I DID IT!

Thursday night, I did it! I rode the bike home from work. The safer route I picked out was 21.4 miles ... quite a little hike. Of course I forgot the camera but I did get a friend to take a picture, so it should be posted soon.

Highlights of the trip? The bike canal along the Pennsylvania side was very nice. I had practically no traffic to get there and of course, no traffic along the path, so it was a very leisurely ride. I was enjoying it so much I almost missed my turn off the path! Thank goodness it's a state park and there was signage talking about the Washington Crossing bridge that was my path across the Delaware River. The bridge itself it really cool -- the cars have to creep along about 5 miles per hour and sometimes fold in the side mirrors to keep them from hitting the supports. There's a separate bike/pedestrian walkway, so you can cross almost as fast walking as driving. (This isn't my picture, but it's my bridge!) On the New Jersey side, I had bike shoulders and bike lanes almost the entire way. The only 'scary' part was a traffic circle with a lot of traffic. I just had to run across the individual roads feeding into the circle.

Of course, being a mom of 3 kids, I didn't get to go straight home ... I had to go to the Little League park to watch my youngest play in a baseball game. He was very proud to tell his friends that his mom rode from Pennsylvania to see his game. And he was more than happy to go through my backpack and eat the bananas and plums I had packed for the ride. I finished the ride home after the game and got home about 9:00. That's not too unusual of a day for me with an after-work game but it was weird finishing up that late on a bike.

The biggest challenge was mental -- about 7 miles into the ride I started thinking "why am I doing this?" It's so much easier to ride with a friend or take a shorter route than to do it on your own. But the pride and sense of accomplishment is worth it all. It really is going to have to become a regular ride!