June 16
Happy Father's Day!
The route:
Today was another great day on the bike - scenery, companions, weather, etc. Olaf and John P pulled us 30 miles to the first SAG...it was nice! Stuart and I have been talking about how we are ready to be home, yet we don't want the trip to end. This makes sense in a weird way. As we try to get as much as possible out of each day left on the trip, I thought about a lesson I learned from a mentor and good friend at work, Richard Dicks. His lesson was to live your life fully, and if you knew RD, he did this without any doubt! Psalm 90:12 says "Teach us to number our days...". One Republic has a great song call 'I Lived', and their lyric says "Hope that you spend your days, but they all add up." I challenge you to listen to this song and not have it in your head: "I lived"
We saw one of the Finger Lakes today, and I think it was the thumb, possibly the forefinger...too tired to look it up - just trust me, there was water and boats. Since I am in Kathan Country, maybe he can enlighten me/us in the comments...We also saw the bridge from 'It's A Wonderful Life', and we heard a bell ring while we were there - no joke. We saw the Erie Canal, and it was pretty impressive - I can imagine it having bugs to rival the Okefenokee.
Proof of the bridge:
I have talked with a few folks that were curious about the other folks in our group, so I thought I'd give you an idea what the group is like: ~ 25 people riding the trip; many endurance athletes (Ironman, marathons, centuries, etc); 7 or 8 females and the balance are neanderthals; most people are late 50's to mid 60's; most are retired or winding it down (one retired the day before we started); the crew from Griffin and one from Florida are the only ones from the south - several from California and a couple more from West coast (Washington and Arizona), a contingent from Ohio and other places in the middle (Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois), and few folks from the NE (Boston, Maryland, Delaware, NJ); a common thread amongst the group is tight families, great senses of humor, type A personality disorder, and super athletes; You normally have a weirdo or an a**hole on these kinds of trips, but we have not identified one of these yet. Truly good, quality people. I hope that we can stay in contact and see these folks again on bikes or on our collective travels.
are there no Europeans in the group?
ReplyDeleteMy apologies...we have 2 guys from Germany and one lady from Canada; the two guys have been in the US a long time and live in SF; the lady from Canada has been in Boston for a while also...I was stating where they live - thanks for asking and letting me clarify!
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