Here's a thing about bike touring.

Your job every day is to ride your bike.  Your job also involves finding food, finding a place to go to the bathroom (and this answer varies from person to person), figuring out where you will sleep that night.

It is hard work and it is stressful, but it's pretty simple.

Your job is not (necessarily?) to go to your office, answer calls, write sermons and bulletins (in my case), or be a super busy undergrad with midterms and life (in Will's case), or if you have people you tend to, to keep on tending.

Ergo, I am beginning to miss the bike tour.  If you're a pal on Facebook, you get to see the photos that I've been uploading.  Here are a few to give you a sense of our start in Washington.  I don't know when Will and I are going to get together to write stories, but I know that we should.  That's what people who have many Life Experiences have been telling me.  (In fact, I presided over a burial yesterday, and the deceased's lawyer said as much.)

A lot of this kind of action

We camped a lot.  Here we are, the night before we began our biggest climb of the whole trip.

So there you go.  Back to work-like activities.

At the friend's in Poughkeepsie

What you can do #2

Horns. Horns. Let's talk about horns. One thing that many (not all, natch) cyclists agree on is how much of a pain car horns are. It stinks something rotten to have someone honk at you, especially because it's a looooooot louder outside the car than inside it.

Perhaps you're just trying to let the cyclist know you're there. Awesome for safety! There's a good chance she already knows... unless you're in a prius, and then maybe the large can of Arizona iced tea could be your indicator. (I keed, I keed. Love you and your gas mileage.)

But it's really loud and jarring, and it's already hard enough to share the road with cars. A gentle, teeny honk is OK. But usually the horn means anger and it's also pretty scary.

If you're trying to say "hi" or "RIGHT ON, BIKE RIDERS!!!!!!" you could roll down your window and offer a "woo hoo!" or a thumbs up. We loved getting those on this trip!

Un idea! One of many. Go forth in safety, amigos.

Backwards....

Will's on vacation, so I'm going to write a little about our last day of travel. We slept our last night in Poughkeepsie and took off south and south east. Will will (heh) have to fill you in on his last day.

As I mentioned before, it was probably the most difficult day of riding for the whole trip. One of the hardest things about riding through New York and Connecticut (when you're not on bike routes) is finding good routes. There are a lot of little roads that wander and that go over hills. Big hills. For a little while I felt like I was in Washington again - not because the hills were nearly as high but because of the feeling of constantly climbing. But that's a wholly inaccurate comparison as CT has nothing on WA. But the poor route options were way worse. We ended up taking 34 in CT to get back to New Haven, and normally I really dislike riding this. It's a busy road, but not a major highway. We rode it later at night (our only time riding at night), so it wasn't as bad as it probably is during rush hour.

Another challenge is that the drivers are a little more, shall I say, East Coast-y here, and it felt like a pretty dramatic shift to come into upstate NY and then into CT again. But there were some really nice people, too. Ashley and I stopped at a Middle Eastern restaurant for lunch, and the server took it upon himself to clean our water bottles as he was putting water in. A nice man in a Porsche thought we were lost (we were) and helped give us directions. A couple we ran into in the POURING rain offered to drive us all the way back to New Haven. We declined. (That was my first moment of 'I've ridden across the country and I'll be darned if rain and crappy routes are gonna stop me!')

There are many cyclists in these states and many great rides, but that last day was pretty tough. Probably about a hundred turns taking half a mile on each road with half of it climbing.

We got back to New Haven at about 9:30, ordered Chinese food, and slept a lot. Ashley let me stay at her place since I couldn't get in to my house. (The sub-letters had the keys.)

We have a lot left to write and do, but I need to go work more on my sermon for this Sunday. Since you asked, I'll tll you. It's Canaan United Methodist Church in Canaan, CT (not New Canaan, CT).

Next time... staying in Kinderhook! Riding through Albany!

How do you...?

People ask about the trip, naturally, but I don't know how to describe it. What do you say? Long? Tiring? Ridiculous?

I've noticed a shift in the past couple of days in how everything just feels. We were used to getting up and riding almost everyday. We always had that one thing to do. And then we also had to figure out a route, figure out where we were going to sleep, eat, find water, find bathrooms (yesterday I caught myself making a note of the nearest port-o-potty), check in with each other if we weren't riding together, see if it was snack time, calculate miles, and just try to keep each other's spirits up. Now, I'm packing up my old place, moving in to a new place, writing a sermon, answering emails and phone calls, interviewing for a second job, and visiting friends. It's pretty great, but it's ... different. Shock.

It was also odd to finish the trip apart from my riding buddy. If you do a trip like this with someone, I recommend finishing the trip with that person. I think it makes the ending better. But Ashley and I finished strong into New Haven!

Back to boxes... more profundity later.

Can I tell you about today?

Ashley, Will and I left Poughkeepsie around 9 am. My flat delayed us.from a planned earlier start.  A few miles in to the ride Will left us to keep heading south toward NYC and Ash and I veered southeast.  We had many turns with little distance between and lots, I mean LOTS of hill climbing. It reminded me a little of our.days in Washington, Idaho, and Montana. 

During one hill climb a bee stung me in the face.  Win #1.

I recovered and kept riding.  Then, a person driving a silver prius (!!!!!) with the yellow NY plates threw a full can of Arizona iced tea at me.  He/she missed. That was neat.#2

Some other bug stung me.#3

Then it rained and then it poured.

And then there was rush hour.#56

It was really hard riding today.

BUT! The New Havenites are back! There is so much more to tell you but o think that should wait until we have real keyboards (I'm not.actually at home.yet. long story) And just wait til you see more pictures!

So tomorrow, think of Will and his dad.riding home.  That's pretty great.

My bike is on its last legs

There is so much creakigng and claging in my bike, I am terrified it wont survive. Today i had to stop at nyack bicycle outfitters to get the right shifter fixed because it was slipping to the highest gear.

Why I am still not home

So hopefully, Rachel and Ashley are arrivinng home safely right about now. I am not, even though if it weren't pouring I could probably see the tip of the city. While the rain was a compelling reason to stop, i was already planning to. Not only did I not want to do another 100 mile day this week, but I really want to do the last day with my dad.

For his birthday two years ago, I promised my dad that we would kayak from west point to a landing near our apartment. The trip was derailed by a tornado (ok, a storm that later touched down), so while we will do that, tomorrow is a stand untill we do it