Friday, May 13: Phoenixville, PA to the Atlantic Ocean (Ocean City, NJ) - 95 mi.

Friday the 13th. I thought about that a few times Thursday night - better be real careful.

Well, Steve Thum (12-year amateur bicycle racer and host for the last two days, husband of my niece, Debbie) took care of that. He safely led me from their home in Phoenixville to Ocean City, NJ.

By the way, Phoenixville is holding its second Relay For Life starting Friday night. Last year they were "Rookie of the Year" in Pennsylvania.

After a later start than usual - my saddle bags, a dog named Lance, and great nephews Matt and Michael had to first be packed into Debbie's van - we rode 25 miles on a Rails to Trails bike path into Philadelphia ending at the art museum. Very scenic - I guess I didn't have to go all the way to California after all. We briefly watched a collegiate rowing regatta along the Schuylkill River. My daughter participated in that event 6 or 7 years ago.

I talked with one bike rider who was wearing a "Ride the Rockies" shirt. I asked him if he rode in last year's event. He gave me a disgusted-sounding "yea." There are two major bicycle rides in Colorado each year - "Ride the Rockies" and the "BTC (Bicycle Tour of Colorado)." Last year they were on two consecutive weeks with Ride the Rockies being first. I got to the BTC a few days early and saw a TV news item about the absolutely terrible weather for Ride the Rockies - it poured rain every day. The weather for the next week for the BTC was fabulous. Actually, we always have great weather on our vacations. So if you want to guarantee great weather on your next vacation, take us with you.

The bicycle lanes in Philadephia were well marked. Over the Ben Franklin bridge we went and headed directly into the wind in NJ. We chugged along the generally well-shouldered roads for what seemed like forever. Eventually, we saw a few salt marshes and smelled the salt air. When we crossed the 30th st bridge into Ocean City, there was too much traffic to take a photo of the "Welcome to OC" sign.

When we got to Wendy's sister home around 5 pm, no one was home - they got as tired of waiting as we got of riding. We found them at the beach - even my wife Wendy was there.

For the last week, when people would ask me about my ride, I'd say I expected to be on OC on Friday and hope my wife would be there to bring me home to CT. There seemed to be some doubt because apparently when I'm not home, it's kind of a vacation for her.

Anyway, we made it! I'm glad it is over. I'm happy I did it. I wouldn't do it again.

And some people donated some money to the American Cancer Society in a very unusual way.

Thank you very much.

Note: It was a bit harder to get photos into the blog than I orginally anticipated. So now that I am home, I'll get a good selection pics in the photo blog in a few days.