Goodbye, Massachusetts.

Days: 4
Distance: 322.9 km / 200.6 mi

Location: Albany, NY

Today we made it to New York! Biking across Massachusetts is a nice benchmark, although a small one compared to what we are trying to accomplish.

Here's a brief rundown of the past few days:

Day 2:

We were followed for the first half day out of cambridge by a "posse" of friends, who came with us all the way to a nice ice cream stand at mile 30. The temperatures reached over 90 degrees, so we found frozen lemonade to be quite a refreshing treat!

But the heat began to take its toll on us, and by late evening we were forced to admit we weren't going to make it all the way to Amherst. Some locals in West Brookfield suggested a nearby park for camping. It had cool rock formations, including this granite cave (below) which we slept in!

Day 3:

Another hot one, this time with good hills. I have a newfound respect for the Berkshire Mountains!

We made it to Amherst around 10:30, where we stopped by the coop house of Amelia's friend Jack. Jack gave us a quick campus tour, and showed us the Amherst museum, which has lots of fossils and mineral specimens (are you noticing a theme here?)

After Amherst, we had to climb out of the valley. Yikes! We were aiming to get all the way to Pittsfield, but by late afternoon we were exhausted and had to admit defeat. We draged ourselves into a tiny grocery store in Worthington and asked about camping options. The clerk directed us to a nearby campground with hot showers! Sudenly everything was all better :)

Day 4:

The temperatures finally cooled off, which was a welcome change! Furthermore, we discovered that we had nearly reached the top of the Berkshires. We passed through the highest point near Peru, MA, and from there the whole day was mostly downhill all the way to New York!

Below: resting by a lake on route 143 west of Peru. You can se a rather large hill in the backrground. One of the many.

We arrived in Albany, where we are currently having our first experience with couchsurfing. (For those who don't know, couchsurfing is an online community of people all over the world who invite travellers to stay in their homes for free!) I was a little nervous knocking on the door since I had never tried this before, but the family is extremely welcoming and friendly. They even let me use their computer to update this blog.

There are two oher staying cyclists here, students from Yale university. They are following the same route as us, but had to stop because one got sick. So the other one, Rhiannon, has decided to cotinue on with us tomorrow while her friend recovers. Our numbers are growing!

And our journey coninues...