The original premise of this bike trip was to bike from Pittsburgh to Cambridge, NY to visit my parents. The idea was that I wanted to try solo bike touring — and biking toward people who would be willing to come pick me up if I wasn’t enjoying it seemed like a good plan. In the end they did come pick me up in Utica, but not because I wasn’t having a good time. I enjoyed the trip greatly, but the last day of the trip would have been on an awkward route through an area I had grown up in (and therefore seen) so I decided it wasn’t worth it.

Day two of the trip started not quite as early as I would have liked. In fact, this was a running theme: I never actually got on the road before 8:30am. Good thing it stays light late. This was the first day that I had to break down camp, so I wasn’t very fast at it. I was awake at 7am and on the road by 9.