Not the body-breaking experience I thought it would be.

The bike trip went really well--much better than I expected in many ways. The weather was awesome (70-75 with a delicious breeze), except for a few nighttime thunderstorms at the end of the week. The students were well-behaved and safe, except for 1 accident that left a girl with cuts and bruises and a few chipped teeth (she'll be fine, but it was a scary fall for her).

There were 33 students and 11 faculty. The teens were divided into two teams: "red" and "blue", then further divided into tent groups (of 4). Each day, 1 red + 1 blue tent was in charge of cooking for 22 people for 24 hours: dinner, breakfast, road snacks and lunch. Each team had $330 total and "no crap food" was key. To tell you the truth, I was a little worried about letting kids lose in a grocery store (some of them have NEVER BEEN!!) and allowing them to plan, prep and cook alone (but that was the point of the trip), but I was pleasantly surprised how well we ate and how much there was!

Breakfasts included cereals, milk, yogurt, granola, fruit (berries and others), bagels.
Lunches were mostly deli meat + cheese combinations, and also PBJ.
Dinners included: pasta, tacos, grilled cheese + tomato soup, pasta, stir fry, tacos, pasta with mandatory salad and fruit.

 

The next day's group of cooks was in charge of clean up: boiling water and getting down to scrub those dishes... except that some of the boys were loafing around far too much, so they had dish duty for 2 whole rotations. Lesson learned!

The best thing I heard all week was in the bus one day when a voice said: "ugh, I gotta cook tonight!" The reason that whiny tone was so awesome was because the kids were learning all about responsibility and service and team work. Hopefully this week has also made them 100% more appreciative towards their families.

The adults' job was this: sit in our chairs (students got the grass and the lucky ones sat on coolers), and supervise. It was grandiose.

I loved how our tents looked at campsites. The orange ones were for faculty and they were the line between the boys' and girls' tents. There were no problems.

Oh yeah, and the kids were not allowed to have their cell phones from dinner until breakfast. Some students went through some serious withdrawal which will probably require some therapy later this summer. It was good for them. However, when we gave them back after breakfast, this is what they looked like:

At one of the campsites, while the kids were setting up camp and getting dinner on, some of us chaperones found a game room! Taylor wrote our names on the wall and got the juke box playing non-teenager songs and we won a ton of prizes!

Every day, we woke up at 6, packed up the two trailers, had breakfast, did dishes and circled up for the ABC quick check: air, brakes and chain. We never hit the road under 2 hours from the wake up call.

 There was also a beauty salon every morning:

On the road, everyone rode about 2 telephone poles away so that cars could safely pass us, even though most of the time we were on deserted country back roads. How did we not get lost? There was a "drop system" where the person in front of you would have to get off his bike, wait for the next person (usually at an intersection or change in direction), do a fist bump with the directions "drop right/left/straight" and the next person would repeat it and wait for the person behind her. I was the sweeper, so I was the last and the slowest, and I stayed back with any student who had a flat tire, chain problem, etc. Two busses stayed with us, one leading and one sweeping, in case of emergencies; two other trucks carried our gear, so everyone took turns driving.

One hill was particularly challenging. It was called "Reservoir Road". It was a steep incline, but short. Personally, even though I had to stop 3 times to catch my breath and muster up enough energy to get to the top, I found the long slightly-inclined hills way more horrible than Reservoir Road. On those, I shamelessly walked my bike up. What's awesome is how everyone cheered for everyone else (especially the last of us). That kept me going. Here I am at the top! It's hard to see how steep it is.

One morning in Lancaster area, we planned to see the sunrise. Teenagers LOVE to sleep, so I'm sure it was a first for many. Beautiful.

Some Amish kids came by our campsite to sell us some desserts (which are not part of the $330/day). That was also glorious.

Here we are at Gettysburg, with Pat making history come alive.

The final destination was DC, but my camera ran out of juice and I forgot to recharge it, so I have no proof. We were there though, and we even had breakfast at Cracker Barrel on that last morning. WOW. Hot breakfasts are amazing.

I learned a lot on this trip: about history, about the kids, about my colleagues and myself. What I learned the most was that I can ride, and I love it!! All my life, I have ignored exercise and never found it (or sports) to be very much fun, until now. Biking is a whole new experience. Last week, I was convinced I would have to drive most of the trip due to embarrassing soreness and knee pain or just plain fatigue. But I found none of that to be true: I never had pain, my quads were working hard but were never screaming to stop, and I literally felt my legs getting stronger each day. Honestly: biking all of those miles all of those days in a row was the most exercise I've ever done in one week in my life. The total mileage I completed was about 100. Others did more, maybe 130 to 140. It was great and it gave me such confidence in myself to think that I could do long bike trips again someday (of course, having a truck carry all of the sleeping gear and food stuff was super convenient).