“Ride #60: Back in the Saddle Again, and the Mystic Art Festival”

After a week of brutal heat and humidity, temperatures were finally back down into the 80's, although the humidity was still at 100%. I'd only ridden once all week!

I wasn't feeling up to a half century due to the humidity, so I decided to ride my older 30 mile training route plus a few extra miles to include one of the nastiest hills in the area.

One big surprise I had on this ride was when I was passing through downtown Mystic... there were thousands and thousands of people! And hundreds of tents! It was the Mystic Art Festival. I'd never seen it before, it's totally huge. Tents full of paintings, dolls, sculptures, and lots of other artforms, all filling up the streets from one end of downtown to the other, including all of the side streets. Never seen anything like it, and I was truly impressed.

In fact, if it hadn't been so impressive I probably would have been annoyed because it slowed me down so much. I was just too amazed to be in the least annoyed (and being annoyed would have been rather pointless, I know). Perhaps "amazed" isn't strong enough - "awe struck" is more like it. Mystic is a very small town, I don't know how they got all those people and tents in there!

Only one other notable related to this ride: my weight! It's continued to go down, in spite of the lack of exercise. Je ne comprends pas.

Stats: 35.4 miles (56.99 km) in 108' 0" for an average speed of 19.66 mph (31.66 kph).