SNOW DAY

Hello all! I'm writing to you from Avon Lake, OH (very very close to Cleveland) and I'm super pumped to be back in the Midwest! It's crazy how much closer to home I feel just because we're in Ohio! :) We've had a crazy couple of days! Here are some of the highlights:

We spent the 4th of July in Lockport, NY (home of the Erie canal and a pretty fantastic "cave" tour) and we had a B&B cookout to celebrate! Being my favorite holiday, I was very happy with everyones American enthusiasm. I decorated my bike and it was AMAZING and everyone loved it. We sang patriotic songs on our ride (my favorite thing in the entire world) and had a great ride. We went to the local firework show and pretty much took over (as a group of 32 crazy B&Bers tend to do).

The next day we rode to Niagara Falls and enjoyed a super duper short ride (20 miles) so we could have the ENTIRE DAY to enjoy the falls! We ventured to Canada for the first time as a group (consider it a warm up for when we go to Vancouver) and had a grand old time. We took over the Maid of the Mist and got soaking wet...which was just fine because it was mid 90's and humid outside. What a great day! :)

On July 7th we had a pretty epic ride day. We started the day in Westfield, NY had lunch in Erie, PA and ended the day in Ashtabula, OH...now if you were counting, yes that is THREE state lines in ONE DAY :) :) It was awesome! It was a super hot day so we had two lunch stops. It was SO much fun and I felt like such a rockstar!

Ashtabula, OH ended up being a very eventful city in my B&B experience. Yesterday, we had a build day and toward the end of the day I was painting a fence in the blistering heat when someone tapped my shoulder and asked if I wanted some help. Of course I said "yes!" and turned around and low and behold there was my UNCLE BERN!!!!!! I was completely shocked!!! Clearly I had a panic attack and started screaming even louder when I turned and saw Aunt Mary and all three of my cousins! I was SO SO SO SO excited! They were coming back from Boston because my oldest cousin, Connor, was doing a college tour at Boston College and they decided to surprise me! They took me out to eat, bought lots of groceries for the rest of the B&Bers (fruit...yum!) and it was just the best day ever! I love you guys...thank you so much!! :)

But that's not all Ashtabula, OH had in store for me...today we woke up at 5:00am only to find after packing our bags and eating breakfast that there was an epic storm rolling in and its path happened to be identical to our bike route. After having a couple hours of "delay" our leaders sadly informed us that we would not be able to ride the 80 miles from Ashtabula to Avon Lake. We were all super bummed, but after the storm hit we were all glad NOT to be on bikes. We had to take three shuttle rides in our 15 passenger van and load up 32 bikes in our trailor...it was quite the team effort. We all had fun being stuck in the church and goofing around - but we'll be glad to be biking again tomorrow! 97 miles to Bowling Green...here we come!!! Janesville in a week - yay!!!!

<3 Kate

PS: My friend Beth has been keeping a really cool video blog that I wanted to share with everyone!! I make a few cameo appearances - but for the most part its just a cool way to share our B&B experience :) ENJOY!!!

www.psychedtobike.blogspot.com