Wednesday, June 6, 2007

June 2nd and 3rd: New Haven, CT to Ridgefield, CT to Central Valley, NY

Our epic journey started in a magnificent fashion: escorted by the New Haven police, we set off. Next stop: Ridgefield, Connecticut. The day before, we biked up to Lighthouse Point and dipped our bikes in the Atlantic, but today it was time to start heading west. After about a 44 mile ride, we reached our first destination. It was a good first day. Our team is getting along really well and I can already tell it’s going to be a great ride to Portland. We stayed in a gym at St. Mary’s school and the following morning, during breakfast, everyone sang for my official “HBC birthday”…meaning I get to write the blog for today.

Day two of our journey was about a 50 mile ride to Central Valley, New York. My buddy Brian, who thought he would not survive this far, is still pedaling strong and everyone else has proven to be well trained. Despite falling off my bike twice and also getting two flat tires, it was a great HBC birthday (thanks Liz for helping me fix my flats). After lunch we took a small detour to Lake Tiorati. Some of the brave riders (including David, Meg, Rebecca, Kathleen, Niko, and Jessalee) went swimming and played a great game of Marco Polo. We were supposed to camp tonight, but since the weather called for rain, we ended up staying in a fire station, which was awesome!

Since this is the first entry and since I’m sure there are a lot of anxious parents reading this blog, I just want to thank all those who have supported this cause thus far and to let you know that we are staying safe and looking out for one another. The leaders are doing a great job organizing our voyage and they deserve our personal thanks. Anyways, it’s far past time for bed. Tomorrow’s destination: Port Jervis, New York!

-Nick Kostreski

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent, descriptive writing on this post. Hang in there, folks, and keep spreading the good word about Habitat. Oh, and who is this Brian? is he also the "Johnny Cash" Brian from 6/4?