Day 49: Brattleboro, VT to Manchester, NH

After my glorious day of cycling to Brattleboro and my dinner with friends and family, this day turned into something of an ordeal. Perhaps worried about a ride with 5600 feet of climbing (yesterday was only 5000), perhaps because of the iced espresso I had yesterday, I had a restless and wakeful night and got up feeling less than cheery. In addition, I was reluctant to leave early because the N.H. line was only a mile from the hotel and I wanted to get a picture with John. All things considered it was not a good start to the day.

One nice thing that happened was that our friends Rich and Loranne Block came out to meet us at the first SAG, mile 36. It happened to be on Route 9 in Antrim, only a short distance from where they live. Sadly, I couldn't relax and chat for long because I was so panicked about the ride ahead. It was one hilly ride. Nan said "whoever designed this route had a cruel, cruel heart". The nice thing was that the route took us off the beaten track and through several small N.H. villages. There may have been a couple of hills in that part of the state that Mike didn't manage to get in but not many. Up, down, up down and until finally at mile 79 we reached the motel in Manchester. I thought I was completely ridden out but when John told me there was a Dairy Queen and when I remembered that my days of eating ice cream were coming to an end, I managed a little extra riding .

That evening was our final banquet and a riotous time was had by all. The group has been together many hours a day for many days and managed to find a lot of laughs in our shared feat of endurance. Everyone got an award-- for me and John it was "couple who arrived furthest apart". In Mike's speech he "honored" me by saying that if he had seen ten people on the street and had to choose which one could ride a bicycle across the country it sure would not have been Dereka! One more day to the beach!