Wow! What a Day!

I'm writing from the Sijtsema household near Sussex, NJ. They have graciously opened their home to a few of us in order to shower. Pete and I were the last two to come into camp at the school this evening, so we missed the open showers at the school. Gayle, fellow cyclist, was able to snag this shower for us. How great!

Wow! Today was quite the day!!! First of all, I'm glad it's done! We cycled 140.99 km through gorgeous countryside landscapes. The hills were killers for me! It took us 10.5 hours including all our stops. Pete also had a flat front tire. I am so proud to say that I made it through the entire day with no SAG help. Some of the mountain climbing was extremely challenging. I made it up everything but a couple of sections of our final mountain; one was to get to the monument where we could see three states meeting: NY, NJ & PA: a gorgeous vista well worth the extra detour despite coming in so late.

We were later leaving this morning from Lackawanna State Park because we were on Sweep Duty. We had to load the gear truck before leaving, but surprisingly, it was done by 8:15 a.m. Unfortunately, it began to rain just about then, so we left in some precipitation. Thankfully, it did not last very long. The day was overcast most of today and rather humid. The temperatures were pleasant for biking, though.

This evening a couple of NJ CRC churches provided an awesome meal for us at the Christian School where we're staying. The hospitality continues to amaze us all! It's started to rain just now, so we've opted to sleep in the church basement for the night. That will help us get an earlier start for our final day.

I'll finish here with a brief recap of yesterday afternoon's ride. After we left the library, we continued to take a leisurely ride to the park where we were staying. We stopped for lunch at a local diner where I had goulash! The road after that was challenging: lots of potholes and heavy, fast traffic. Our route to the park took us through pretty farmland, but the hills were a menace for the final 20 km. I had to walk up one hill where the grade was about 18%. I managed to cycle all the rest, making use of the momentum from the downhill coasts. We were able to make it into camp by 3:00 p.m. and had time to set up tents, shower and then help set up and serve dinner. With clean-up afterwards, there was no free time until after Peloton meeting was over. By then, it was dark and so off to bed most people went.

Tomorrow is a big day; not sure I'll get to blog about it until I get home on Sun. night.