Sunday

If I were going to give a full recount of everything that happened yesterday, we'd never get going today. But here were some of the highlights.

Left the hotel at around 8:30, Jenn, Zoe and I on foot while Greg and Todd rode their bikes.

Took a pedestrian/bike path near the hotel to get to Arlington National Cemetery. About a mile into the path, we ran into a fork in the road and had to stop and ask for directions from a gentleman passing by us on his bike. When we told him we were trying to get to Arlington National Cemetery, his expression became serious. "I gotta be honest with you, you've got a long walk ahead of you." Little did he know.

Had a pleasant walk through Arlington, Georgetown and Chevy Chase. At Chevy Chase Circle we stopped for a break. Inside the traffic circle there is a small park with a large fountain. Despite the rather gross and green looking water, I took of my shoes and socks to give my feet a soak. The cold water felt wonderful after 12ish miles of walking.

Met up with our support vehicle a few miles later in the parking lot of a library. (Somewhere around mile 15). We had PB&J for lunch, except for Greg who eats only raw food. He had a portobella mushroom cap with guacamole spread on top, which looked pretty good. We got on our bikes then - amazing what a difference it makes going from 3mph on foot to 10-20mph on the bikes.

We were making good time on the bikes but it suddenly was getting extremely hot. I felt like I was bordering on heat exhaustion more than once, and I think I wasn't alone. I was really grateful to have Todd leading the way as we pedaled through some fairly heavy traffic.

Near mile 35, we were approaching Sykesville and some of those scattered thunderstorms we'd seen in the forecast decided to visit the area. While the girls and I rode through a merely refreshing (and brief) downpour, things were much more severe north of us. We soon came upon a car accident, which we were able to walk around. Then after a long and exhilarating downhill ride, we were brought to a stop by two trees that had fallen across the road. We phoned back to the rest of the group, who had taken a shorter route toward Hugh and Terri's house, and they too had run into a tree on the road.

We turned around and walked our bikes back up that long hill. My quads were starting to cramp up from lack of fuel. By the time we got, back the accident had been cleared away. My mom came and picked us up. We drove in a third direction to try to get around the blocked roads and ran into another fallen tree. Turned around and navigated to a forth detour. That brought us within 0.3 miles of Hugh and Terri's house where ANOTHER tree was down, along with some power lines. So we backtracked again and finally, we made it to the house, where everyone was sitting around in the candle light.

Terri had prepared some amazing food for us; chips, salsa, guacamole, sweet potato black bean burritos, corn on the cob and Soy Delicious ice cream for dessert with fresh berries on top. Wow. We stayed up and talked till around 11, then unrolled our sleeping bags on the floor for some well deserved rest.

Power is back on this morning. 44 miles ahead of us today. I'm going to take a shower and grab some breakfast. Hugh and Terri have been fantastic hosts and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. We won't see accommodations this nice again!