Day 2 - Better Than Yesterday

What a relief to be able to type my first positive blog title. Although it's worth noting it'd be tough to have a day worse than yesterday – so a positive title was due. If we did somehow manage to one-up yesterday, I really don't know how we'd continue. And not even physically (although that'd be a real concern as our bodies are still getting acclimated) but mentally. That'd probably be on par with the most defeat I think I've ever experienced in a 24 hour period. But luckily, we don't have to think about that. Hoorah.

We went to sleep last night considering taking a rest day. But with a good night's rest at the very nice Beaver Pond Campsite in Rockland County, we woke up feeling better than we all expected. So good in fact that instead of staying at a motel 38 miles away, we decided to add another 4-5 miles to our ride and stay at another camp site tonight: Korn's Shawangunk Kill Campground.

We got another late start today leaving around 10:30 but made really good progress through the day. At one point Google Maps took us through a road that was kind of sketchy. Sketchy in that it was very quiet and off the main road through a foresty area. After a few minutes on the road we came up to a giant estate, an actual mansion. There was huge artistic statue of an elephant outside of it and some other giant statues along with super nice cars parked in the driveway. Some bougie stuff. But it was weird because it was in the middle of a forest and completely quiet so it gave off major "Get Out" vibes.

Right after the mansion, we were supposed to cross a bridge but turns out the bridge was just nonexistent. So we had to walk across the dam underneath where the bridge used to be, which took an extra 20 or so minutes because we had to lower and raise our bikes about 7 feet to get across.

So that's one bridge we had to cross that just didn't exist. The rest of the day was quite alright. Some tough hills again and crazy drivers but everything went well for the most part. I was actually beginning to think wow, today might actually be smooth the whole day. But I guess that was just my rampant hubris taking hold of me for not learning from yesterday. We were literally 0.2 miles away from where we were setting up camp for the night when, yes, you guessed it, ANOTHER bridge we were supposed to cross was just nonexistent. Two nonexistent bridges in one day, what are the odds? I should play the lotto tonight. Luckily this one had construction work going on around it, so there was a little makeshift bridge that we assume the workers use to cross the river while working, so we used that to get across.

Doesn't look like much but it was about a 20-30 foot long cast iron beam. And Thank god it was there. That's all I'll say about that.

If we go three days in a row having to complete a damn obstacle course just to be able to reach the place where we're going to sleep, I mean somethings gotta be up right? At that point someone has to be plotting against us..

We shall find out. Till then, goodnight and thank you Day 2 for being kinder than Day 1.