An Excellent Adventure

We rode over the border into our last state! And we saw the Atlantic Ocean again for the first time since North Carolina! We still have several more days of riding on our way to Acadia, but we're super-excited to be in Maine. It is beautiful here. Also, it's our eight month monthiversary of marriage! Crossing into Maine The state line Lobstah roll for lunch A light house!

As mentioned in our earlier post, the Boston checkpoint, we went to the Boston airport from Nanna's house to catch a standby flight to Los Angeles for Jane and Tim's wedding. It took a few tries but we eventually made it. Thanks so much for your prayers.  We're getting on an airplane! We got to stay with Jane's aunt and uncle who graciously hosted us and drove us around - but that didn't keep us from taking Orange County's bus to get to brunch the next day! (because we're transportation nerds). Jane, the wonderfully calm bride, and Tim the groom got together with friends for brunch the morning of the wedding. It was a sweet, refreshing time with good friends now scattered across the country. Also, we got to hang out on the beach! The convention center where the reception was. Jane and Tim know how to throw a PARTY! The way back to Boston went great except for a slight mishap involving leaving some of our belongings on the airplane. We stopped to try and rete...

Day 25 The camp was so dark because of the small handful of other groups there two were bicycle touring and one was motorcycle touring! We enjoyed talking with these folks about their adventures, especially one married couple from Canada who was touring with their seven year old son, how fun! After we leaving the campground we were surprised to pass by a home of the Vanderbilt family whose grounds are open to the public. The Biltmore's small cousin. With a lovely garden maintained by volunteers. Later that day we road into Connecticut. As we were nearing the end of the day we went by a dairy that we noticed provided milk to Cabot (a cheese maker that sources milk from many medium to small farms in New England and makes excellent cheese). This was exciting to see and we were even more excited to see that the dairy had a market store attached. With thoughts of fresh produce and cheese we approached the store only to find out it was closing. However, seeing our bikes and hungry faces ...

Day 22: We woke up refreshed after a good night's sleep at Ken and Donna's house and set off toward the Delaware River and New Jersey. Just before we crossed the river, we stopped in a cute town called New Hope which had an awesome French bakery/café right on the river. Katelyn and I enjoyed coffee and pastries there while we made phone calls to campgrounds and a B&B where we planned to stay in the coming few days. After our break, we crossed the Delaware river into New Jersey! In a New Jersey river town we met a fellow northbound bicycle traveler coming from Philadelphia. He was traveling with a B.O.B. trailer like us, which we thought was pretty neat. The rest of the day we followed the Delaware river, passing a variety of small towns and houses ranging from ritzy to backwoods to industrial. We crossed the Delaware river a total three times between PA and NJ, finally staying the night in an NJ state forest. Before crossing the river the last time, however, we crossed the ...

Day 19: After departing from our wonderful hosts Dan and Holly, we set off for parts unknown - namely, Pennsylvania. The plan was to camp in the "yard" of an outfitter store we had read about and contacted. On the way, we ran into two other riders out for the morning, Susan and Susan, who invited us to stop with them at St. John's Episcopal Church (in the Maryland countryside) for water, snacks, and bicycle repair equipment. The church had apparently realized it was on a popular cycling thoroughfare and decided to minister to its neighbors by offering this aid/hospitality station. How cool! Neither of the women were members of the church, but they were both big fans of it, and one said she had visited it before because of its cyclist aid "ministry." Both Susans were very sweet and cool and encouraging to Katelyn and me. Signing the log book in the aid station Me, Katelyn, St. John's Episcopal building We came across something later in the day that we were no...