The Prouty is a charity ride/event that happens every summer in the Upper Valley to support Dartmouth Medical’s Cancer research. The ride just happens to go right by our son’s house. It is hard to believe our son has lived in the Upper Valley for 5 years!!! Every year we say we want to participate in this event but the timing was just not right. This year Roy was determined to do it. He signed us up in the spring and we made a point of riding distance on the few days we could find the time to do so. And despite all my various ailments it felt great to ride 30+ miles and not feel at all tired or sore afterwards. BUT the catch is riding our route in Cambridge is mostly flat and the Prouty has many hills and some of those hills were steep, long and challenging. And we were not riding road bikes so we were at a disadvantage.
The hill I was most worried about ended up not being so bad. It was the hills at the end of the ride that really got to me. And I failed to eat enough salt and got muscle cramps at the very very end climbing a hill to get to the parking lot where our car was. A kind older lady who was doing one of the Prouty walks helped me and once I downed a bottle of Pelligrino and a bag of potato chips I was better.
The ride was gorgeous and I am obsessed with what looked like a cut flower farm on River Road. My only regret was not stopping to take photos of it and I want to try to find it again. It was like a painting. All the colors of the rainbow dotted this hillside. The river views were also gorgeous.
We definitely appreciated the free King Arthur Cookies at the end and it was super nice to go get lunch and hang out in the Adirondack Chairs at Cedar Circle Farm afterwards.
The next day our daughter-in-law and son went on a breakfast date before she dropped him off at the Dartmouth Coach as he was flying to Austria for work for the week. So we hung out with the kids at the house. The plan had been to take them to Montshire but they just wanted to play on the swing their parents had installed the previous day from a tree right outside their house. The swing is a round rainbow rope net disc swing….It can function as a spinning swing, a hammock to just lie on,a pirate ship or just a climbing rough housing toy. It is great and the two kids loved it. I found I could lay down on it and get Nikko engaged with her imagination about travel to magical lands. She and Maeve are both obsessed with the Odyssey lately. Although at first Luke (age 2) said to me “Granma you are too big to lie on the swing. If you break it we will be mad.” LOL