Jim and I are in London.  We are staying very near the British Museum and were able to enter the current Rodin exhibit at the start of the day.  Such a treat to be there with very few museum goers so that we could savor the exhibit unimpeded!

 

His famous sandcasting Walking Man caused me to think a bit about our journey.  There is the literal part:  we have come half way but still have a long way to go.  But also metaphorically as Rodin himself implied:  in this great city and historical museum of antiquities, it is clear that man has come a long way but it is also clear as we keep up with events at home and abroad, that we still have a long way to go.  I think that cycling journeys like ours (and many other challenges that people take on) are all about trying to push ourselves to accomplish a goal; to feel like we can make progress.

 

But enough philosophizing.

 

The Rodin sculptures were delightful as were the other artifacts that we saw before the museum became so crowded that we had to escape.

I have gotten ahead of myself.  I last left you in York.  From that point we rode south to Grimsby, Boston & Cambridge

 

at which point Jim and I did the unthinkable (for us) and skipped a day of riding to see Cambridge and take the train into London.  In York, Gill

another friend from our first cycling tour joined up with us for a day of riding.  It has been so much fun to spend time with companions from our prior trips.  On the section from York to Grimsby we crossed the Humber Bridge which afforded a great view across the Humber Bay.  Grimsby was at one time the most prolific port in the world.  Sadly, the North Sea was badly overfished and the catch is now a small fraction of what it used to be.  Grimsby was a bit grim, so we weren’t unhappy to move on.

The ride to Boston took us on some fabulous small lanes through the Wolds, the local term for the hilly country of Lincolnshire.  It was just perfect riding:  small, mainly smooth single lane roads that rode up and down the hills with busy hedgerows on either side.  The hedgerows must be teaming with life based on the roadkill that we saw:  badger, fox, deer, and many birds.

Boston, England is the namesake of Boston, Massachusetts.  It is where the first Pilgrim settlers came from to found Boston in the 1600s.  There is a very old church there called the Boston Stump.

It has a memorial to first Pilgrims who sailed.  Included in the 12 Pilgrims memorialized there is a woman who sailed with her 10 children. While in Boston, Mass she was found to be wanting of good religious thought and banished to Rhode Island.  There she and her 10 children where killed by the native tribe.  It just doesn’t pay to be an uppity woman!!

In our various hotels we store our bicycles in whatever space the hoteliers have available to keep the bikes safe.  Sometimes it is quite humorous as in our hotel in Boston where we had to carry the bikes up several flights of stairs to store them in a dining room.

Sadly our good weather karma for cycling ran out the day we left Boston.  For the first 57km of the ride we had brutal headwinds.

This region is a bit like the Great Plains or Palouse in the US…open agricultural fields with nothing to block the wind.  (Lisa B, think Ellensburg winds!).  I recall little of the scenery as I had to keep my head down to keep moving forward or avoid being blown off the road.  Even the very hotshot riders in our group found it challenging.  Fortunately after our lunch stop, both we and the wind changed direction somewhat and the wind wasn’t so bad.  You will note by the way that we do obsess about weather.  It can make or break the day to have pleasant cycling weather.  So far we have been pretty darn lucky.

I was somewhat concerned with my woozy head about riding into London.  Jim and I therefore decided to take in the sights in Cambridge (a truly lovely central city), and take the train and Tube into London.  We met our friend Liz for a wonderful dinner at the Borough Market that night.

The next day after our museum foray we went to a fair called Underbelly south of the Thames and saw a somewhat edgy circus called Soap (think a wet Cirque de Soleil done in underwear)… very fun.  We also saw a play at the Old Vic.  Very nice to get a dose of highly varied culture not available at home!

Tomorrow we head off for southern England and in two days we ferry from Dover to France.  Our legs are well rested and we are looking forward to heading off after a wonderful stay in London.  We are also looking forward to riding on the right side of the road although we will miss being able to converse with all of the locals.

Good-bye for now.