Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Day 1: Seabright, NJ to New Galena, PA
Neither of us slept well today, mostly because we both knew we were going to be getting up after only four hours of sleep. But we still managed to wake up quite excited to get going. After months and months of getting ready it was finally time to get on the road.
After a hurried breakfast we were on the road and off to the beach. Like all cross country travelers, we took the bike down to the water to dip the back tire in.
Unfortunately the skies were a little cloudy, so the sunrise wasn't as spectacular as I'd hoped. But then it was time to load the bike and get going. Jillian's mother gave us a new flag for the trailer.
And we were off. The houses close to the shore of New Jersey were spectacular. We had anticipated riding from about five until ten, when we'd stop at our friend Sheila's house for a while. Unfortunately, a certain donut shop may have gotten in the way, and we didn't depart until around six. We also had a terrible time in a few places where roads had the wrong name, or simply weren't there. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find our way back to where we needed to be. We ended up showing up at noon. Sheila has new puppies.
I was exhausted. After Sheila fed us, I took a nap.
Around three it was time to get going. We gave Sheila a quick ride.
Then we were off again.
We rode straight for Pennsylvania. We crossed the Delaware at Washington's Crossing. It's a very, very narrow bridge, with a very pretty park nearby. We approached it in line with cars, to find signs everywhere on the bridge. We couldn't possibly read more than the one prohibiting horses. Halfway across, someone ran out of a little shelter and yelled at us. Only then did we notice an additional sign that said we needed to walk the bikes on a separate walkway. That would have been better actually, since we could have taken pictures, but since there was no way to get the bike onto the walkway, we just crossed in record time.
Once in Pennsylvania, we had nearly twenty miles to go until Fricker's house. Unfortunately, none of the roads had a shoulder, and none of them had a bathroom. Jillian ended up rather dehydrated, making for a very hard few miles.
Finally we came to a lake. Fricker was at the other side of this lake, and we only had to go a few miles and we were there. Unfortunately, the road we needed had a closed sign. We ended up trying to dead reckon around the lake. It took a while, but at least it was pretty.
Finally we arrived, close to dark. A rather depressing way to start our first day, finishing everything hours later than we'd originally intended. We promptly grabbed a pizza and went to bed.
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| posted at: 22:00 |
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