But biking, the cheapest way to cover a lot of territory and still feel as if you really savored it, needn't be left to professionals. Our latest venture, and perhaps our most satisfying one, strengthened my feeling that bike-touring was well within the capabilities of complete amateurs and that even killer hills could be conquered by the simple, humble act of walking.
Base camp for this summer's excursion was a cool, breeze-riffled cottage on the shore of Parker Lake, a dot on the map beside the village of West Glover just up the road from Barton, Vt., one of those crisp, whitewashed towns that beckon from postcard racks. Our friends Chris and Ellen Braithwaite run the Chronicle, the town's weekly newspaper. Over a pre-July 4 picnic of soda and grilled hot dogs, they helped us chart a two-day trip.
Later we picked up a fine, detailed road map from the Greater Newport (Vt.) Area Chamber of Commerce. Newport, by the way, also has a fully stocked bicycle shop.
Before leaving Vermont, we spent a lazy fireside afternoon with a dairy farmer and his artist wife, who tap sugar maples and make sweet pecan brittle
from the syrup. We chowed down on corncob-smoked ham (a local art form) and delighted in an uproarious stay with Dan and Gayle Phillabaum, the unreserved proprietors of the Seymour Lake Lodge in Morgan.
My 16-year-old son, Coan, was along for this journey, and for some reason we felt compelled to add an objective to the itinerary. The Canadian border, about 35 miles away, fit the bill, though we were assured that Derby Line, the destination, was not particularly scenic, except for an opera house that straddled the U.S.-Canadian line, providing the site for intrigue, international trials and meetings of rock stars banned from one country or the other.
