Monday, October 20, 2008

Holtwood, PA to Baltimore, MD - Day 4

Day 4 was a day of frustration for me. We found out that we would be riding 67 miles instead of the 60 miles advertised in our rider e-mails. And we came to find out that the day would be very, very hilly.

That said, the Mennonite camp was very nice and they fed us another lovely meal before we left for the day. I was glad to have another night in a bed rather than cold in a tent.

There was a big hill immediately headed out of camp, and we weren't excited about it. Actually, it turned out not to be so bad. We were in a hilly area, though, and continued with the rolling up and downs most of the day. Early in the morning we crossed a dam which was gorgeous. Shortly after the dam, I was forced to walk my bike up a hill for the first time. With our legs shot from all the miles (and with my lack of a granny gear - only 16 speeds), I had to give myself a break on the steepest hills. If I hadn't, I think I probably would have had more falls out of my clips! The terrain really was grueling and our morale got pretty low.

On the plus side, they had Tofurky jerky for us! I LOVE Tofurky jerkey.

Horse country was quite gorgeous, but we found it somewhat hard to appreciate through our exhaustion. The pizza for lunch at a cute farm was definitely appreciated. The roads got pretty crazy getting into Baltimore. We had to walk up a hiking trail with our bikes for the last push into Outward Bound.

By the time we arrived we were completely exhausted. We had to set up our tents for the night, and mine still wasn't totally drive from the first night. I ended up laying it out in the sun (thank goodness for the weather!) and taking a shower. Then I put the rain fly on the main compartment of the tent. Dinner was delicious. I had to skip the talk because I was just too tired. Dave can attest to this - he listened to me and was concerned.

I slept pretty well that night. I set up lots of layers and went to bed early. We were getting up at 5:30am on Wednesday for the final push into Washington, D.C.







HARDEST DAY OF RIDING!!!

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