Towards the End of Our Trip

Sorry it has been so long since we have written it has been a busy last couple of weeks!

After our lovely stay in Sioux City we peddled our way towards Manchester Iowa. It took a couple days to get all the way there. We took highway 20 most the time, until it got too nasty to ride on. We also ended up taking side roads as much as we could, but sometimes we had to ride on the highway. We got pulled over by a policeman while riding on the highway. He basically told us that, while it wasn’t illegal to be biking along the freeway like highway 20, it was not very safe.  The weather cooperated for the most part, giving us some back wind and no rain! We rode over the rolling hills and finally arrive in Manchester.

Once in Manchester we debated about whether to ride the rest of the way to Chicago and only have a day or so in Manchester, or we could see if we could get a ride most of the way there and stay in Manchester for a couple of extra days… we ended up finding a ride. It was wonderful to see Dan’s family and to stay in a bed for a couple of nights. It was a little strange being able to shower every day, see the same people a couple of days in a row, and to be able to cook.  We are both happy that we stayed there for a couple of extra days because it was rainy and starting to get cold out, which would have been miserable to bike in. We have gone through our fair share of uncooperative weather, and rain just isn’t something that we have enjoyed biking in.

We got a ride with some of Dan’s relatives from Manchester to Rockford, Illinois. It rained most of the time on the way up. We stopped in Galina for lunch, and then continued on to Rockford.  We spent the night in Rockford, and then biked up to Harvard, Ill to catch the Metro train to Chicago.  Luckily it was a relatively short, dry, ride.  From Chicago we hopped on an Amtrak train to Pittsburgh, which was an ordeal on its own.  We had to take our bikes apart to fit them in a cardboard box.

 

We arrived in Pittsburgh around 4:30 in the morning, reassembled our bikes, hoped on a bus out to our camp director’s house. While there we caught up on a couple hours of sleep, and showered. We got a ride out to Camp Allegheny and had our first staff meeting that night! Since then we have been learning the local flora and fauna, going over our lesson plans for camp, and exploring the trails. It has been so wonderful being able to stay in the same place for days on end. We are both looking forward to teaching and being a part of camp. The other staff members are awesome and it is so much fun talking about our various experiences in life.