Tonight I write you from the comfort of the apartment of Ben Kuchta and the lovely Sarah Frontino- great North East friends, for those of you who don't know. Our D.C. stayover fell through so we had to scramble to stay anywhere. Me and 6 other guys ended up here. Sarah and Ben were awesome, with tons of food and cold beer waiting when we got in.
Getting here was not so easy. I won't go into details, because I really need to get some sleep, but it was the worst ride in the history of the world. We were on the road for over 9 hours, lost and asking for directions a whole lot, riding through muddy mountain bike trails on our road bikes in the pouring rain, wrecked on multiple occasions (I have some nasty road rash, but nothing like my man Tim does) and didnt get in until 630-7.
The rest day in DC today was great. First we had a tour of the breast cancer clinic at Walter Reid Hospital, which was really nice and interesting. Then we met with a current cancer patient and U of I alumni, who shared her story with us. She has been battling cancer for about 6 years now and still has the most positive attitude- and was super psyched about all of us. After all the craziness the last week, it was nice to really get down to what the purpose of this whole ride really is- fighting cancer.
After that we hit the monuments and the American history museum, followed by a dinner at a restaurant/brewery that was way too nice for us. Kurt BD Conner joined in on the fun too, so obviously it was sweet.
Thats all for now, there are many terrible/hilarious details about yesterdays ride, but I just need to sleep.
85 mile ride tomorrow to boonsboro, md. Its supposed to be pouring rain all day- this should be interesting.
It has been unbelievable how many technical difficulties we have had so far on the trip. To me it just seems impossible that I will be able to make it all summer without a bike problem of some sort- but the Cadex (thats my bike, a lovely gift from David Madden) seems to be holding up ok for the most part.
Wish this ride tomorrow could be rain delayed, but we don't work like that. Bye