adventure day 8

Hey all.

Sorry it took so long to finally get to a computer. They don't have computers in campsites, where we have been staying until today. Its been wild. We started out in Maine and climbed a few hills that we thought stunk. Then we crossed into New Hampshire. White Mountains. Then Vermont. Green Mountains. Then New York. Adirondack Mountains. See the theme? Its been a workout.
Over the past 8 days, we have traveled 515 miles. We ride about 60 miles a day and average about 11 MPH. My top speed during the trip was 41 MPH. But there have also been times when we have to get off and walk up. Straight up.
The first few days we got into the groove. We found out we're not the only crazy ones to do this. In fact, one eastbound couple even gave us a couple of their homemade energy cookies. We decided we could have, in typical sons-of-teachers fashion, morning snack recess, lunch and afternoon recess. Usually one of those involves local ice cream cones. Or pbj. Or both.
Our fears of rain were done away with just before the weekend, when we got caught in a spur-of-the-moment hail storm. We decided to ride through it and arrived at our campsite, happy to see it dry up just as fast as it appeared.
Before leaving Vermont, we stopped into a college town called Middlebury for our first non-pbj lunch at a little deli. From there, we rode to Lake Champlain where a ferry took us to Ticonderoga, NY. On that ferry we feasted on apples, donuts and some incredibly good raspberries that I hand picked at a local farm. I had to talk York and Peter into letting me do it, but in the 10 "pick as many berries as you can" minutes it took, they discovered that its actually kind of fun. And delicious.

Over Labor Day weekend, we worried about campsites. We showed up to Paradox Lake in NY to hear the camp manager tell us that there were no vacancies. Our hearts sunk, but he instantly changed his mind and offered us a hidden site right on the lake, as long as we promised not to start a fire and get discovered. We assured him we don't carry firewood on our bicycles, so he let us camp for free. York reminds me to mention, we climbed the very worst mountain to get to that site.

Most nights, we have no idea where we will camp. We have been very lucky so far, but last night we just had to stay at an inn. the price was dirt cheap and we were tired, so we rented a room above the "local get drunk spot" as described by the girl who set the reservation. The Taproom pub offered great hamburgers, beer, and drunk locals who treated us like heroes for riding bicycles across the country. Drunk Locals who would forget occasionally to which state we are headed. We woke up this morning to find out that, in their drunkenness, they broke the glass out of the front door of the bar during a belly bumping contest, and a streaker had passed through at some point in the night. An historic night for us to spend at the seedy Taproom.

Today we took our longest ride. 78 miles brought us to Rome, NY. We're dead tired, but only 2 days away from Ithaca where we can visit some friends and hopefully do some laundry(?).

PS, you should see our tan lines. disgusting.
Photos:
1. Camp. Every night.
2. The White Mountains.
3. A little farm below the Adirondacks.
4. York climbing climbing climbing, and Peter in the distance