"Born in the USA"

A lot has happened since the last post and a lot of miles have been covered. We are in Michigan. Michigan. That means in the past week we have went from New York to Michigan. For me, I finally felt like we were getting places when we reached Ohio; so I'll tell you about the journey from NY to Camden, MI.

From Lockport, NY, we had a short ride into Niagra Falls. We spent the day being tourists and walking around the falls and tourist areas. That night we had our first real dinner out at a restaurant and then there were fireworks over the falls. And, I almost forgot the most exciting part of that day... I ran into Evan and Kenny from the "Real World/Road Rules Challenge". No one else was as excited as I was, and although I was a bit embarrassed that no one else even know who they were, it was still awesome.

After Niagra, we rode to Westfield, NY. That ride was one of our more difficult ones so far. We had our first tast of what wind can do to a biker. A lot of the people from the east coast don't understand how hard it can be to ride into 20 mph headwinds; almost as difficult as hills. I also had my first (and hopefully only) flat that day and I managed to replace the tube on the side of the road and getting going again within 20 minutes. I was quite pleased with myself. After my flat I was riding by myself for the rest of the day when I ran into another cyclist who was riding from Rochester, NY to St. Paul. He was by himself and carrying all of his gear so he drafted off of me for about 12 miles and had a lovely conversation. It was definitely a small world, nice people moment.

From Westfield we went to Ashtubula, OH. We rode in three different states that day, which was really cool. We also saw the roads get worse as we headed west. A member of the church from Westfield rode out with us and he said as the taxes decreased as you go west, the roads got worse. We had another build day in Ashtubula where we painted the outside of the WIC center there.

After Ashtubula we went to Avon Lake. In that ride we rode right through the heart of Cleveland. I rode in with a Cleveland native and he took us to a small Chinese restaurant that was very tasty. We also went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and got to see the Michael Jackson memorial the day they had the candlelight vigil. The hosts at the Avon Lake church were absolutely amazing and put out one of the finest spreads of food I have ever seen. That night we had "home stays" where we stayed at homes of members of the church. I stayed with a really nice couple that even did a load of laundry for us!

Next up was Bowling Green. The ride into Bowling Green was our first 90+ mile day. I love that we all did it without any major problems and it wasn't even that bad for us; who would've thought. From Bowling Green we headed here, to Camden, MI. Today's ride was 77 miles, so over the past 3 days we rode 247 miles. And I have to be honest, I was feeling it at the end of today's ride. Tomorrow we head to Edwardsburg, MI where we have another build day.

5 days until Janesville!!!