Ithica & Shindagin

Foggy during night.

Set alarm & woke to it to get going early to beat rain at Ithica.

Drove to Ithica, grocery shopped: no filtered water. Looked up bike shop in Yellow Pages & called asking about ride info. Told to go to their web site & look for maps. Beat driving to shop sort of.

Drove out to Shinagin TH. Reviewed favorably. Foggy.

Ride in trees, some maples have dropped all their leaves, pretty coverage. Wandered around riding first one number trail then the next higher. Couldn’t connect so wandered. Edge has compass corrected to declination making navigation much more accurate & comforting.

Deep woods cover w/ roots:

deep woods cover, trail is under leaves, somewhere
deep woods cover, trail is under leaves, somewhere

Wandered around. Other trails not numbered. Would like to ride w/ local to put big ride together. Rode B trails on other side of road. Rode over into Shindagin Hollow road & had to retrace my tracks. Missed necessary trails to loop return to van.

Finally fell on a root on way back. Thankfully going slow as front wheel just slipped sideways spilling me onto my left side stopping just short of banging my head into a log. Whew.

Otherwise I would have been buried here:

remains left to the woods, family plot, 1880s or so
remains left to the woods, family plot, 1880s or so

In the woods there were 2 long rock fences made with flat rocks. early farming w/ small cemetery holding their remains. Trees replaced what must have been fields. Land must have been pretty hard to till judging from length & height of stone fences.

No shower, no XG nearby. No scam.

Drove back into Ithica for internet access. Drove out to hospital & parked in visitor parking lot. Security keeps driving by, so far no inquiry.

Forecast is for rain rest of week. Ride tomorrow before forecasted rain & then work East to Vermont.

Diesel $ almost 1/2 gone.