Taking A Break



 For the next week, Tommy and Matt are going to be taking a break to celebrate the birth of Tommy’s nephew Bennett along with celebrating his sister Allison’s graduation from residency. Upon their return on Thurs. June 29, they will continue to conquer the mountains of the not so flat Pennsylvania. Next stop, Somerset, PA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

World Travelers...Kind Of

Image
 We set out from the Atlantic Ocean on June 14th aiming for the Pacific and on July 28th we made it to Pacific…Missouri. No ocean here, but the Comfort Inn has a nice pool!  Yes, it’s just one of the amusing twists and turns of our journey. Let’s see…we’ve had breakfast in West Berlin (Pennsylvania), lunch in Poland (Indiana) and an early dinner in London (Ohio). It was over 90 degrees in Alaska (Indiana) when we passed through, and our biggest regret so far is that we were within ten miles of Funkhouser (Illinois) and didn’t swing by. Funkhouser just SOUNDS cool, doesn’t it?  One place we DIDN’T miss, though, was Casey, Illinois. Pronounced “K-Z”, this fascinating little town was one of the highlights of the whole trip, primarily because we arrived there during Jenny’s visit so she could share in the fun. About 15 years ago, like so many small towns, downtown Casey was struggling. Lots of people were ready to give up, but not local businessman Jim Bolin. He came up with an idea of how
Read more

It's not Goodbye it's a See You Later

Image
 We made it to Tulsa, Oklahoma…1,705 miles…53 days of cycling (44 consecutive after our trip home in late June)…averaged a little over 30 miles a day…best of all, with your help we raised over $10,400 for Fetal Surgery families at CHOP!!! How do we feel?  TIRED. RELIEVED. BLESSED. Tired…of being away from home…of dirt…of trucks…of the heat. Relieved…to be going home to see family…to have made it to our destination safely each day.  Blessed…to have had the opportunity to do this to help others…to know all of you who encouraged and cheered and listened and advised.  In Tommy’s words: “The biggest thing I learned is patience. Whatever was happening…whether good or bad…I learned it wasn’t going to last forever. I could’ve quit but I didn’t.  In the beginning I’d get mad when I’d see a hill but by the end I thought, ‘Ok, there’s a hill. I could just stay here and not go up that hill but then I’d be stuck here…so might as well just climb the hill.’” Tommy’s right. Hills and mountains don’t r
Read more

Going With The Flow

Image
We were supposed to head west from Springfield, Missouri through Carthage to Joplin, but every hotel anywhere close to Carthage and Joplin was booked. Not a single Airbnb except one near Carthage for $900 a night.  That was not a typo.  $900 a night. And there was no way we were going to camp out. First of all, it’s like 95 degrees out here every day and it barely gets below 80 at night. Second of all, we threw away our tent in St.Louis. Too heavy.  “It’s Marian Days,” the very sweet lady at the Holiday Inn told me. “We’ve been sold out for months.”  “Marian Days? Does she have a concert in town?” Of all the many things we’ve learned in the seven weeks we’ve been on the road, maybe the most humbling thing is how little we know. Sure, we know stuff about Philadelphia. But the rest of these places?  We thought Ohio would be flat. Ohio is not flat. In Indiana, we thought that if a road showed up on Google maps it would be a paved road. Also not true…some are gravel. In Illinois we kept se
Read more