Evan Malinchock
The ideal way to start a day is with stuffing your face with cookies and calling it breakfast, I'm certain Phil Gaimon would agree with my choice to eat 3 mini cookie bars for this day. Bright and early Brian and I climbed out of our cozy beds at the Ferriter’s house to the already blistering heat and suffocating humidity. After winding our way through twisty flat roads we hit our first hills since what feels like Montana or Eastern North Dakota.
The maps warned us about hills east of Lake Ontario, but it seemed like as we skirted around the lake we were in constant battle with gravity. The hills were absurdly steep and the perfect length so there was no hope of finding a rhythm, or carrying speed into the climb after descending down a previous hill. We eventually pulled into a restaurant for lunch where we decided today would be the perfect day to push 100 miles to the town of Pulaski.
Today was not a perfect day to push 100 miles.
When we stepped out we got hit with a wave of heat, that I only made worse by checking the temperature on my phone. Weather Underground (the most reputable weather app) said that it was 98° but the humidity made it feel like it was just shy of 106°. Along with heat warnings there was also massive dark clouds chasing us for 25 miles into the town of Oswego, where we stopped to refill water and rest for a few minutes.
Thunderstorm chasing us into Oswego
We hopped on our bikes to slog out another 20 miles to Pulaski, where we met up with Jack again. Thankfully Jack saved us from camping outside by offering up his motel room's floor for Brian and I to set up our sleeping pads and bags.
After sharing a filling meal together we all went grocery shopping together, which was followed by an early bedtime for all. Brian and I were tuckered out from the century and Jack was preparing for an early morning escape to beat a huge storm that was heading our way.
“Car left(?)”