It was one hot day, but we managed over 85 miles. Hard to believe we’ve been on the road for 3 weeks now. With 3 rest days, we’ve been biking for 18 days and only have a few more left. The end is in sight!
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During our rest day, we came across several generous people. Rode 70 miles. Overall, it was an uneventful day...until the rear derailleur cable broke. The cable allows for gear-shifting; without it, we can't pull the bike trailer or climb the big hills easily. This is probably the first major equipment malfunction of the trip. Thankfully, it happened late in the day. Bike shops are closed on Sundays, so a repair may lead to a late start on Monday.
Today was a day of losing water bottles. Isaiah returned to retrieve them after we left them at our sleeping spot; we were only a few miles away. I later lost mine by leaving it in the fridge of a store; I wasn't willing to go back. I biked 96 miles, and Isaiah biked 103. The last 16 miles were in the dark on a really nice trail, and we were eating supper in our tent by 10:07pm. We ended up biking further than we had planned so that we could do less on Saturday and have better sleeping accommodations. I don't know if we accomplished the latter goal. Biked 75 miles. New York has some pretty big hills, both in steepness and in length. We still managed to average 11 mph, which is higher than we’ve done on many days. We are out of beautiful Canada! Here's a recap (and a whole load of pictures) of the last 4 days (Sunday, July 21-Wednesday, July 24). Sunday, July 21 (Day 13) Rest day. We needed it. Only had to bike 5 miles to church. We found a kindred spirit among the church members in London, and one gentleman even offered to house us for the evening. We were grateful. Monday, July 22 (Day 14) Our most challenging day. Ended up biking just over 100 miles simply because we could not find a place to stay. Couldn't find the parks that were indicated on the maps. Spent a lot of time (until past 11pm) trying to find these places (in the pitch-black dark) and kept biking over the same roads with no success. Exhausted, I finally made the executive decision to set up our tent in an area that looked like it should be part of a conservation area. One notable event for the day was that my Schwinn odometer passed the 2,000 mile mark (since receiving it a few Christmases ago). Tuesday, July 23 (Day 15) We felt the effects of Monday's long bike ride, intense heat, and sleepless night (it's chilly after dark around here!). But we kept on biking in order to make it to our reserved campsite (no entries after 9pm--no exceptions). Had a quick peek of Niagara Falls before setting up camp. We fell asleep in no time. Wednesday, July 24 (Day 16) After a Monday that still plagued us, we slept in for once. We needed it! Spent the morning enjoying Niagara Falls some more and easily made it across the border. Only biked a few hours in order to prep for the mountainous terrain in the upcoming days. While in Canada, we are unable to use our cell phones (this includes wifi, phone calls, and even texts). We haven't had success finding hotspots at restaurants, and of course our nightly accommodations (i.e., our tent) doesn't provide wifi access either. This means that daily blog updates cannot be posted. :-(
So we will resume our blog posts when we are back on American soil in a few days. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here's an entertaining clip. We were on TV! Check it out here: northmetrotv.com/news-headlines/blaine-father-and-son-ride-bicycles-to-pennsylvania/ Rain finally stopped us. Thunderstorms, to be exact. We were thankful for the refreshment, but it kept us from reaching our final destination. Still, we were pretty close and managed to bike 70 miles. We made it into Canada! We had a low mileage day because we allotted extra time to the border crossing, in case there were issues. Thankfully, it went smoothly, and our bicycles and trailer were even trucked across the bridge that connects the two countries. some of Isaiah's car sightings
Last full day in Michigan. Went 55 miles. The roads may not have been as sandy or as hard to bike as our day in Huron-Manistee National Forest earlier this week, but one of the roads was the bumpiest we've been on yet. |