 

Sarah and Kat on "Dead Moose Alley".

Alison - about to take a hard left and climb.

Al, Kat, Sarah, Karen and I.  That is Willoughby Gap there behind us, and we are some (half? three quarters?) of the way up Burke Mountain Ski Area, about to take a fun single-track down.

This is "Heaven's Bench" - pretty sweet spot.  More private land open with land-owner permission and agreement.  A beautiful place to check the map, make a plan or just take a little breather.

This is Kat, working on her broken chain.  It broke the first time at the very start of the ride on the first day.  Between the five of us, and yes it did take all five, we figured out how to remove a link and shorten the chain so Kat could ride that ride and most of the next day.  We were remarking that if we had boys with us they would just do it for us, and we would never learn.  We knew if we figured it out that day, together, we would always know how to do it.  It took us about a half hour, but we DID figure it out!  It is all pretty logical stuff.  We were pretty proud though.  One couple did stop to help, this super sweet man and woman.  He never offered to do it, but he hung out long enough to watch and make sure we had it working and knew what we were doing.  He gave us one tip - to not fully remove the pin that holds the link in (it is easier to line up if one does not remove it fully) and then wished us luck and rode off.  He quickly returned about a minute later wanting to share one more tip.  We happily took it.  He told us that the "fix" spot would be pretty tight to start and that if we pushed the pin a little past and then backed it back, it would allow the link to loosen.  Thank you sweet, unknown biker man.  So this pic is of Kat on day two, near the end of our ride, trying to fix it again, just to get her through the next few miles.  Sarah and I kept riding (Al and Karen had already left for the day) and let Kat work on it, telling her we would meet her at the car.  She was not able to fix it a second time, so she jogged her bike back (which is no big deal for her - she runs (yup RUNS) 30 miles on the AT for fun!).  She is taking it to a shop for some real love.  

Great trip to the Kingdom.  We got back Tuesday evening.  A long time ago Jim got tickets for us to see Old Crow Medicine Show and The Lumineers as a special date night.  That was for Wednesday night.  So Wednesday we headed to Portland for dinner, drinks and a concert.  The show was good - The Lumineers were awesome.  I remember listening to their disc thinking, "That bass drum is going to be AWESOME live," and it SO WAS.  Holy crap.  I made it about one minute before I looked at Jim and said, "I have to go down front."  He was happy to follow me down there and that is where we watched both bands - second row.  Sweet.  The show started around 8pm and they played until midnight - ending with ALL of them out on the stage - the first, second and third band - all 13 or so of them out there.  Good times!

We stayed at Jessie and Ian's in Portland that night.  Jessie is 4 months pregnant and looks (and is!) awesome!  Love that girl so much.  We had no idea that they now have a boat, so it was pretty awesome to wake the next morning, eat breakfast on their patio just a hop, skip and a jump from the Old Port and then head down to the ocean and get in their boat.  I had never been out on Casco Bay.  Pretty cool to look back at Portland. 

Those of you who have met Dixie would NOT believe how wonderful she was on the boat.  She was so good, so calm and so adventurous. 

Jim and Ian.

Ian, Jim, their lobster trap and Fort Gorgeous.

We boated over to a sandy, white beach and had lunch.  What a killer day!  Back to Farmington...

the WRONG way (but we got to see the drawbridge go up, so that was pretty cool) and then to the Farmers' Market on Friday.  Feeling like a Rock Star.  

Summer started slowly for me - I could not shake the sadness of the year, but now, after lots of therapeutic time with friends, in the woods, on the trails, and with family, I am feeling better.  Just in time : )