SOOO here's what's new. Saturday was departure day. I was apart of the Amtrak group, taking a nice 22 hour ride to NYC. We spent hours and hours playing cards, wizards, painting nails, eating a nice old school train breakfast, chatting it up, and anticipating our arrival. Amtrak's well-known consistency brought us in a few hours late, but it gave us plenty of time to scope out some of the beautiful scenery we'll be seening in the next few weeks on our ride back (: Once we got into the station, I stole my Amtrak mini pillow (should come in handy), the van crew picked up our bags, we assembled our bikes, then caught another train to our stayover at the Chabad at Columbia University. We walked around a bit, got some late night New York pizza (not as good as in the Chi... sorry NY), and crashed out. Our stayover is pretty cool, we have two floors to roam around in and unfortunately, no showers... ha my first "sink shower" of the trip... this could get interesting...Today we had a rest day in NYC and were free to scope out the town. My crew downed some breakfast in Central Park, toured Time's Square, and did a little shopping in SOHO (where Sean knowingly bought the deepest V t-shirt ever created). An essential I realized I was missing was a nice cross body bag (mom purses circa mid-1990s)... so I haggled a street vendor to cut me a deal on a lovely white pleather bag Mary scoped out for me. Of course, people can't say no to this pretty face and I now have a lovely bag to carry my essentials around in.  A few of us hit a hole-in-the-wall Cuban restaurant Nate knew of and ate some of the most flavorful food I've ever tasted, delish. We headed back to the stayover, picked up shirts, and headed back into the city to meet up with some U of I alumni. They hosted a lovely gathering filled with tasty treats (I wanted to try the meatballs but Kyle ate them all, typical) and brought us up to the rooftop for a gorgeous view of NYC at sunset. We did your standard photo op, Mary beat up Eamon, and then the party was over...Tonight, we prepare for our big take off. Steve pumped up my tires and helped me reassemble my handlebars, he's the best. Rules were dictated and everyone wrote out directions for tomorrow's ride (well Jaime wrote mine while I braided her hair). I've decided that I really don't think this whole thing has "hit me" yet. Starting tomorrow, we're beginning our journey to BIKE ACROSS THE COUNTRY... um holy moly, I'll let yall know how that goes...