Travels with haRVy

To celebrate the season, we spent the weekend peddling and paddling in scenic Connecticut. We loaded up haRVy with the “bare essentials” on Friday night and headed out for Colchester mid-morning on Saturday. Our destination was a portion of the Air Line Rail Trail, which is a 22 mail rail trail in Eastern Connecticut on the former tracks of the New Haven, Middletown & Willimantic Railroad.

Atop Historic Lyman Viaduct

We’d been wanting to explore this trail for some time and everything came together for an exceptionally beautiful ride through some brilliant fall foliage on a cool, crisp afternoon. The trail environment is diverse with forest, streams (sometimes on both sides of the trail) and wetlands. On the portion we traveled it traverses two large viaducts with great views. The Lyman Viaduct, which towers 137 feet high over Dickinson’s Creek wa built in 1873 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. There was also a beautiful old brownstone arch bridge dated 1887.

After our ride we drove to Sharon’s farm in Canterbury where we camped out overnight. We enjoyed a beautiful starry sky through haRVy’s skylight as well as the sounds of squealing pigs and howling coyotes.

On Sunday we were awakened by roosters. After a leisurely breakfast and a walk around the farm we paddled the Quinebaug River with Sharon and her friend John. The river was running rather rapidly, so we decided to leave the camera onshore (no photos…sorry). It was beautiful paddle enjoyed by all with a few thrills but (luckily) no spills.

After our paddle, we did our part to support local business by enjoying homemade apple crisp and ice cream at Canterbury Cones. They were getting ready to close for the season, so we just couldn’t resist this last chance opportunity.