Today was an interesting day. First of all, it was my first official century for the trip, coming in at 103 miles. We arrived at camp at about 98 miles but then rode 2 miles to get some ice cream at Tailwind, where I took a picture on a giant novelty airplane.
We started the day and rode into Connecticut. When I was a kid, they told us that the reason the roads were so bad in New York was because of the weather, especially the floods and the freeze/thaw cycle. But that’s obviously bullshit because as soon as we rode into Connecticut the roads improved dramatically. If we had to do all 100 miles on NY roads it would’ve been a disaster.
We also climbed about 6000 feet. Hard day.
As you probably have noticed by now, I’ve been sneaking pictures of Ukrainian flags into my various days whenever we see some. We’ve seen them sprinkled all throughout the ride, but today I saw as many as the rest of the trip put together - over 50 at least. I’m not sure why, but it’s cool. As somebody who thinks a lot about the Ukrainian conflict, it’s cool and makes me feel happy about America.
On that note, while there certainly have been some hateful signs; lots of “Lets Go Brandon”, some Trump, even one or two Confederate flags; it’s a lot less than in past years. I’m sure a lot of that is due to where we were riding, but still, I’ll take it.
This may have been my last day riding and, if so, I’ll take it - it was a good day.
