Out of the Endless Mountains, into Lake Erie and out into the flat midwestern expanse

The great thing about entering the mountains in Pennsylvania is getting out of them, down a long, winding slope through the Allegheny Forest that lets you open up and really fly. Thursday, we did a paceline for a couple of miles to varied success, but a lot of people are faster than others, a lot more faster. I had a good run until I got a flat going up a hill. It may or may not have been a flat, but just me being delirious and thinking the flex of my tire sidewalls spelling doom for my front wheel. At our lunch stop in Union City, PA the lady at the deli I visited gave Keith and me lunch for free, saying she appreciated what we were doing. The kindness of everyone we meet is just astounding and that was just that day.

I got lost getting into our destination in Edinboro, PA - the expanse of a backyard of a landscaping company. It had a swimming hole, a fire-pit for s'mores, and a full workshop. It was also our first night of what I would consider "roughing it," hearing the symphony of crickets and bullfrogs and sitting around a camp fire, despite the food and indoor showers. I slept a lot and got a hard time for it.

Friday I had one flat going up a hill on my already torn rear wheel, but with a new tear. That being repaired for the short run, I put on an emergency boot at the water stop only to have my front tube blow out going up another hill, and as I was repairing that, my rear repair died. So I threw in the towel and rode shotgun in the support vehicle. It was unpleasant not having a good cycling day, and I realize I hadn't a good, emergency-less day since we began. I saw Lake Erie for the first time and all of its charming seaside houses and post-industrial rust-belt archaeology. The most enduring image is of the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant visible from an otherwise scenic lakeside park near our stop in Perry, Ohio. I went with a few of my teammates, and we climbed down to the barriers to a secluded, pebbly beach. They went in, and my years of being told how filthy Lake Erie caused me to recoil in horror. So I also went in after them. I figure it has the same choliform and chemical run-off levels as Lake Michigan, so how bad could it have been?

Saturday we biked through more seaside villages before coming upon a scary part of East Cleveland that turned into nice wooded, fenced-in, and univiting houses along the shore, which then turned into a lakeside bike path. I saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the beautiful urban park that dare I say rivals both Central and Grant Parks. We ran into a bunch of cyclists from Case Western U. who were supporting an alum who would be biking into the city that day after having biked from San Francisco to attend his fiftieth class reunion. I thought that was cool. In all, Cleveland was a nice, little city that's nothing like the place where the river once burned due to the high amount of inflammable solvents floating in it.

Coming out the other end of the city, I joined up with the "A" group who had gotten lost. Then the paceline proceeded. Needless to say, we averaged about 21 mph for nearly an hour and pulling the line was not easy, nor was following in it. Still, the intensty and the heat got my legs churning and it felt great. I question the value of arriving at our destination before the van or before our host even knows about our arrival. In Vermillion, OH I took a nap on the lawn of the church we were staying at before sprawling out inside. The pastor made us pork chops, which were delicious, and even more delicious with a pad of butter melted on top. My eating habits for sure have had their standards decreased. I've been reading nutrition labels to see what has the most calories and figuring out the most calories per dollar. Our ride leader said he got through RAGBRAI on 1200 calorie per dollar's worth of fudge brownies, so that's something to try. The pastor bought the ladies on our team their own hotel room, so we had to shuttle around the car for people to do laundry or to take a dip in their pool. It was needlessly complicated, but in the end, there were clean clothes in it.

Sunday the pastor gave us an inspired devotional that everyone took to heart. It got our spirits up and was another reminder of what we're doing on this ride, something we believe as worthwhile. In that spirit, we stuck together until it began raining. And oh, did it come down, it was torrential. We stayed out of the nastiest, electricalest bits and otherwise toughed it out in our rain jackets. I was more soaked from the sweat from my non-breathable rain poncho than the rain itself, but I kept myself moving and more importantly, warm. Riding away from Lake Erie flattened out the terrain, so it's like we're back in the cornfields of Chambana rather than climbing some ridiculously unfamiliar mountain. This also means we ride a lot faster and I ended up high-tailing it through more rain the last stretch before Grand Rapids, OH. We were fed by the Lutheran Church here and I couldn't move after eating, I felt so good. I talked to my family which was nice because I hadn't spoken to a human on the phone for a few days and because I miss them a bunch, so if you're reading this, that means you.

Pictures to come. Internet is slow when it floats through the wireless ether.

Chicago to Newark to NYC to Kane, PA and all points in between.

I've written a lot of stuff in my pen-and-paper journal so this is just the condensed version of things for right now. Internet is few and far-between and there are only so many laptops for everyone to post every day. The majority of waking hours are spent eating and cycling, the precious hours left are for the other routines of the day, like packing or unpacking or setting up camp or decamping. It's exciting and tiring and overall fun.

I flew out of O'Hare with the team last Wednesday. I hadn't flown since a month before 9/11, but the experience wasn't as unpleasant as everyone says it was; no long lines, no endless security checks, just the same airport experience I remember as a kid with its expensive food and the familiar long checkered corridors of the terminal. The flight was uneventful, minus the sight of the New York City skyline as we flew into Newark Liberty airport. As a Chicago resident I'm ever so happy to bash NYC, but I was generally excited over the days leading up to the trip to see the big apple.

We drove out to Anish's house in Hillsborough, New Jersey and settled in. We were treated by Anish's folks, their hospitality and support for the ride was outstanding. They hosted a send-off party and invited theirs and Anish's friends from New Jersey and we unveiled our decorated vehicle, banner, and matching ride jerseys. Among all the frenzied activities we managed to learn how to set up a tent and had a long meeting to go over expectations. It was then that I realized the gravity of our undertaking and understood what I would be doing this summer.

Thursday we rode the NJT train from New Brunswick into Penn Station, right in the heart of midtown Mannhattan. Walking down 6th street we realized that it would be impossible to keep everyone together so I ended up seeing the sights with Dan and Brandt. We saw the touristy sights like Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Greenwich Village, etc. We even saw mayor Bloomberg. I ended up going solo and riding the 1 train up and down Mannhattan. I saw the Seinfeld restaurant on the upper west side and then shuttled down to Battery Park and its views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I thought that maybe the Laudes came through there, but they probably came through Canada. It's something I have to research. I then walked up to around Houston street and Tribeca but not before seeing the WTC site and the temporary memorial they have set up there as well as City Hall. I ended up being conned out of five dollars at a street festival for St. Anthony in Nolita, but I got a small stuffed dog out of it. So I named it St. Anthony and declared it my mascot. We all met up and ate at the pizza place on Mott and Spring Sts. that claims to be the first pizzeria in New York. It was good and thin, but I'd take Chicago-style deep dish any day.

It was at dinner that we met Patrice Yao and Zach Hermann, former Allen PAs. We would end up spending the night at Patrice's one-bedroom 300 square feet studio apartment just south of central park. She said rent was 4000 a month but it was subsidized by the company she's interning for. My overall impression of New York was that it was clean and wonderful thanks to mayor Guiliani but that everyone is just out to take your money. Zach would be tagging along in the sag wagon to document our journey up until Sunday morning.

Friday me, Sandy, Andrew, Brandt, Dan, and Brian went over to Rockefeller Center to try to get on the Today Show. We drew up a nice poster but were unable to take it into the Plaza where they shoot the outdoor concert and people holding signs because it had a URL on it. Luckily Patrice got us into the area that was immediately around the stage, but we did not get to meet Al Roker or get any face time. In the afternoon we walked out to the upper east side near Cornell Presbyterian Hospital where we would be starting out from. The process of getting out of Mannhattan was convoluted before the ride, but went smoothly afterwards. Before we left we had a send-off at the hospital and departed to the cheers of friends, family, and the bystanding medical folk.

I had never ridden in a major city before, not even bike-friendly Chicago, but the ride was smooth and relatively traffic-free. We rode up the East side of Central park before going up the drive along the Hudson into Washington Heights. We then crossed over the river on the George Washington Bridge into Jersey and all its suburban glory. It was then that we split up into two groups so the advance group could get back to NYC for an alumni event. I ended up slowing down the group not going back to NYC with not one, not two, but three flat tubes. That and we got lost and got into our destination in Tuxedo Park, NY as the sun was setting. The car had gotten a flat tire so the top group ended up not going to the Alumni event.

We stayed at the Episcopal church there just behind the gates of the community. Apparently the town had been a hunting lodge for rich New Yorkers and the story goes that the eponymous evening jacket was named after what happened when one of its residents had the tails cut off a european-style coat back in the late 1800s. The rest, as they say, was history. So the stay was pretty fancy by our expectations. We woke up Saturday and got an early start and a lot of climbing in the first 10 miles, the inclines were incredible. We were, of course, climbing up into the Appalachians. The day ended up being a lot of ups and downs through a lot of middling, historic mountain towns, the kind that were formed before the Revolutionary War. Our stay in Hawley, PA that evening fell through, but Jon came upon accomadations in a friendly local's backyard. Our host, Florence, was very excited to let us stay at her well-furnished cabin in the woods out on a lake. She had the local grocery donate food and we dined superbly while hearing a lot of her interesting stories about traveling and seeing the world in general. In return, she asked for our stories and it was a good oppurtunity to hear everyone's reasons for going on the trip.

We got a late start on Sunday due to the cold, the damp, and Florence's hospitality, but the ride ended up being shorter than predicted. It was more or less the same ride through what our host in Tunkhannock, PA called "Endless Mountains." Our arrival in that town was early enough to get in laundry and have the tire replaced despite it being Sunday. The pastor who hosted us had pulled together the community to have those services done and we were ever grateful. Pennsylvania so far had opened up its hearts and homes and did not stop being an incredibly beautiful place to us. Monday was our longest ride yet, up and down more mountains and stopping in the heart of it to eat at a road-side diner in the woods. I gorged myself on fries and otherwise had a good deal of food to eat. Unfortunately I felt it later and wished I had eaten better. I was also intentionally struck by someone who had stuck their hand out the passenger side window of their car. After shouting a few choice expletives at them, I sped down the rode I was on for the next two miles trying to catch them to no avail. Once the adrenaline wore off, I began hurting and slogged into town with little more than a third of my 90 miles left. It was then that I realized the danger of what I was doing and that I have to be a lot more careful if I didn't want to end up at the side of the road.

In Wellsboro, PA, we were fed by a local restaurant and stayed at the Catholic Church there. I woke up Tuesday not feeling so well and having the oppurtunity to drive the van, so I accepted. Allison co-piloted and made calls, so we bonded and became team Haude or Team Leim. We stopped at a souveneir shop in the middle of the mountains and talked to the owner and fed his deer. At our lunch stop in Port Allegany we bought food from the grocery there, but a lot of people ate at the pizzeria across from the park we set up in. Nonetheless, everyone got into Kane, PA in good time despite the 97 or so miles they had traversed.

We spent Tuesday night and today at the First United Methodist Church in Kane for our rest day and explored the town among the organizational business to take care of. Dan, Adam, Drew, Andrew, Sehee, and I went over to the local high school to shower, which was weird for the fact that they both were expecting us and that I was going back to high school again. We just wandered the halls and talked to the students milling around. Apparently they have a good track team and even had an olympian 5k runner come from there, so we saw her pictures on the wall there. Some of us wanted to eat in the cafeteria there, but I ended up eating in town.

So hopefully I get to update my blog more often. I'm really itching to get back on my bike and do 100 or so miles tommorrow. So far I've done 275 on a bike plus the 100 or so I drove in the van. So if you've read so far, leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you and probably miss you also.

Here's an obligatory photo. It's of me standing at a scenic overlook above the Sesquehena River. I'll end up making a panorama of the complete overlook when I get a computer with photoshop.