From Friday afternoon August 3rd to Monday afternoon August 6th I took a couple of “rest” days.   Rest is in quotes because I needed to be back in Boston on Sunday August 5th and the drive each way from Pittsburgh’s Airport to Boston was almost 12 hours long.  Twenty four hours of driving covering 1,200 miles in three days is not really a rest.

On the way to Boston I had my son help do the driving.  He did about two-thirds.  On the way back to Pittsburgh I did the entire drive alone.  Going to Boston it rained very heavily while we were driving through the Pocono Mountains.  In the Poconos the rain came down so hard cars put on their four-way flashers and drove around 45 mph on the highway instead of the usual 65 to 70 mph.

The weather was fine going back to Pittsburgh, but there were quite a few road construction crews out.  Numerous parts of the highways were being fixed and this slowed traffic in parts to a crawl.

I arrived home Saturday morning at 2 AM, which meant I did not pedal for two days!  Not much happened during Saturday.  I spent most of the time sleeping, eating and doing laundry.  Laundry was the key activity since my clothes were so filthy they were starting to bother even me.  It is a shame the weather forecast for Tuesday is rain, which will just get my clothes filthy all over again.

I made it back to the Pittsburgh Airport about 7 pm on Monday afternoon.  I reassembled my bike in the rental car return lot and started pedaling again.  I didn’t do a lot of miles late Monday.  I only managed about 10 miles.  However, it felt good to be back on the bike and getting a bit closer to Washington D.C.

For those of you who are looking at the photos on this page, you will notice I swapped bikes while in Boston.  I left the new road bike at home and am riding an older bike that does better on gravel and dirt.  The older bike’s tires are wider (37 cm) than the new bike’s tires (just 32 cm).   Plus, the older bike is not as fragile, so it is easier to ship home from Washington.

Tomorrow is an exciting day!  I start the final push to the USA’s capital.