Day 9 - Bloody Mountains
Everett, PA to Mt. Pleasant, PA. Check out pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8300819@N03/ Today's ride was again 80 more miles, and once again, it was a very mountainous ride, although today we didn't take any detours. I once again hit a new record speed, and broke the 45 mph mark, pushing my bike up to 45.3 mph. For the second day in a row, the weather was hot and sunny, and no one had a flat tire, so our ride was smooth again, other than me crashing again at the 60 mile mark. Once again, i came away with only scrapes, but take it from me, scraping your hands bloody does not make climbing the next 20 miles fun. Just so you know how awful these mountains are, we had multiple climbs of over two miles at really steep grades. I was about ready to cry by the time today's ride was over.
However, we met a lady at the lunch stop named Tomalyn who told us jokes and donated to the cause, so thanks to you if you are reading Tomalyn(and sorry if I spelled your name wrong)!! Tonight, we are staying at the United Methodist Church in Mt. Pleasant, and once again, the amazing people here made us another spectacular dinner, so we have eaten like kings the last few days.
Tomorrow we finally have a short ride, only 55 miles into Carnegie, PA, right outside Pittsburgh. I am in a decent amount of pain from my knees just climbing these mountains, and scraping them up in the fall today did not help, so I'm hoping tomorrow is not too bad of a ride. I picked up a big tub of IcyHot today at a CVS, so hopefully, that will help my knees for the ride tomorrow also.
States traveled through:7(NY,NJ,PA, DE, MD, DC, VA)
Distance today: 80 mi
Total Distance traveled: 602 mi
Interesting animals: 1 deer, 1 groundhog, 1 skunk, 1 dead turtle, 1 chipmunk, 1 snake(Tons of roadkill too!!)