Katie MacDonald - Bike the US for MS
Day 16 - June 12 - Brocton, NY to Geneva-on-the-Lake, OH - 92miEarly morning today. Woke up at 5:30 to try and get out as early as possible and beat the winds for our first century. I was a bit slower than everyone else, so I headed out by myself at around 7am. Of course, out of all the days for my iPhone to mess with my music, it had to be the long solo day. Shortly before the first rest stop, my phone started looping one song over and over, regardless of the fact that I was on shuffle mode. After stopping to take a picture at the Pennsylvania state line, I rolled into the first rest stop and headed into the restaurant, where I happened upon Julia who was just about to leave. She had only gotten through half of her cinnamon bun, so she offered me the other half. Delicious! After heading out again, I switched over to listening to podcasts since the music was so buggy. If you haven't listened to Ehducation, I highly recommend checking it out! After the crossing into Ohio, out third state of the day and sixth of the trip, I got a text from Catherine saying that they were at the finish line of the Bike MS ride in Conneaut. A few minutes later, I happened upon some cyclists in the ride and followed their route to the finish line. The lady at the desk gave me a medal even though I explained I wasn't part of the ride! From that point, it was a fairly easy 20mi to camp, putting us a bit short of the 100mi we were told. I set up my hammock in the pavilion, ate some dinner cooked for us by a Bike MS rider that Chandler knew, then headed into town with the group for some DQ. I'm in my hammock right now, all bundled up in layers, but the wind is a bit strong so I may have to bail and sleep in the van if it gets too cold. Guess we'll have to wait and see! Day 17 - June 13 - Geneva-on-the-Lake, OH to Cleveland, OH - 59.2miSoooo I bailed from the hammock. I was in and out of sleep until about 1:30am. At that point, I sat up and looked around and saw that Megan's hammock was empty and flapping in the wind, so I decided to head to the van. Megan was already in the van, so she helped me clear some stuff off the other row, and I climbed in and went to sleep. Roughly 6 hours later, I woke up to Stefan knocking on the window, and pointing so some donuts that Kayli had bought us as a goodbye gift. The riding today was pretty fantastic. It was roughly a 60mi day leading into a rest day, and we were in absolutely no rush. I left camp with Alison, and we eventually ran into Ethan, Dave, and Luke at a diner, where I joined them for food. Because our stomachs have now become bottomless pits, we left the diner hungry, even though we had all just eaten a full breakfast. Alison suggested that we go to a restaurant that Peter had recommended, so we all decided to head there. When we got there, we were told that they wouldn't be opening for another hour due to a staff meeting, so we decided to move on, and ended up stopping for burritos/Wendy's a little later on. A guy at the Wendy's asked us about our bike ride, and gave us a $20 donation! Right after lunch, we had a near accident when a car turned into a driveway directly in front of us. Fortunately, everyone was able to stop or swerve out of the way and we were all totally fine. From that point on, we had a quick stop at R2, and made our way into Cleveland. From what we saw on the ride in, it looks like a pretty cool city! Can't wait to explore it a bit tomorrow. I took a quick nap at The Cleveland Hostel, which is a pretty cool place to be staying. Later, a bunch of us went for ice cream at this really cool place down the street, where you could go upstairs and see them making the ice cream in the back. Looking forward to the rest day tomorrow! Day 18 - June 14 - Cleveland, OH - Rest DayWhat an amazing day! We kicked things off by piling into the vans to head to a service project. On the way there, we got pretty ridiculous and sang camp songs, taped things to the steering wheel, and drew a face on a watermelon and named it 'Baby Stefan'. Really the route leaders should have known better than to leave us alone in the van when they went into Home Depot. For the service project, we helped Gisella, who lives with MS, clean up her house. There wasn't a lot of work to do for the 17 of us, so we were able to chat with Gisella for a while which was really nice. After leaving her house, we went to visit Kali's dad, who also has MS. Lunch was being provided for free by Ken, a BTUSFMS alum who owns a Chick-fil-a. Then we got even more food from a friend of Sharon's who owns a couple Italian restaurants in town. It is absolutely unbelievable how generous people are! We hung out at the hostel for the rest of the night. I did laundry, wrote a couple postcards, and then joined some others for a rowdy game of spoons. Day 19 - June 15 - Cleveland, OH to Huron, OH - 56.7miBiked ~12mi to Chick-fil-a for a free breakfast, provided by Ken. I must say, Ohio drivers are probably some of the least friendly so far. We almost got hit yet again by someone turning right in front of us, and then a driver blared his horn and yelled at us to get off the road, even though we were not in his way at all. Ken joined us for the day, and it was really great getting to ride with him. A little bit into the ride, we got word that Alison had taken a spill on a rather slippery bridge, which she now refers to as the metal cheese grater bridge, and needed stitches. We grabbed lunch in Vermilion at a nice restaurant with really good mac & cheese. Because it was so hot, we also stopped about a mile before camp to get some DQ. We are sleeping in a school gym tonight, which is nice except for the fact that we couldn't turn the lights off. I took a nap right after showering, then ate dinner provided by Chandler's family. Later in the evening, a bunch of us walked to a local bar where I was able to get free wifi (win!). Day 20 - June 16 - Huron, OH to Bowling Green, OH - 77.1miToday was pretty tough. We stopped by a restaurant in Huron for breakfast, and then headed out for our 70mi day. The headwinds were bad right from the get go, and less than 20mi in, I was pretty exhausted. Catherine and I made a wrong turn and ended up taking a pretty busy truck road to get back on track. At rest stop two, we grabbed lunch at Kate & Al's Restaurant, and then headed out for the final push to Bowling Green. The headwinds were awful, and we shortly realized that we actually had 16mi left, not the 8 or 9 that we thought. Once we closer to town, it started to rain. Shortly after, Catherine got a flat tire and we had to pull over to a gas station to fix it. Finally, we made it to Matt and Michelle's house at about 6, utterly exhausted. Matt and Michelle opened up their house to us, and provided a delicious BBQ dinner and cookies. It's amazing how even on the really tough days, things always get better when we roll into camp. We ended up spending the night hanging in their family room watching soccer and using their massage chair. Not a bad way to end a rough day.
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katie macdonald
Summer 2016, I biked 4,295 miles, coast to coast across the USA to raise money and awareness for MS. March 2017, I biked self-contained from San Francisco to San Diego with my friend Carissa. August 2017 I connected the dots and biked from Seattle to San Francisco. Summer 2018 I am heading to the UK! Follow my journey here! Miles biked for MS:
6,800.13
Updated August 27, 2018 Archives
January 2019
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