Today. Was. Awesome.

June 19, 2013

Portland, ME to Kittery, ME

Woo!! I survived my first day! We got up at 5:30am today, which, funny story, I didn't realize until 6:20...I thought we had woken up at 6:05 like normal and just been super productive. First we biked to a church for an amazing breakfast that kept me full all morning, and then we biked to the beach for our wheel dip. We'll do a wheel dip in Santa Barbara when we get there too! 

After the dip we officially started biking to California! I started with a group that went off third, but since I knew my way around Portland, I got us to the Casco Bay Bridge without getting lost so we passed the other two groups right away. However, after we got off the bridge in South Portland, my group went straight instead of right so we had to backtrack and got passed again. A little ways down the road, I had the most unbelievable accident that should have probably broken a couple of my bones but magically didn't. The light my group was going though turned to red before we could all get through so the girl in front of my slammed on her brakes. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have so at 13mph I slammed into her. Fortunately, my front tire hit her right pedal, I flew up into the air, popped out of both of my clips on my pedals, landed perfectly back down on my seat, biked over a median and turned around before traffic started coming towards us. I was in shock that nothing worse happened but unbelievably grateful. 

Overall the day was amazing. We all carry around chalk to mark up the ground for confusing turns or other directions. But we also do it for fun things too! One thing that we do is something called donation magic. Basically that means we go into a place (primarily food) and explain what we're doing and inquire about whether they could give us a discount or not. If they agree, we put a smiley face outside the store on the pavement and say thanks! Today my group stopped at two ice cream places and we got a monetary donation at the first and I got us half off at the second one. It was a lot of fun. Some groups got half off mini golf while another got a free ride on a Ferris wheel! The views all day were amazing, primarily because we're still going along the Maine coast line. I was a part of the first group to arrive at the church in Kittery so I helped unpack the trailer and went to take a shower. My whole body is exhausted and sore--tomorrow should be fun!! Here are some pictures from the day!

(After 13 miles of a gravel walking path)

Bike Log:

Day 1: Portland to Kittery

Miles: 74.8

Time on bike: 4 hours and 39 minutes

Max: 28.4 mph

Average: 13.6 mph