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Anne had setup an Uber XL to pick us up with all our luggage Saturday at o'dark-thirty. Our driver reminded us both eerily of Steve Webb. We breezed through baggage check and security and found our way to the gate. It wasn't long before loading, we were the first to go in and got settled in first class seats 2a & b, our favorites.

The flight from DFW to LaGuardia was completely uneventful and on-time. Instead of catching a train to Penn Station in NYCity then transferring to a northbound train to Rhinebeck then Uber to our hotel, with all our luggage in tow, we chose to hire a Black Car Service to pick us up at LaGuardia and drive us directly to our hotel, the Residence Inn in Kingston, NY.

It took a bit for him to find us (we had exited the wrong side of the terminal) but eventually he loaded us up and drove us to Kingston, a 3 hour trip due to traffic in NYC. There was beautiful scenery, heavily wooded rolling hills, lush undergrowth, just so much vegetation. The drive was a much smoother pace once out of the city but we saw 2 accidents on the way. Our driver, Mina (Turkish), pointed out the sights, and explained the 5 Burroughs. There were some cool bridges, one an old stone railroad bridge, the Hell Gate bridge which opened in 1916.

Once in Kingston we checked into the Residence Inn then walked over to CrazyBowlz, a little restaurant in front of the WalMart, where we both had Bibimbap. Crazy, right?

Day 1 Morning - Rip Van Winkle Route - 15 mi, 856 ft Elevation Gain
Day 1 Afternoon - Catskills Route - 16 mi, 1148 ft Elevation Gain

In the morning we ate breakfast at the Residence Inn and checked out then Uber'd from Kingston to the Beekman Arms hotel in Rhinebeck to meet the Backroads leaders and guests. The weather was gorgeous, high 60s. The Beekman Arms is America's oldest inn with a plaque listing the landlords since 1766. Low doors and ceilings, guest room toilets like a foot off the ground. Heavy wood, dark, cozy. There is a dollhouse model of the bar area of the inn in spectacular detail.

The first guest we met was Gordon Kit, a patent attorney, who has done 43 Backroads biking trips. He knew everyone's ages! Next was Ed Woods who lives in an old bomb factory near Cincinnati. He is only in his 50's tops. Then Carolyn & Frank arrived from New Jersey, Julie and Sam from Maryland, all in their 70s! Our leader, Ross, joined soon and we boarded the van for a shuttle to Palenville. The support leader, Ayinde, drove our van and told us about his work in the submersible sub, Alvin, while working at Woods Hole Oceanic Institute in Massachusetts. He is working on an oceanography degree studying methane vents in the deep ocean floor.

Once in Palenville, we gathered in a circle and introduced ourselves in a parking lot next to a restaurant. We met the other guests, Scott and his sons Jack and Charlie, and McNeal and Pam with their sons Hayes and Mike. Another leader, Tiffany, gave us the Safety Talk then Ross gave the Route Rap and we got fitted to our bikes.

We opted for the Rip Van Winkle route, 15.4 miles and 856 feet of elevation gain. It was a great warm up, rolling hills and nice temps. We lunched near the Woodstock Playhouse under tall trees with the mountains in the distance, bikes parked along a long fence. Lunch was typically fantastic Backroads's healthy salads and olive oils infused sandwiches on bread you can sink your teeth into. Plus cookies!

In the afternoon, we set off on the Catskills Route. About 5 miles in a major hill climb started and Anne ran out of gears way too early. As we started up a near 10% grade, she opted to take a rest in what looked to be a more level space. To get out of the sun, we moved a little further up which unfortunately took us into a steeper section. Before she could clip out, she ended up pitching to the right, down into a ditch luckily filled with soft vegetation (and no chiggers!). She hit her right hip but not badly. Once up, we decided to go back downhill to a level-er spot and then it hit the fan. It was steep going down, Anne picked up too much speed in the wrong lane, a car was coming, she whipped left and her front wheel hit a grate in the road. She went down hard on her right knee and swore loudly. That was it for her ride. Tiffany patched her up and Ayinde gave us both a ride to the Woodstock Way Hotel, a beautiful boutique hotel made of natural wood nestled into the woodsy hillside. The buildings had 10 foot high windows on 3 sides showcasing the beautiful trees and the sod roofs of the other buildings.

After cleaning up, we sat on the balcony of our hotel room and visited with passersby while reading our books, catching up on emails and trying out the "S'mores" welcome packet left in our room. It had graham crackers, two small chocolate bars and two large marshmallows. Yum!

Since Anne's banged up knee was bleeding through the bandage, she called Tiffany to get more supplies. Tiff dropped by to doctor her up again and left her with another bandage and more antibiotic cream.

We discovered the Woodstock Way had a little coffee shop so we headed up the hill and grabbed some iced coffees to perk us up for the typical long Backroads welcome reception and dinner.

Since arriving a bit early we had extra time to go explore. Anne hobbled a bit but not too bad so we walked into Woodstock, the quirky town known for its 1969 summer of love music festival, full of music, arts and crafts shops, and live music restaurants. There was a row of artists in tented stalls. We stopped and talked with them for a bit. They told us about the drum circle and Grandpa Woodstock and a little history of the town. Anne grabbed some nice iridescent earrings which she wore to dinner that night.

At 6:15, we met for a reception near the waterfall on the terrace. Ross lightly strummed a guitar while we chatted with the other guests.

Dinner was at the Goodnight Restaurant, a short walk into town. We all sat at a long table, upstairs, Scott on the left of Stewart, then Anne, Ross, Tiffany and Ed Woods. Hayes and Mike sat across from Scott. The food was served as several courses family style. The dishes were very creative, tasty but indescribable. Dessert was sesame covered sweet rice balls, very spongy, and ice cream. It was a long meal with lots of time between courses. Getting to the WC was tricky, either pushing Tiffany and Ross off their end or taking Scott's approach which was limboing under the table. Finally we got back to the hotel about 10:15pm. Whew, a 3 1/2 hour dinner! Reminded us of France.

Back at the hotel, Anne discovered that her knee had leaked five stripes down her leg. It was dried so she used a makeup wipe to clean it up and patched it with more antibiotic cream and the new bandage.

Day 2 Morning - Ashokan Reservoir Route - 29 mi, 1977 ft Elevation Gain
Day 2 Afternoon - Phoenicia Out & Back - 18 mi, 841 ft Elevation Gain

We walked into town to get breakfast at the Bread Alone bakery at 7am. We ran into Gordon, Carolyn and Frank and had a late (for us) coffee and interesting breakfasts. Anne had avocado toast with crunchy snow peas on top, while Stewart had the overnight oats.

Getting to the Woodstock Way Inn involved turning down a nondescript alleyway with a gravel road that twisted past a small art and coffee shop, then down a steep hill to where the vans were parked.

Back at our room, we got dressed in our bike clothes, and headed to the Backroads van to stock up on snacks, water and hear the route rap. The route was depicted with a long orange gear strap for the road and a blue tarp representing the reservoir, with a banana indicating a long climb. We headed out but as Anne climbed up the gravel road, she lost all purchase and nearly pitched off the bike. Turns out the chain had fallen off!!! Dagnabit, she was done with _this_ bike. She still had the yips as she walked the bike back to the van. Seems the derailleur had gotten smashed during the crash and was unfixable. But luckily Tiffany was Anne's size so Tiff gave Anne her bike and Anne was able to have a great day of cycling.

Our ride out to the Ashokan Reservoir was beautiful, backdropped by the Catskills and undulating roads (our newest Backroads term). We met up with Scott and his sons, Charlie and Jack, and took lots of photos on a bridge just before the park at the reservoir. At the park, we met Ayinde with the van at mile 18, refilled water and walked the bridge at the reservoir, counted 50+ Canada geese and watched two tiny Asian girl bicyclists show us how to do it. When Sam and Julie arrived, we all climbed in the van with Ayinde and he drove us to the top of the climb and let us out to enjoy the long downhill to lunch at Howland House at Mount Tremper, a huge white farmhouse building with a U-shape area with round tables under red umbrellas. Lunch was set up buffet style on the back porch railings, including quiche, focaccia sandwiches, cucumber salad and the best iced tea ever. We ate with Gordon for a while then Ed joined us.

The afternoon route took us along Esopus Creek, the birthplace of fly fishing in American. It was a gorgeous cycling day, rolling along as the creek sparkled in the sun and burbled over boulders and river rock. We first pedaled west away from Mount Tremper, on past the Zen Mountain Monastery, following the creek until our trip computers (Wahoos) started beeping where we turned around and went back to Mount Tremper, and continued on to a long slow climb and a fast descent back into Woodstock.

Stewart settled into the room to read his book while Anne went on the optional tour of the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monestery. We were met with long ropes of flowing triangular flags lining the road as we entered the grounds. Ross described the importance of the monastery to the Buddhists.

This was an "on your own" dinner night so, once showered, we headed back to town and ate at Yum Yum Noodle. Although temps were rising, we opted to sit outside, grabbing a decent breeze now and then. Stewart had soba noodles with tofu and veggies and Anne had bibimbap while two old hippies gazed into the windows of the Woodstock Music Shop, having arrived just past closing, lusting after the vintage guitars, amps and vinyl. As we left, we saw several Backroads folks who had recommended Yum Yum, enjoying their dinner inside the restaurant. We stepped in to chat with the group and Stewart loaned Ed his travel peppers. He has made a friend for life!

Day 3 Morning - Millbrook Winery Route - 23 mi, 1963 ft Elevation Gain
Day 3 Afternoon - Troutbeck Route - 21 mi, 1348 ft Elevation Gain

We again ate breakfast at Bread Alone to get coffee as soon as possible. Stewart had the avocado toast this time while Anne opted for a salmon bagel. We talked with Julie and Sam who when asked about his vertical scars explained that he had had two knee replacements.

The route rap was written on the van window and used the door panel decals while Tiffany showed us the various climbs coming up, not really aligned with the decals but we got the idea.

After loading up on snacks and water we headed out on the Millbrook Winery route. A bridge was under construction so one route was scrapped, meaning we all took the shorter 23 mile route. However, it had 1963 feet of climbing! We did really well with it though, considering it was warming up a lot, and we made it to 20.8 miles before climbing off and walking the bikes. We thought we had a mile or so to walk so we stopped Ayinde and loaded into the van, finding out later we were only a quarter mile or so from the top. It didn't matter though since the very end was a looong chunky gravel road into the winery so we would have needed a lift anyway. Ayinde didn't take us straight to lunch though since Sam & Julie were wanting a lift so we back tracked quite a ways to pick them up. Julie had gotten a stomach issue and wasn't feeling well.

Lunch was at the Millbrook Winery under a large white tent. It was really getting hot at this point, so the icy cold water and Yeti beverages were really inviting. Anne walked through the winery gift shop area to use the rest room but managed to get away without carting out wine casks. Other guests clanked with their purchases as they loaded the van with their finds.

Being the best support guy ever, Ayinde agreed to drop us, Sam and Julie 10 miles into the afternoon route at the top of the long climb. We enjoyed a long downhill (some gravel though… yuk) picking up the Harlem Valley Rail Trail at the Wassaic Train Station, just past a huge inflatable cow on a jet ski. After the 8 mile rail trail ride we rolled into Troutbeck, dropped our bikes at the Backroads van, and enjoyed some icy creamy golden IPAs. Aaaaah!

The Troutbeck Resort is an amazing old stone building surrounded by lush, wooded landscape and including a red bridge over a babbling brook, hammocks, Adirondack chairs, a pool, tennis courts, and "The Barns", a collection of buildings supporting wellness programs, yoga and Pilates. We did none of these, but enjoyed gathering bird sounds with the Merlin Bird ID app, although once in the trees they were impossible to see despite having brought my little Costco Zeiss binoculars.

Our room was through a heavy wood dining room, past a paneled, leather chair and bookcase filled library, over slate then tile then wood floors, up a carpeted stairway to a door notched by the angled ceiling. Inside it had a calm grey green hue, a slim poster bed and large window onto a side yard with a massive flowered tree just outside. From the window we could see three tricycle market carts with large metal baskets tucked into the bushes in a way that implied they hadn't seen use in some time. From there we could also see the sloping roofline complete with railings as if workers had to walk it regularly.

Dinner was at the Troutbeck Restaurant on our own time. We saw Sam & Julie at the next table and later, Pam & McNeal and their sons, Mike & Hayes nearby. The meal was again indescribable with so many unusual ingredients that Stewart had to google them before we could order. There were many staff members, all very earnest but seemingly new to the jobs, several quite young. The meal was delicious and the wine was good, especially given that Anne sampled two before choosing one.

Day 4 Morning - Taconic State Park Route - 22 mi, 892 ft Elevation Gain
Day 4 Afternoon - Harlem Valley Rail Trail Route - 22 mi, 695 ft Elevation Gain

Breakfast was in the Sun Room at the Troutbeck Inn. Backroads had reserved it for us. We met up with Pam and McNeal, their boys were at the next table. Pam was doing research on hand-brain connections and the benefit of doing crafts, playing musical instruments, writing, etc. She has very low blood pressure not unlike Stewart and had to be careful not to get up too quickly lest she pass out. We also discussed statins and found out Pam was on statins despite having a zero calcium score which she had to repeat every year, and being well under 65 years old. Curious.

We had an hour to eat and get ready, meeting the trip leaders at the van over in the southern-most parking lot, right beside the swimming pool. Pam was in no hurry and we discovered late that she wasn't riding this day. We scooted to get our bike gear on and headed to the vans.

Tiff, Ross, and Ayinde were getting the bikes ready and laying out the snacks. Today's route started on the Harlem Valley Rail Trail heading north. It was a beautiful, "cool" route (for us Texans!) through the trees and rock cliffs, beside the ponds and creeks. We saw many birds and chipmunks along the trail. The birds would be sitting on the trail and would pop-up as we biked near then fly along with us for a while before veering away. The tiny chipmunks would dart into the road, pause, then fly on across, right in front of us.

Halfway we saw Charlie dismount his bike and cross the rail trail to an opening in the vegetation on our left. We asked if he was okay and he said "I just want to get photos of the swans!" Well, so did we once we knew they were there. Anne had brought along her little binoculars so she shared them with Charlie as she tried getting clear photos with the 5x zoom on her iPhone 15 Pro. The water was mucky and the swans ducked their heads in only to come up brown with large clumps in their mouths. I couldn't tell if it was vegetation or fish. There were also 13 or so small ducklings and a larger duck, probably mallards.

The route was generally flat until we got to mile 16. Apparently the Rail Trail was being worked on between here and Copake Falls, our lunch destination. We headed west on a backroad that, for the next 5 miles, took us on some intense hills. One was a very steep gravel road that was about 1/4 mile long. We both clipped out as the base and were happy to walk our bikes to the top, re-mount, and bike into lunch at Taconic State Park.

It was very warm at lunch so several guests headed to the pond, called the Ore Pit, where lots of folks were swimming. They even had a Bath House so people could change and a diving platform out in the middle of the pond. We saw Scott, Jack, and Charlie walking back. They had gone swimming with their biking shorts on! Whatever it took to get cool, and they now looked pretty comfortable.

Lunch was excellent Backroads picnic fare. Anne had thrown our hiking shoes in the van after breakfast so we did a little research and headed to one of the several hiking paths to see if we could do a little birding. We decided quickly to abandon this idea. It was just too sweltering, the roads were too loud, and the hiking trails were not well groomed. The bugs were big enough to pick us up and carry us away.

Ross told us that the Harlem Valley Rail Trail maintenance had been completed so we could ignore our WaHoo route computers and just get right on the Trail and follow it all the way back. He suggested muting the WaHoo "for a few miles" then turn it back on. Stewart did that but turned it back on too early. When it said to turn right he did, against Anne's shouted directions (she could see the rail trail on the left), and ended up taking a very hilly and hot exposed route for about 3-4 miles before looping back to the Rail Trail. Boy was he in trouble! It was the original return path that we would have taken if the maintenance had not been completed. At one point Tiffany drove by in the van and waved to us. Stewart made eye contact with her and there was an instant unspoken acknowledgment of being on the wrong route, and that she knew it, that Stewart knew it, and that she knew that Stewart knew that she knew it. Smile, wave, smile, keep pedaling.

Back on the Rail Trail it was a beautiful route back to the Troutbeck Inn where we met Ross, Tiff, and Ayinde and handed off the bikes and helmets. We again got a couple beers and headed back to our room to get cleaned up and rest up for dinner.

We all met at 6pm out on the patio. This was our Farewell Reception. Everyone sat around and compared notes, told stories, drank wine, and listened to Ross play his guitar and sing favorites from John Denver, Glenn Campbell, and others. It was very relaxing. We had started to get to know each other more and the conversations were easy and fun.

Dinner was in the Troutbeck Dining hall. We sat across from Ed and Tiffany, beside Sam and Julie and shared stories and Travel Peppers. We even tried Travel Peppers on our desserts, and liked it (mostly). We heard about Tiffany's four adult children (?! she looks 30!) and Ed's bomb factory condo. So cool.

Day 5 - Connecticut Warmdown Route - 19 mi, 933 ft Elevation Gain

This was our final day of biking. Breakfast was again in the sunroom with a buffet spread. It was setup to both eat there and to pack food to travel with. We ate a little and packed a lot up to take with us later. There was not a Route Rap today. Some people chose not to even ride but to instead sleep in and have a late breakfast.

There were two biking options, a short cooldown loop, and a longer warmdown loop. We chose the longer route because it headed north to loop around Indian Lake and headed to Sharon, Connecticut (Main Street, Upper Main Street, East Main Street, West Main Street). Yes we got confused and onto the wrong Main Street. But not to worry, it all came back together at the clock tower! It was a beautiful bike ride, cool, sunny, modest hills, perfect. The town of Sharon was filled with beautiful old mansions. They made Anne think of Alexander Hamilton's upstate New York retreats.

We rolled back into the Troutbeck parking lot and stripped down our bikes. Ross took off our pedals, we took our front packs and water bottles, and headed back to our room to get cleaned up. Lunch was at 11am, a spread of sandwiches, salads, fruit, veggies, cookies that we could eat and/or pack for travel. We did both. Combined with our breakfast packs it was a ton of food we hauled away from there.

All the other guests but us were scheduled to load into the vans and be dropped off somewhere between the Troutbeck Inn, the Rhinebeck or Wassaic Train Stations, a parked car (Ed), or a family home (Frank and Carolyn). We had our Black Car service set to pick us up at 2pm so Stewart had negotiated with the front desk to stay in the room until 12noon (instead of the the normal checkout at 11am). We went back up and started packing. Mid point the phone rang, could we come down for a group shot? Yes! We dropped everything and went out to the patio where everyone was gathering.

We got a group photo, said our good byes, and wished everyone Safe Travels. We had hoped to do some hiking and bird watching around the beautiful Troutbeck grounds. But it was just too hot and buggy to do that, and we had checked out at noon so we had no place to get cleaned up. Turned out the Black Car service was early! They messaged then showed up around 12:30pm. This was perfect. We loaded up and MD drove us 2.5 hours to the LaGuardia Marriott and dropped us at the front door. We checked in to our room and relaxed, napped, watched some Netflix, ate our packed food, and worked on this blog.

We got up in the morning and cleaned up a bit, ate more of our Troutbeck to-go food, then the Marriott shuttle dropped us at American Airlines in Terminal B. We breezed through baggage check & TSA security and headed to our gate. We got some coffee and Anne found a little table at the huge beautiful watery fountain art just down from our gate. The shower show had projected video and music, showing scenes of New York in time with the water splashing from the ceiling even spelling out the names of the boroughs. More art dotted the ceiling throughout the terminal in the form of helium balloons seemingly escaped from many children's hands.

Our American Airlines flight was on-time. The weather cooperated so we were 30 minutes early landing in DFW. For some reason our bags were labeled "Priority" so they came out first on the carrousel. Anne contacted Uber which promptly appeared, James, drove us home telling us stories about his family and early days in the metroplex. We were home by 1:30pm. Our kittens Cooper, Marley, and SeaBreeze welcomed us home with hugs and licks and requests for T-R-E's (that's what they call treats).

The super nice Backroads app is based on the app RideWithGPS. It appears that the Backroads app uses the same navigation system and cues. Before we left for NY we managed to copy the routes out from the Backroads app into RideWithGPS so we can refer to them here in this blog. However, we were not able to record our trips since the Backroads app did not support saving.

We used the WaHoo Element Roam bike computers that were provided by Backroads. These were very nice. They were pre-loaded with all our routes and configured with 3 displays : a map route display, a data display, and a climbing display. We were not allowed to reconfigure them. Anne and I like to see things that were not available in the default - cadence, grade, temperature, compass direction, heart rate, time of day. None of these were available. Fine, we adapted. I didn't think I'd use the climb display but found that it was the one I relied on the most. It showed a graph with the climb on it, where we were on the climb, and marked in color the different grades as we approached them. This was super handy to gear up (or down) in prep for the upcoming segment.

The app was telling us the grades were up to 7.5% elevation change. But we both know what a 10-15% grade feels like and some of these hills were way more than 7.5% ! Perhaps they were showing us an average grade for the hill? We never figured it out, but some of the hills were very steep. We struggled with it the first day, turning ourselves inside-out to push to the top then decided, Hey! let's just get off and walk when it gets too steep, then get back on and continue when it levels back out. This worked great.

8 of the 14 guests rode e-bikes. Most of these folks were not regular bicyclists but they did fine with e-bikes and never seemed to run out of battery. Ross yelled out each morning "Who wants a gel seat?!" "I do!!" from the e-bikers. With each new Backroads trip we see more e-bikes chosen.

One of the guests, Ed, told us about his apartment. It is in an old Ammo Factory near Cincinnati, OH. Here - https://www.pcfapts.com/. What a bizarre interesting place to live! He lives near the Little Miami Scenic Trail and has been training on the trail for this trip. He later told us about the Buckeye Trail that circumnavigates all of Ohio. It's 1400 miles long!

First thing each morning as we were heading to breakfast we would always see Gordon patiently sitting in the lobby, or by the bikes, in his biking kit waiting for the trip leaders to arrive. He always started biking before anybody else and biked the routes alone. Gordon has the most Backroads trips we've ever heard of at 43 bike trips.

Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Dallas Mavericks vs. Boston Celtics, was played while we were in upstate NY. Ayinde, Gordon, and others were die-hard Celtics fans. They met in Gordon's room and watched the whole game and the post-game celebrations (Celtics won). We Mavs fans watched the first quarter then packed it in, getting to bed so we would be fresh for biking in the morning. Good thing, too. The Celtics killed the Mavs in that last game. It would have been ugly to watch. 
The routes were lined with vegetation we had never seen. What were those huge flowering trees? What is that marsh grass with the knobby / fluffy heads? Never figured it out since we didn't want to stop and drag out our PictureThis app.