Last day. Airport to home

This will be my last blog, at least until I decide to do another crazy, lame brain  adventure.  If a had it to do all over again what would I do differently.
First of all I would have gotten clipless bike earlier and I would have trained harder.
Secondly I would bike the first three weeks and the last two weeks and skip the middle four weeks. I think that would be a very nice bike trip.
I do think the trip was done incredibly well. It was really well supported with staff,  vehicles, and great food.  More sleep, less community time would have been nice, but I do see the need. If I were asked I would make some suggestions on how to improve some things, but so far no one has asked.

But the biggest thing I am grateful for is what we had no control over  -  the weather.
We had three or four hot windless days, probably week three, but other than that the weather as been incredibly wonderful for biking.  Even though I am not superstitious I did not want to mention  how wonderful the weather has been. Even riding into DC is was unseasonable cool.  For that I am extremely grateful.

On the plane. Need to turn off phone .

Hope to see you all soon

Day sixty-One. Fairfax, Virginia to Washington, D. C.

Yes, we made it. And yes we are all feeling pretty amazing. We have celebratory dinner tonight. My brother and Marcy, his significant other will be there. I will go back with them to their house with  all my stuff. Tomorrow I will repackage my stuff. I will leave my tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, bike and bike panniers,  plus other misc stuff . Tomorrow I will fly home and be home sometime tomorrow. 

Corinne and Eytan, plus my two nieces, Erica and Leslie, will be in Hull to welcome me home.  I'll see Jill Saturday morning. I can't wait.

Day sixty Williamsport, MD to Fairfax, Virginia

Our last full day of riding. I don't think it's really sunk in yet. Tomorrow is really just for show. We  start our ride at 10:30 instead of 6:30. We ride for a total of 23 miles which at this point is a pretty nothing day.
Kim and I decided it was going to be a good day, maybe even a fun day and it was. At Harper's Ferry we stopped for brunch. We found a great place - an Inn that served breakfast all day. We sat outside at a table that overlooked most of the town and felt like we were on vacation. From there we biked about 20 miles to a paved bike path, but on the que sheet it sounded like we would have to do a 7 mile climb, which turned out to be a very pleasant 7 miles of rolling hills.
We are now in the synagogue and just finished dinner prepared by them. I am ready to go to sleep, but of course need to have our community meeting. I know there was something that I thought might be interesting to write about, but my brain has pretty much shut down. I'm too tired to feel the excitement of finishing.
Tomorrow.
I'll definitely be excited tomorrow.

Day fifty-nine. Cumberland, MD to Williamsport, MD

This was definitely not a boring day, esp for me. Somehow I totally lost my brakes, both the front and rear and we were going down a very steep hill when I realized this. Also at the bottom of the hill was a four lane highway with many of our riders waiting to cross the road.  Checking my odometer later I was going 33 miles/ hour. As I am yelling I have no brakes I need to decide in a split second if the car coming towards us is far enough away. I decide to go across the first two lanes and quickly check the traffic coming the other way. Luckily there are no cars that are close and so I go across the next two lanes, turning left into the shoulder. My biggest fright was hearing Danielle scream as I rode past her as she was waiting to cross the first two lanes. There were about half the riders looking on, and pretty much what heard from them was that first of all it was very scary, and second they were impressed. Y my turning into the shoulder of the highway. It seemed like some of the thought I was going to crash into the side railing across the highway. Interesting I had not doubt about me making the turn. My only concern was not getting hit by oncoming traffic. About 1/4 up the highway I coasted to a hault. David, one of the riders, who it really good with bikes fixed the problem. Somehow my front brake had gotten jolted out of place, and I'm not really sure what happened to my back brake, but it had been getting less and less effective for the last few days, but it wasn't really a problem until today.
It took awhile for David to feel satisfied with my back brake so all the other riders went on. Than the problem was riding with David. Kim and I are the slowest riders. David is among the fastest. On my own I would rider faster, but I enjoy riding with Kim and certainly the time goes quicker with a partner. So now riding with David I pushed myself to go faster than I normally would if I was riding by myself, but I could only keep that up for a limited time. We must have been riding at a pretty good pace because we caught up to Kim before we got on the trail.
The trail was very gravelly and since it had rained, very full of puddles, but it was also beautiful. Kim and I didn't mind going slowly and enjoying the scenery.  Although  ten miles on the trail was enough  for us. We sagged from the first rest stop until the second one and than we got to ride on a very nice paved path. Our last 12 miles was why I was a bit nervous about this week. It was constant up and down and than some more up.  It was hard to believe that Hazon routed us over hill and dale instead of the trail, but Garth said last year the group complained so much about the unpaved part of the trail that they routed us on the rode instead. I think Kim and I would have been much happier on the gravel trail.
I'm still very confused about the ft/mile thing each day, but I will just ignore it. Yesterday was easy, today was tough, even though the ft/mile was higher yesterday than today.
Dinner in ten minutes, than community meeting. Tomorrow is our last full day. I guess I'll make it.

Day fifty-eight. Ohiopyle, PA to Cumberland, Maryland

Today was a very delightful day. We were on the trail between Pittsburg and DC the whole day. It's a beautiful trail and for the most part in shade. I barely even noticed the heat today. We rode about 50 miles on a slight uphill until the continental divide and than rode 25 miles downhill.  The only thing that would have made it a really great day is if the path had been paved, but all in all a very nice riding day. Also the congregation in Cumberland made dinner for us, which we all eat with relish or gusto, in other words we all ate a lot. We are now getting ready for bed.
We had our route briefing for tomorrow. We are still on the trail, but a very old part and it sounds like everyone was less than happy with the trail. I guess it's OK for a mountain bike, but not a rode bike. I might take the rode for the first 15 miles, than take the trail until the first rest stop and decide than if I want to continue another 30 miles on a rutted path. Supposedly you are not suppose to ride on it if it's raining and they are predicting a 50% chance of rain.
It's 8:30 now and as usual for this time of night I am tired.  It's hard to believe we only have three days left. And it's even harder to believe that I have actually ridden across most of this country.
I'll be home soon. Yay

Day fifty-seven. Pittsburg to Ohiopyle

Sunday evening. This is our last time camping. Very pleased about that. The ride today was much better than expected. I guess it was only the last four miles that really made the ride tough, but Kim and I , plus a few other people took the hiking trail to the campsite which cut out the hilly part of the ride. We had to walk our bikes up about 1/2 a mile, but that wasn't so bad. The rest of the day was on the trail so it was pretty flat. When we left Pittsburgh it was this wonderful paved trail, but that only lasted the first  fifteen miles or so and after that we were on packed trail. At least no sand traps like on Friday and it was very nicely shaded. So no complaints. Today we did 72 miles, tomorrow is 77, Tuesday and Wednesday are both 80 mile days and than our last day on Thur is only 23 miles.  And than we are done.
I am ready to be done, but if the rest of the week is similar to today it will be a really nice week to close out the trip.
Work crews change on Sunday, and got decided on yesterday. Kim decided to shake things up a bit and switch over to breakfast crew, which is nice for me because I can depend on her to really help. Also two of the teenagers are on breakfast this week, which will be a nice.
Young Ilan just made a camp fire and even though no one else seems to have noticed it, I'm enjoying it.  I think I'll sit here until it gets dark enough for me to go to sleep.

Day fifty-six. Shabbat Pittsburgh

Kim and I took the bus to downtown Pittsburgh, to see the city and to have breakfast/brunch. The place we choose via her phone was only open for working people - Monday thru Friday so we asked around and found out that our choice was a national chain like Dunkin donuts, bagels, or eating at a hotel restaurant. We choose the hotel and had a very nice relaxing breakfast with really good coffee, which came to the table in an insulated carafe, so I could have hot coffee the whole time. A concern of mine when eating out.
And this place has really nice bathrooms. Nice smelling soap. Little individual cloth hand towels that you put into a little basket when your done. And tomorrow I'll be happy to find a outhouse.
 I am now sitting in their hotel lobby airing my dirty laundry, I mean carrying  my dirty laundry. The biggest problem with staying at an orthodox home is you can't do laundry on Shabbat and since we had no time to do it yesterday before Shabbat we  carried our laundry with us downtown and will do it at the  laundromat  on our way back. Definitely not my idea and Kim even offered to carry mine as well. Life on the road. From the Fairmont hotel to the laundromat. I bet no one else here is planning a trip to the laundromat. But at least they'll probably have free Internet  as opposed to here where you have to be a guest or pay for it.

I just looked at the riding schedule for our last week and we are back to doing a lot of climbing. An average of 49 ft/mile, which to the non rider or anyone else who has never thought about this way of looking at a ride, it's hilly.  At least it won't be corn and soy bean fields.

So I have  given much thought, at least much thought for me, to why I signed up to take nine weeks out of my life to bike across the country.  Here it is.
A seed had been planted in my mind about 18 years ago when I heard about a mother/daughter bike ride across the country.
I got an e-mail two years ago from Andy Fischer announcing Hazon was doing a X USA ride.
The seed sprouted.
I liked biking
I have never really challenged myself.
Sounded like a good idea at the time.
End of story.

Would I do it again - no
Would I have done it in the first place if I knew what it would be like - probably not.
Will I be very happy and proud of myself for doing it - YES

And once again thank you for all the encouraging notes you sent to Jill to give along to me. I finished reading them this afternoon.  I will take you words of encouragement along with me on my last week of biking.
Not my last week ever, but probably my last week for a while.