Honestly had a bit of a slow start today considering we were coming off a rest day. As soon as we started riding I realized the brakes I thought I fixed Friday night had actually gotten worse after I tinkered with them. So we had to make an immediate stop at Walmart to grab some new brakes for my bike. That delayed us about an hour or so but after that we were rollin for the day. We covered 23 miles in about 2 hours. Which is actually faster than we expected as there were a ton of giant hills along the way again today. But still, we spent 2hr 21mins ascending and 1hr 20mins descending. Oof. I wish those times were the opposite.
As we were riding up Route 6, there was a small flea market across the road and a man over there yelled to us offering water. We were pretty low on water at this point in the day so we pulled over. The man who called us over was also named Mike. He handed us all water bottles, and the people he was with started giving us some of their home made cookies they were selling at the market. I took a few oatmeal raisin cookies and boy, were they good. It was around 2 PM at this point and we hadn't eaten anything yet so that helped fuel me for the next 10 miles or so. Definitely worth the pit stop.
Here's a picture Mike took of Me, Owen, and Tom next to their famous figurine at the flea market named Send-It-Guy:
You can't really see Send-It-Guy because the American flag is in the way, but you can see that he's definitely about to send it.
Mike is also a biker so he suggested a bike path that followed alongside Route 6 for a few miles. This allowed us to get off the highway and not have to worry about cars for a bit which was nice. At the end of those next 10 miles was a Walmart where we all got food for a late lunch and called it a day at 3PM. 40 miles traveled.
We then set up camp along the Susquehanna River in a town called Tunkhannock. Here's the view from the rocky shore we're on:
Our tents are in the forest area on the right side of the first picture. Here's the view from our tents:
We're up an 8 foot hill and through an opening which leads to a nice little clearing enclosed by trees and grass. A comfy cove to spend the night.
After setting up camp we went in the river to cool off and rinse off. We were all sweaty and hot as it hit 85 degrees at one point during the day. The cool river water was much needed. I felt super refreshed afterwards and had myself a tuna fish sandwich with warm beans for dinner – a true gourmet meal. I topped that off with a 50 cent apple pie from Walmart for dessert. Couldn't ask for anything else.
I almost forgot to mention that today the Susquehanna River was my first ever test subject for my water filter and... well... I'm not sick yet so I'm happy to say it does its job. I can report the same is true for Owen and his filter. I filled up all my water containers with it so I'm good to go in the morning with a full supply of clean water for the day. I'm thinking about using some of it to make a bowl of warm oatmeal to start the day off tomorrow morning.
Stats for the day:
Almost 10 now so time to hit the hay. Until tomorrow.
-mike
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