Great Heights

I am so thankful that tomorrow is a rest day because today was rough.  Biking about 190 miles in three days has not been a walk in the park by any means, but today, though the shortest, was by far the hardest. 

From strange but cool Cumberland, MD to Somerset, PA I took the Great Allegheny Passage for most of the 55 miles.  The first 20 miles I climbed up to an elevation of 2,300 feet on top of Mt. Savage.  Little did I know that around mile 45 or so I would have an encounter with the rolling hills of Pennsylvania.  And my are they rolling.  Tomorrow when I upload some of the pictures from the trip so far you might see how steep and long some of the hills were.  I really cannot believe that I survived all of them.

I did see a lot of awesome views.  Frostburg, MD was very nearly on the top of a mountain but had about everything you could ever want.  I highly suggest a vacation there for anyone who does not need extra comfort and a ton of stimulation.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me because I hadn't yet seen anything worth taking a picture of, so I didn't bother taking it with me today.  But today I looked down from such great heights over very green fields that made all the climbing and sweating more than worth it (in the end... when I was doing the climbing I definitely didn't think some great heights' views would help any). 

I also crossed over the Mason-Dixon line as well as the Continental Divide.  It's incredible to me that in three days we've already passed through four states: Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.  I feel like I have seen all of the world that I need to but I know that there is plenty more to see and plenty more to do.

As I am climbing up to great heights, don't forget to donate to the Polaris Project.  You can find links to donating on the side panel of this page or on the "Donations" page.  I'm doing all of this tough biking for the 27 million slaves in the world.  I hope and pray that you all will support my ride by donating, and by doing so helping to help and save those many enslaved.  I can't tell you how many revolutions of the wheel I've gotten up to, but I'm definitely making large strides to my goal of 27 million revolutions.  So I hope that you will help me get to my goal of $5,000.00 of donations.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down Covered in Mud

Day 2 and I am definitely tired, and most surely looking for my first rest day in a couple of days.  Thomas, my driver, is nice to encourage saying that though I might feel like my training wasn't enough, he certainly would not be able to climb some of the big hills that I've been climbing.  Considering that, in general, he is in much better shape than I am, I greatly appreciate his words of inspiration.

Today was a rough day.  There were bigger hills yesterday, but two days of hills really did me in.  That wasn't much fun.

I did very much enjoy myself, though.  Every time I was climbing a hill I reminded myself that what goes up, must come down.  Unfortunately that wasn't always true today, but there were some great downhill rides.  At one point the speed limit was 40 mph down a hill and I was catching up to the car in front of me.  My mother probably would have told me to slow down but I couldn't have been happier.  Thank God for simple little rules.  What goes up must indeed come down; what goes up, must come down with a great smile on its face.

And thank God that Thomas brought his mountain bike to be my back-up bike.  The trail that I was on for about thirty miles was gravel.  More importantly, though, it was muddy with puddles everywhere.  So a few miles into the trail I had Thomas meet me at a break point so that we could switch bikes.  As soon as I was riding the mountain bike I didn't need to slow down for mud or puddles anymore and very quickly I was covered in mud (hopefully I'll put up some pictures on my off-day coming up).  I couldn't have been more happy.  I love having "battle marks" from riding.  And I thought it was hilarious when Thomas first saw me.  I had said over the two-way radio, "Just to let you know, I'm covered in mud."  But when he first saw me I could tell that he didn't think I was being literal.  He was in disbelief.  I laughed quite a bit.

So today was rather difficult, and I can prepare for another sore day tomorrow.  Despite that, I very much enjoyed the number of wind-inducing downhills, no matter how much I had to climb to get to them.  And, of course, I fulfilled my childhood fantasies by getting mud all over me.