.: Day 6 :.

Berwick to Palmerton 66 stated miles, but about 78 miles after I got some of us lost. Twice.

I had a rather good sleep. Finally! There was some serious thunder overnight, and you could hear the eyes of 65 people pop open and stop breathing each time.

But when I woke up, I walked outside to assess the situation. Amazingly, the ground was still dry, and Taylor was still asleep on the sidewalk. It was very humid and foggy, but the rain was nowhere to be found.

Wow...six days of bicycle riding in a row, and not one day of rain!

I got my stuff ready for the day, one last time. But I must've been too excited to take my time. I made the unfortunate mistake of filling my HammerGel flask, and leaving it open. Then setting it in my helmet. It leaked its gooey mess all inside my helmet and on my cycling cap, which I also placed in my helmet. Thankfully, it didn't get on the camera or phone which were also in the helmet. It actually worked out well. After I licked off as much of it as I could, I washed off the cap in the sink leaving it nice, cold and wet. It felt good under my helmet for the morning climbs.

We rode over to the Berwick VFW for breakfast, which was only about two miles from the school. It was kind of weird riding through Berwick. I grew up less than 20 minutes from here, but I've only been through this town maybe five times in my life. Nothing looked familiar, yet I still felt some sort of odd connection with the town.

Breakfast was ok. And again, we were among the last to leave for the ride. I had mixed emotions this morning. On one hand, I was extremely stoked to see my family and sleep in my own BED for only the third time in about six weeks. And I was actually looking forward to not having to ride 100 miles tomorrow.

On the other hand, I'm going to miss being with all these people, sharing so much with them. I'm really going to miss not having to worry about anything other than getting on my bicycle and pedaling. Work is going to be a fucking mess next week. This whole back and forth of emotions can be very overwhelming at points.

But my task at hand is to eat and ride.

The ride out of town was really nice. The fog was settled in the valley, and gave us some great photo opps, as well as some relief from the sun. But the fog was quickly burning off.

We had a decent climb right as we left town, and that was followed by a nice downhill. Once we arrived at the bottom of that hill, we were in familiar territory for me.

"The Valley" as it was known as I was growing up, is home to many memories. Many of my friends lived down here, and I've been over many of these roads in my time. But never on a bike. As I rode through The Valley, I recalled the many memories that were made down here.

Man, it was awesome to be riding through here.

Joachim, Christine and I again rode together most of the day. I'm sure they both grew bored and/or annoyed with my narrating about where we were riding.

We crossed PA State Route 309, and headed up into Freelend. This is a 2+ mile climb. The road is kind of busy, but at least the grade is consistent. I didn't hear too many complaints, and I thought it was awesome.

One of my best friends in high school lives on this road. Or at least she used to. I think her and her family moved in the last year, or so. Regardless, about half way up the climb, I bombed down a short road to her house. It was still kind of early in the morning. The house was all closed up, and there were no cars in the driveway.

It would be shocking enough for her to find me at her front door dressed like a cycling freak that early on a Saturday morning. It would be even more shocking for a stranger to have the same experience. I chose not to knock, and turned and headed back up the hill to reach Dave and Christine.

The support vans were at the crest of the hill. I was surely expecting to see my dad, or the rest of the family back at 309, but I also knew they didn't think we'd make it that far, that early. Neither did I.

A bunch of people...including the ride organizer and two of the support vehicles...missed the next turn. We rode almost all the way through Freeland (which isn't too much, really) before I realized we missed the turn. I stopped and asked a few locals. They finally pointed us in the right direction.

We had to go back about three miles.

We found the turn, and dove back through parts of Freeland I never knew existed. It's so wild to find new things about places that you assume you know so well.

The next several miles were some nice rolling roads that had me really enjoying the ride. On one particular climb, shortly before lunch, a car slowly approached from behind. My old man yelled to me to see if I needed water. My response: "No, but a beer would be great." He then told me he would go find somewhere to pull over.

This road led to Hickory Run State Park, so the road was rock on one side, and then forest on the other side. It didn't leave much room for pull-offs. He came back at me a few minutes later, and then up along side me again.

I told him that we were stopping for lunch at the Park, and just to meet us there.

I continued the road to the entrance of the park. I've driven this road many times. Driving it is much easier than riding it. It seemed to go up hill a lot.

I was really hungry at this point. Finally, the entrance for the park appeared. Then, much to my dismay, it was another two miles or so to the actual lunch spot. I was hoping it was right inside the entrance, but the road kept turning and going. But finally the vans and mass of red-jerseyed cyclists appeared.

Man...the memories I have of this park and lake. Most of them center around when I was a child counselor. Every other day, we would bring a school bus load of behaviorally-challenged children to the lake. Let's just say that was a handful.

Anyway...we chowed down for lunch. My dad rolled up, but I refused the offer of beer. I wanted it bad, but I knew I would wind up wanting more. It was very good to see him, and hang out a little.

Before long, Dave, Christine and I were on our way.

Earlier in the day, I had told them about Boulder Field, which is at the Park. Boulder Field is an area of land about a quarter mile long and a few hundred yards wide. Nothing exists on this land other than many, many large boulders. I think I read they were deposited there millions of years ago as glaciers picked them up on their slow voyage. When the glaciers melted, Boulder Field was born. Or aliens left them there...I forget.

Christine was tired, and just wanted to finish the day. Thinking Boulder Field was only a few hundred yards from the main road, Dave agreed that we could go check it out. We split, and Christine was on her way to finish the ride. We would catch up to her soon.

Or so I thought.

After a few miles, when the road turned into a rutted dirt road with puddles, we decided it wasn't worth it. I guess it has been a long time since I was here. That, and I didn't realize it was so far.

We turned around and bombed back to the planned route for the ride.

Combined with getting lost in Freeland, this excursion put at least another 12 miles on our ride. So much for shortest ride of the week.

For obvious reasons, I'm pretty sure Dave was annoyed. Plus, he wanted to catch up to Christine to make sure she didn't miss a tough turn. Or at least that's the reason he gave me...which he assured me several times in reply to my apologies...for him throwing the hammer down and taking off.

I most rode alone for the next dozen miles or so. Maybe more.

Before I knew it, I rolled up to an intersection where Stacy, the girls and my parents decided to park and throw a mini-intro/you can do it party. Yep...balloons, signs and water.

I really didn't want that kind of attention, but I was too excited to see them to be annoyed with the attention. Plus, they had cold water. I am so stoked they were there. Though I probably came across as distracted. And I was...I was in riding mode.

Dave and Christine were also there. After a few minutes, the three of us saddled up to finish the next dozen miles to complete this whole journey.

We rode with a joy and relief that the riding would be over. We rode through Palmerton, and I backed off a little to let Dave and Christine ride up ahead together, so they could finish together. We were pretty close to the back of the whole ride.

We rode up the street and the sidewalk was lined with people cheering and warmly welcoming us. That was really cool.

Met up with my mom, dad, sister, Stacy and the girls. It was really hot outside, and the church wouldn't let us have any sort of alcohol anywhere near the church. That was sort of annoying.

It was a blur of activity for the rest of the afternoon. We ate some food inside, but it was hot in there and there was so much going on. It was almost overwhelming at points. Having just finished one of the most physical and emotionally draining events of my entire life, I kind of needed just a little relaxation. Instead, I was being pulled in about 15 different ways with friends, family, need for shower, etc. But overall, it was very good to be back and see Kaya and Ivy.

Kaya and I left and headed back home. We stopped to pick up dinner. There was no way we were cooking, and I needed pasta. Bad.

We got home, ate and hung out for a while. I took a nice long, hot, private shower, and then got into my clean, soft, quiet bed and called it a day.