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Sunday, October 12, 2008, with the Slate family, New Hartford, Connecticut
We woke up early enough to get ready for the morning church service at 10:00. Actually, we decided to splurge and eat breakfast at a cozy local restaurant, Caralee's. Lots of Green Bay Packers pictures and memorabilia. It was pretty full, so at first, we had to sit at three separate tables, until it cleared out a little. We are pretty frugal and usually share plates, so all the food is always eaten, and the plates are sticky but clean when we finish. We made it to the service early and met the pastor, Melinda, and other members. They were very nice and invited us to their brunch after the service, delicious; smoked salmon and other designer foods, not your typical pot luck items. Afterwards they gave us the leftovers to take with us. We discovered that someone had stolen Paul's gel seat last night, mysterious; the only thing that has been stolen so far. The ride was hilly and beautiful. We were told to watch out for the "foliage followers" who drive around looking at the beauty instead of watching the road. We had one 3-4 mile downhill section that reminded me of the Rockies, the best downhill since Colorado. All the uphill/downhill climbs and descents loosened once again the bottom bracket of the crank of our tandem. Fortunately, it happened a mile from Brumell's Cycling and Fitness. The owner, Randy, was very helpful and although he didn't have the tool he needed, he managed to fix it enough to get us going; all for no charge. The repair stop took some time, so it was time to start looking for a place to tent. Since we were flying downhill fast, I didn't stop at the big church on the left with lots of people; we settled for a smaller older church further down the road. The pastor and his wife were there. He gave us permission to put our tent up in back for the night. So we stayed for the evening service. Only a few families were there, but they were very nice people. We met the Slate family who had four girls and three boys, just like us. They even had a five-year-old daughter, Sarah, just like we did. They invited us to spend the night with them. Dave is a contractor and was remodeling the house. He has lots of unique decor throughout his house. His wife Michelle was from South Africa and had the neatest accent. The children were younger than ours, the oldest was Mariam, 11 years old and the youngest was Elizabeth, only a baby. Such a nice family. They made us feel so welcome and fed us real well. The kids played together. Dave showed us his small, homemade maple syrup factory on the property and we had some with French toast in the morning. The kids slept in their RV and Gloria and I slept on a bed down stairs. The Slates home school their children and they have no television (Hooray for them); the children love to read. We enjoyed our stay with them a lot and wished we could have stayed longer, but we had to press on. I took a relaxing hot tub bath before going to bed. 36 miles.