Above, Ricky has a message for Clarice. (Well, somebody ought to pay some attention to Halloween!)
Slugs are, of course, ectothermic (that's the term for cold-blooded), and Laura's Hill Slugs might have been so on our ride yesterday. Yesterday's was the first really cold ride of the season. I scraped frost off the car as I was loading up the gear, and it was still well below 40°F at the time we started from Sourland Coffee.
Laura OLPH hadn't planned a route at the time we left; instead, she had a direction and approximate mileage in mind: we'd go to Lambertville to see the nifty decorations on Union Street, and we'd plan about 40-45 miles. So off we went.
The cold got to me; I had numb fingers and, later, numb toes (although both passed, with time and exertion. Later, some of the Slugs mentioned how we'd warmed up as we were returning, but I was grateful for every layer I had with me. (I've since put in an order for a balaclava, to replace the hat-and-gaiter that's my usual winter garb.)
We were a bit disappointed in Lambertville; the particular display we'd hoped to see wasn't out this year. Further, with the coronavirus, there's no sitting inside the shop at Rojo's to warm up (we think we may need to adjust winter rides if there's no way to warm up at the stop, because in the cold weather, it can be unpleasant to wait outside, and access to toilets may also prove a consideration - Ricky disappeared for a while, and it turned out he was availing himself of plumbing at the nearby CVS).
So back we came, climbing Rocktown-Lambertville Road. Instead of the terrifying crossing of Route 31, we did an adjusted crossing that was much more sensible. We made up for that by riding the dirt section of Stony Brook (not my favorite, but Laura did not want to deal with the hills on the alternative routes), and made up for that by taking Moores Mill-Mount Rose all the way to Pennington/Rocky Hill Road, a pleasant change of pace from the usual trip down Wargo.
On that last bit, I'm afraid I succumbed to a temptation. I was riding in the back with the slower members on the road, and on the path to our right was a guy who was keeping pace. I found it just that little bit irritating. He got into our group as we were to turn left onto Main Street, and I'm afraid I did the macho-mile race-back-to-the-start performance that's so common among riders out of Cranbury, so I could leave this fellow in my dust. It was more than I could bear. I don't usually leave the group like that, and I'm sure my penance will be just.
Today, I did this ride early, and I'm only posting it as a reminder to myself to include that, while the Blackwells Mills/Six Mile lot is still fairly full, there is now a porta-potty there (which there has not been for many months).
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