5:40 means time to go get supper for me! So see ya later maybe. Or perhaps I'll see you like Thanksgiving or Christmas time... I'll try to get a few pictures up later.
Wednesday, August 21 – Whitehall to Albany
Today actually began quite unexpectedly. I think that yesterday’s difficulty caused
people to overestimate what today would be like. So camp was empty by about 7:20 (when I
normally leave and about 40 min before the last people normally do)… To prove my point; I was sitting at a café and
my mom and dad passed me! It’s not like
my group was going slow either! For a
majority of the day we had a reasonable headwind with high humidity and over 900
temperatures but it was nice and sunny with plenty of spots with shade. I have noticed certain subtle hints of people
ready to go home and actually sleep in for once… In their own bed too! I’ve also noticed my thoughts really turning
towards upcoming college and what it may be like, soccer tryouts and
potentially the season, and AOE (for those of you that care about this
reference). So I would say that I am
getting ready to be done. 9 weeks is a
long time to be away from everyone you do things with (with the exception of my
family I guess) but also it’s odd thinking that I won’t see 90% of these people
ever again… I’ve become great friends
with a few of them in particular but at home they will be at least a 10 hour
drive away. But, I am definitely looking
forward to meeting people at college!
Tuesday, August 20 – Ausable Chasm to Whitehall
Today was exactly what we didn’t need…
First and most importantly; we finally got French toast for breakfast
but they ran out of syrup before half of us were awake! Talk about getting your hopes dashed, ran
over, and then buried! Then… To start the day we went up and down and up
and down relatively large hills. Then;
we went up and down some more hills; only with a headwind to boot! And then we had another hill that came out of
nowhere. I don’t know how steep it was
(I’ve heard 20% grade) or how tall it was (easily 400 ft) but about half of the
riders had to walk up at least half of it…
Amanda and I only made it up because of our stubborn personality and the
commitment to not walking up the rest of the hill with the old people we had
just passed that were walking…
Competition is a great motivator for me.
And after that hill we had more ups and downs until we eventually
finished in a crawl at 82 miles. Today
really beat a lot of people! Some of us
think that the weeks through Michigan and Canada made us wimpy due to quite
easy hills and lack of great distances…
But we made it and that’s what matters!
Tonight we stayed at a small little RV park that just barely could fit
us but despite being basically in a swamp had surprisingly few musquitoes! Supper as always had something that I didn’t
know of until now… But was still
enjoyable nonetheless (which is good cause I went for seconds)!
Monday, August 19 – Today we biked on some pretty sad roads (bumpity
bump bump BUMP!) for a few miles including 3-4 miles of gravel (which those of
us riding tanks, steel bikes with wide-ish tires, even felt). We also crossed from Quebec into New
York! Woah was that a switch! Suddenly I could read signs again! And suddenly everything got a lot farther
away as we made the kilometer to mile switch on roadsigns… I really do prefer the simpler metric version
of measurement. Today was relatively
easy although keeping up with the top guns for the last 13 miles just tuckered
me out!
Sunday and Saturday… I can tell
my short term memory (along with many other people’s) is shot!
We biked to the Kahnawake Survival School on/near the Mohawk
reservation in Quebec. Signs switched
from readable English (albeit Canadian versions) to (for me) virtually uncomprehendable
French. But; there was a Tim Horton’s
right across the road (highway) from camp so jay-walking was done quite
regularly by our group! On Sunday we
rode (by bus) into Montreal and attended a very structured Presbyterian Church
service and then when going by bus to Old Port went in a perfect square (30
minute detour) due to ridiculous traffic…
Let’s just say we were quite fed up with riding on a bus by the end of
the day (total of about 4 hours spent riding the buses). A euchre tournament took place Saturday night
but was never finished due to an excess of participants and a late start (7 pm
is late for us!). Joel was doing
surprisingly well (after confusing everyone he played against (and with) with
his relatively unexpected (and unprecendented) strategy. Apparently it works though although I don’t
think that it’s supposed to according to hints people have told me. Let’s just say if no one can understand how
you think it messes them up completely!
Friday
I honestly can’t remember anything from today… Writing this on Wednesday. And looking at the clock it’s 5:34. Just half an hour until supper so I’m feeling
a little bit rushed… So today was
probably a good day. We had sun, heat,
humidity, and spent a majority of the day biking. Maybe today was when a time trial was set up
by a group of riders but that easily could have been yesterday otherwise… Going to college will be such a
transition. Here I can forget something
and everyone else will forget it as well but I think at Calvin I’ll be expected
to learn and retain things! What a novel
idea! With that I’m off to start the
supper line! Getting in line in front of
120 other people has perks such as the potential for seconds so it’s a highly
contested position (almost as contested as the bathroom and shower lines!)!
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