Tough Day

Having had a nice rest and sampled the local delicacy of a philadelphia 'cheese steak' the previous night, this morning we set out a little later than planned at around 11. As we left it was fairly cold and spitting rain...not the nicest weather to set out in, with the intention of riding 75 miles in the day. So far we have not used the Adventure Cycling Association maps which we purchased as they suggest more senic routes, avoiding the busy roads, however this comes at a price of giving a much longer route, and since we are still heading south to DC rather than west we have renaged using the maps for now. However this has left us with a slight problem of navigation. After the past few days we are contempating buying a GPS in DC. Today was a prime example of where one would have come in very handy! To the dismay of parents, we have up until now being writing our directions on the back of two envelopes (pictures of our envelope directions will be put up). This moring, suprisingly(or not), we got totally lost and ended up going 6 miles or so in a big circle...very frustrating.

As we headed out of Phili, we went over a bridge, which, to put into perspective was like the M25 with no hard shoulder. Not a nice experience. Just at the foot of the bridge the other side, I thought it would be a good idea to fall over. So there I was spread eagled over one lane. But dont worry avid fans, i came away with only a couple of grazed knees. 3 miles later Will got the first puncture that we have ever had together, mind you, we are due for one having done over 1000km collectively. So we fixed that one but then a short while after i got one as well. So there we were, in the rain, fixing our second puncture of the day. We were told by someone who had already cycled x-america that 90% will be awesome, but 10% will be character building. I think today we used up a few percent of that 10%.

Once out of the suburbs of Phili we made good progress and have been on the same stretch of road for quite a while, so that solves our issue of navigation and also we get lots of miles under our belt. Our aim was to be in a place called Havre De Grace by tonight, however at about 7:30, as it was getting dark we came to the bridge leading into Havre De Grace, which was forbidden to pedestrians and cyclists. So we did the unspeakable and hitch hiked over the bridge to get into Havre De Grace(the only other option was a very long way, miles from our planned route). However we are staying in a nice motel with two comfy beds and a warm shower, and have just consumed our own body weight at pizza hut, so a good end to a hard day. Tomorrow a 85 mile ride to DC, so we will be up early!