Anchor House Ride Day 5 and my Birthday Dinner

Birthday Dinner

So the team ventured to the Mason Dixon Distillery for my birthday dinner and what a dinner it was.
Let’s start with our Uber driver Tonia who squeezed six of us into her Trailblazer, windows down and a
rowdy group. She had so much fun with us and set in motion a great evening. The Distillery is just a
really fun place with great food, great drink and our amazing server Lindsay.

We ordered a whole slew of appetizers, Fries with pork, cheese curds and brown gravy, chicken skewers,
mac and cheese, pork skewers and some other stuff. It got better with an amazing dinner but the best
was yet to come. Our two ladies on the team, Lisa and Kathy outdid themselves. Somewhere between
the time we rode and dinner they found a cake made like a ladybug and had it waiting in the kitchen for
that birthday moment. Add to that a card signed by everyone on the team and my eyes were moist!!

Then we went back outside to wait for our ride home and Niall and Jim put on a skit with a parody from
“A Few Good Men” from the scene with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. There is not much to say other
than to watch it. I guess it is probably funnier for all of us on the team as there is lots of inside humor.

“A Few Good Men – You Can’t Handle the Truth”

Thanks to my amazing teammates for a great birthday dinner and for being good sports.

A Simply “Wrong” Picture

As we headed out of Gettysburg, Jim McKnight was in front of me with a banana sticking out of his
pocket. It just was simply wrong and when something is simply wrong what do you do when you are
cycling. Reach back to your pocket, grab your phone, use your thumb to get the password in and then
snap a picture of the really wrong thing you are looking at.

Jim seen in orange

Tough Riding, Grit and Determination and the Words of the Week

As I mentioned in my earlier blogs I simply was not prepared for this ride and it caught up to me on Days
4 & 5. On Day 4, Wednesday as we got to mile 42 my body simply decided it had enough. It had heated
up and as good fortune had it Niall and Jim wanted to get back to the hotel early so they decided to
break away from the group and cut the day short by 10 miles. It was a good idea as we made it back to
the hotel in Gettysburg around 1:15p and I was shot. I was able to ice my knee, Niall bought me a
sausage, peppers, onion and provolone from Tommy’s which is a must go to place for pizza and
sandwiches in Gettysburg. Lying on the bed icing the knee I took in the England v Croatia semi-final,
took a nap and got ready for my birthday dinner.

As I rose for Day 5, I felt refreshed and ready to go. The team got out early, 6:40a and we rode super
strong. As we rode from Gettysburg to Lancaster the scenery was wonderful and the course challenging
with lots of good uphills and downhills. The day was scheduled to be 80 miles but we had a detour at
the end increasing our mileage to 82. I was in great shape all morning and felt awesome until mile 62
when my knee decided it was tired of cooperating with me. The last 22 miles was a stuggle and as I
write this blog we are waiting for rooms. A long day just getting longer, but I am hopeful for some ice
and bio-freeze to make it better.

What do you do when you are stuck in a saddle for 80 miles?

So many of the non-cyclists out there want to know what in the world can you do to pass the time when
riding 80 miles. The key is coming up with things to distract you like today’s distraction. How many
places of worship are there in the United States. Well we blew about five minutes establishing the rules
for this exercise. It would include all denominations, churches, synogogues, mosques etc. Simply put,
any place of worship. It would not include places of worship that were boarded up. Once you gave your
number you then had to reveal how you came up with your guess. I thought I was going to be pretty
close but I was not. My math was 350,000,000 million people in the US, 80% have some type of religion
rounding us to 300,000,000. I then said the average congregation was 200 people and so 300,000,000 /
200 is 1.5 million places of worship. Niall guessed 310,000 and I forget his math but he was closest.
According to our reliable sources on the internet there are 350,000 places of worship in the US. Guess
the really big ones make the average congregation size much larger!!!

Day 6 and what lies ahead

Friday should be a great day for riding as we venture into Amish country on our way to Lansdale. It is
one of my favorite parts of the country to ride. Beautiful scenery and challenging terrain. We are
winding down the week and I look forward to getting the knee ready for two more days of riding!!!