Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Pre-Day 1

After a 22 hour, shady bus trip we made it to Williamsburg. It wasn’t so bad after those crowded Uganda bus trips. We arrived at the bus station and began assembling our bikes. Chancy got his up and ready after about 15 minutes. Mine took 2 hours. It’s a recumbent bike and I had to totally disassemble it to get it to fit in the box. Unfortunately my bike mechanic skills are moderate at best so I put the de-railer on wrong. That’s the thing that changes gears. So we headed for a bike shop first thing. Then a guy asked me right away if I was going to be traveling with THOSE tires on my bike!!?? What’s wrong with them?? I was in Africa trying to throw this thing together!! It was the best I could do! I was agonizing in the bike shop whether I had even made the right decision to do this thing. Finally we got the bikes on the road and headed to Yorktown. It was only 13 miles but it seemed like 20 for some reason. It was a beautiful, tree lined road all the way. Hot but in the shade the whole way. We arrived in Yorktown, population 200, and stopped at the first house we found to ask if we could pitch a tent in the back yard. He said that his mother was ill but he’d help us out. He walked with us down the block to the neighbor who was apparently a prominent figure in the town and friendly to boot. His name was Dan and he let us put up the tent in his back yard and explained to us a little bit of the History of Yorktown. Harvey, the first guy, gave us $20 for supper, which was super nice and we headed to a pub down the street for appetizers after a quick dip in the James river at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

“We’ve made it.” I felt like screaming. We’ve made it to the start point. Now the adventure can begin. Tomorrow we’ll dip our back tires in the Atlantic Ocean and take our picture at the famous monument her in Yorktown and head West, as the early settlers did, on our quest to bicycle across America! How cool does that sound???

1 comment:

arlogut said...

Perv,
I'm going to enjoy following you on this journey.

Shalom~
Troy