Day 20 - 20 Days??

In a way the time seems to be going pretty quickly and then I think about it and it seems like I am caught just like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  We had a very interesting ride today.  I don’t know what you are hearing on the news, but they have had some serious flooding going on in this area.  Irene dumped so much water that it saturated the ground and then the tropical storm from Lee came through and then they have been having some serious thunderstorms.  About 4:30 this morning we heard some serious thunder going on and it rained like you can’t believe.  Luckily we were in a hotel instead of in the tents.  When we got up and got ready to ride, we hit some areas that had had some heavy flooding earlier.  Many of the roads were closed, but we usually try them anyway and usually get through on the bikes.  We went through one area that a creek was over the road and it was about a foot deep. I was the one to test that the road was solid underneath.  The water wasn’t moving too fast, I just didn’t want to hit an area with the bike that the asphalt was broken up and end up going over the handlebars on the bike so I walked the bike across and after finding the road was good, the rest road across.

We rode into Philadelphia today.  That was a little scary.  The traffic is quite heavy and there is not much room on the streets and the streets at times are very steep.  We went down one pretty long road that had a 12% grade.  I was braking all the way and just hoping that those brakes would hold.  We had one guy riding with us that is pulling a trailer and his brakes weren’t holding and he was actually braking dragging his feet like Fred Flintstone in addition to his bike brakes.  When we passed a bike shop, we insisted that he turn in and have them take a look.  They did replace all his brake pads and adjusted them.

Tomorrow is a day off from riding.  We will be able to go into the city and see independence hall and the liberty bell and such.  It should be good. I am mainly looking forward to getting a Philly Sandwich uptown.

We rode about 45 miles today and will have to retrace our tracks getting back out of here.  I am not looking forward to going back up that street that was the 12%.  We rode about half the day in rain again. I think we have ridden every day this week in the rain and the forecast shows it continuing somewhat through Sunday.

Some of the flood damage.

Crossing the Delaware.  This is my roommate, John from London on the left and Nancy from Tacoma on the right.