We had a shorter day today. My odometer ended the day at 33.7mi. The trip odometer is at about 115mi. There was plenty of excitement though. The climax of the day, near the end of our travels, was walking our bikes over the Sagamore bridge into Cape Cod. It’s an inspiring bridge spanning the canal with a jungle gym of steel and a signs displaying it’s proud heretage as a 1933-1935 public works project. Now, a generation later, it supports highway traffic at rates of 100 cars/minute and the only passage for the diligent bicyclist is a minimum width sidewalk on the northern side of the bridge. A concurrant encounter to that of the landmark was the passing of a heavily bearded man who is the only cyclist we have seen with anything near our amount of load. In fact, he was carrying twice the bike luggage we each have! It would have been interesting to chat, but the traffic on the bridge is so loud one can bearly hear themselves.

Although our distance today was relatively modest, we are getting tired and sore. I think our bodies are using as much energy moving the bicycle as they are repairing tired muscles. As a result, it’s hard to eat enough. Today, I ate:

• 2.5 Kashi GoLean Bars
• Handful of Peanuts
• Half a large Antipasto Salad
• 2 Footlong Italian Sandwiches
• Half of a large frosted sugar cookie
• Half a Broiled Seafood Combination Platter

and the best I can say for my digestive state is “satisfied”. I wouldn’t turn down a second dessert. :)

We are now settled in Shawme-Crowell state forest. We are experts at setting up camp and both hammocks go up in minutes. It is very quiet here, as the camping season clearly isn’t going yet. Everything would be great except there is some kind of small silk spinning tree worm that is attacking the campsite. Quite literally, they are falling from the sky by lowering themselves down from tree branches. A stroll across the campsite guarantees you at least one unwanted passanger. Either we are running into them or they are attracted to us because there are many more on us that on any inanimate objects. Luckily, we feel safe elevated and enclosed in the hammocks.

There’s only one day of riding left to Provincetown, but it’s going to be a challenge. Sore and tired we must complete nearly 60 miles to reach our destination. The consolation lies in the day we get off of riding afterwards and the comfy hotel bed we get Monday night. We are also hoping that motorist free bike paths here on the cape will smooth tomorrow’s journey.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.