Riding with Austin

My young neighbor expressed an interest in doing a long bike ride. "How about 20 miles right now", I asked? "OK" was his reply. We took the New Bedford waterfront route. Over the bridge and I showed him how to portage his bike down the stairs.

It was necessary in a few spots to do some "street" riding. Austin easily picked up the techinque of watching, listening and signaling when making lane changes and turns.




We made our way into Fort Rodman where we stopped to check out Battery Miliken (an old WWII large gun battery, that protected the harbor).







We moved on to Battery Edwards and found a tunnel underneath. It was too dark to explore completely, but was worth a look.


I'm not going in there

Further into the old base, we visited Fort Taber, a civil war era stone fort designed by Robert E Lee and built in 1862.



We were not able to get inside but there were spots chipped out of some of the windows, that allowed us to look in.



I wish I could go in there



Out of nowhere we heard rumbling. A truck? Nooooo. Thunder? Nooooo. Empty stomachs? Of course. We both knew it was time for lunch. Chicken and a frappe. (a frappe is a milk shake with ice cream for all you non NorEasterners). Black and white of course. Vanilla syrup with chocolate ice cream.



After lunch we began the trek home. A stop at Palmers Island where the tide was still too high to walk across. We could only sit and dream about visiting the light house on the island. We rode through the old Berkshire Hathaway complex to get to the hurricane barrier at Palmers Island.





I wish I could go over there.



Fairhaven from New Bedford side of barrier.


We were trying to get to this light house.


We took a tour of pier two where a big part of the fishing fleet docks.


Austin checking out the fleet.

We road to the top of the walkway over rt18 downtown and watched as the boats were loading up with ice.


This boat had just taken on a load of ice.

Before climbing the stairs at the bridge, we went into the belly under the bridge, and talked about the men that built it so many years ago. Most of the stuff was done by hand and we looked at the tens of thousands of rivets that were manually put on by the builders. Also the artwork done by those craftsmen.


Under the bridge

We were soon back in Fairhaven.




We ended the ride with some "sprint" riding through the back lots of the super markets and the activity center. Round in circles, jumping curbs and racing down the final stretch of the bike path home.

A great 19 mile first "real" ride for Austin, and I think he had fun.