We're in Pennsylvania! Hard to believe that we're almost home. As my friend Jerry explained to me while we were cycling a few days ago, being on this ride is like totally immersing yourself in summer for a week, with all of its attendant colors, rhthyms, wildflowers, sun, and of course heat ("drowning here in summer's cauldron" as XTC once sang about). Today we had a nice summer immersion day. It was as hot as yesterday, hitting 93 F, but luckily there was a steady light breeze blowing all day, mostly a headwind which was actually helpful. You really felt the full brunt of the heat when you stopped pedaling.
We cycled through the lovely town of Rosendale. We were making fast time so I missed a lot of great early morning photos (we left at 6:30 am again). We headed steadily south, and soon the breathtaking Shawangunk mountains came into plain view. For those of you who know Mohunk mountain, it's one of the "Gunks". The cycling was along rolling terrain and we made fast time, with plenty of lovely views.
The temperature was 87 F at 9 am! Thank goodness for the sag stops where the creative volunteers make us treats like peanut butter on top of everything, and fruit smoothies, and we eat food that we would normally never touch during ride week (e.g. Doritos and cheetos) since we crave salt and figure we're riding so fast that they won't be able to clog our arteries. And of course there are always ice cream stops!!
Shout out to Brooklyn! Whose colors are worn here proudly by our buddy Daryl. 70 miles logged for the day and we arrived in Port Jervis after a long steady climb and a hair-raising descent of 900 feet before crossing into Matamoras PA to our hotels. Tonight was banquet night, where we celebrated all the fantastic volunteers, riders, and ataff of Anchor House and learned that we had raised $485,000 to date. Keep those contributions coming as we try to surpass $500,000. Tomorrow we travel through three states on our way to Bethlehem PA, with temps predicted to be in the high 90's. tomorrow we are hitting the road at 6 am. Yikes!
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