The Big Finish!

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[Guido at Grant's tomb]

[Tim and Ike, our volunteer guides through Manhattan]

[The U.S.S. Intrepid - WWII Aircraft Carrier]

[The Statue of Liberty as seen from the Staten Island Ferry]

[The Big Finish at the Atlantic Ocean - South Beach, Staten Island]

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Today we decided that there was not use wasting time, we were going to shoot for the big finish in New York City. NYC was only 73 miles from Highland and we had a lovely Sunday morning. We didn't expect the kind of hills we were going to encounter. The first 50 miles of the day seemed very reminiscent of our days in Washington climbing the Cascades. The first few hills were difficult, but not terribly long. Then we hit the big one. I'm not sure what its name is, but it was about three miles long climbing over 1000 ft in elevation and was absolutely brutal. When we finally got to the top and had coasted to the bottom on the other side we stopped in at a gas station to see if they had a map of the region that could show us a way around the next big mountain. We had been warned by a passing bicyclist that Bear Mountain was as bad as the one we had just gone over. The gas station did have a map, but to our dismay there was no road that went around Bear Mountain, only roads that went over it. Resigned to the fate of yet another excruciating climb we continued on to the base of Bear Mountain only to find that the Bike 9 signs suddenly took us off the road and on to a bike path....sorry, I'm really tired so I'm going to bed. I'll finish tomorrow.