Day 1

Day one started in a haze of sleep deprivation. I had spent most of the night and early morning in the ER with Anne for the doctors basically to say they didn't know what was wrong with her. So Instead of leaving early in the morning as previously planned, we slept and left roughly around noon. George rode out to my house, where our friend Marielle took some pictures of us geared up before we left. There was quite a bit confusion that ensued trying to pack our bikes, where to put this, and where to hang that, all in all it was humorous.

We finally rode on. We rode through West Philly, down to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and took the Schuykill River Trail (Kelly Drive) through Manyunk into Valley Forge. It was actually a beautiful ride and I wished I had taken advantage of it more in the years that I lived in Philly. From Valley Forge we connected with the Perkiomen Trail, which runs all the way to Green Lane PA.

Most of the day was spent in silence riding and sweating like crazy. Since it was the first day out, I was horribly prepared to ride at great length with such weight. I think I walked more than I rode, and stopping constantly.
We finally set up camp on a dirt mound beside the bike trail in Green Lane PA. We tried sleeping out of sight of people on the trail, so the elevation was pefect for that. However trying to lug gear and roll a bike up a bushed dirt hill in flip flops was funny as hell (or at least it is looking back on it). All I could think about was how the hell I was going to get it down with 100 pounds of gear.